During the meeting, chaired by the insular secretary general of the Canary Coalition, Francisco Linares, the attendees bet, as a priority and in front of Fonsalía, to seek urgent solutions to the collapse suffered by the Port of Los Cristianos. For this, it is necessary to manage the financing to carry out real investments to solve the current problems in two years.
These solutions, according to Linares, «would pass throughr optimizing the existing port infrastructures that can accommodate the maritime connection with the Green Islands (Ports of Santa Cruz, Granadilla and Los Cristianos), combining the economic and social development of the Island, the generation of employment and the strong and forceful defense of environmental values, the territory and our natural heritage ».
In parallel, they advocate “for a more harmonious development of the town of Los Cristianos, promoting the rehabilitation of urban, commercial and tourist areas,” stressed the mayor of La Orotava.
Moving some operations to the Ports of Granadilla or Santa Cruz – something that is proposed as another solution to the collapse of Los Cristianos – requires prior evaluation of their impact on mobility on land. It is one more of the aspects in which CC affects after their meeting yesterday.
Immediate actions
Coalition mayors, spokespersons, and councilors opted for carry out actions immediately in the Port of Los Cristianos and in the urban area of the town. To this end, they point to the use of European funds, requesting the Government of the Canary Islands to include in the Budgets of the Autonomous Community a multi-year budget allocation, “sufficient and adequate for the development of these actions.”
Likewise, the Canary Island Coalition of Tenerife emphasized that the municipality of Guía de Isora be compensated for the loss of investments made during the last 25 years related to the development of the Fonsalía port project.
The insular secretary general of CC of Tenerife explained that the debate on Fonsalía “enters into his analysis of the island’s development strategy from the point of view of the protection of the environment, the economy, employment and tourism; in addition to bringing together and evaluating the sensitivities of the training regarding this matter ”.
Francisco Linares insisted that Tenerife nationalists «defend the territorial integrity and ecological health of Tenerife and the Canary Islands, from a responsible exercise of debate and internal democracy ». It did not ignore the aspects that are driving the reconsideration of its position on this matter by various political formations, in the case of CC. “As nationalists, we defend our natural heritage as well as our cultural heritage,” he emphasized.
Special Protection Zone
In this sense, the meeting made it possible to highlight that it was «the different governments of CC in the Cabildo of Tenerife and the Government of the Canary Islands »who made possible the extension of the Teno-Rasca Marine Special Conservation Area and the declaration of the La Gomera-Teno Special Protection Areas for Birds (ZEPA), as well as the declaration of the first place Heritage of Whales of Europe by the World Alliance of Cetaceans to the strip that runs from the point of El Fraile (Teno) to Punta Salema or Rasca, in Las Galletas.
«It was the nationalist governments that, for example, proposed, processed and approved the Special Conservation Area where the construction of Fonsalía is projected. All the legislation on environmental protection that currently exists was obtained with the governments of the Canary Islands Coalition ”, they added.
The meeting of the mayors, spokespersons and councilors of CC is one more step in the internal debate process initiated by the Tenerife nationalists to review their position on the Fonsalía project. To this meeting we must add others that have taken place within the training with different organizations, groups and specialists, as well as among the sectoral commissions of the Tenerife nationalists.
