The Technical Commission for Historical Memory, chaired by the Minister for Public Administrations, Justice and Security, Julio Pérez, yesterday agreed to give itself a month to study the proposal for a Catalog of symbols, streets, monuments and mentions that are Francoist vestiges in Santa Cruz, Commissioned by the General Directorate of Heritage of the Government of the Canary Islands to the University of La Laguna, before informing the Ministry of Education, Universities, Culture and Sports about this 3,000-page document.
Together with the extension of the term, the Technical Commission of Historical Memory decided that, during this time, a special committee derived from the Technical Commission itself analyze the content of the Catalog and prepare a paper. This committee will be made up of the representative of the Fecai in this body and vice president of the Cabildo de Tenerife, Berta Pérez; the president of the Association for the Recovery of the Historical Memory of Tenerife, Mercedes Pérez, and the director of the Genetics Laboratory of the IML in Las Palmas, Juan José Pestano.
In addition, in the next session to be held by the Commission to report on this catalog, each of its members may make the observations they deem appropriate and present the procedural objections they see fit.
This decision was supported by all the participants of the Technical Commission, except the representatives of the City Council of Santa Cruz, its mayor, José Manuel Bermúdez, and its first deputy mayor, Guillermo Díaz Guerra, who abstained, not sharing, among other issues, that the catalog focuses only on the capital of Tenerife and is not extended, at least, to the entire island area, nor the ways in which the process has been carried out.
Present at the meeting, as vice presidents, were the Minister of Education, Universities, Culture and Sports, Manuela de Armas, and Mercedes Pérez, both by telematic means, in addition to the Vice Minister of Culture and Cultural Heritage, Juan Márquez, as vice president. The latter, in statements to DIARIO DE AVISOS, valued the direction in which the meeting took place, pointing out that “we continue with the procedures to comply with the laws of historical memory. We have exposed the work we have done with the ULL within the framework of the powers of our Vice-Ministry of Cultural Heritage, and we will continue working in the following phases”. We must not forget that, in the face of criticism from Santa Cruz, the Deputy Ministry defends that the Catalog of Francoist vestiges It will be completed in phases, so it begins with the capital and will continue with the rest of the municipalities. Faced with this position, that of the Santa Cruz City Council, which insisted on demanding the development of the Strategy for the Historical Memory of the Canary Islands, as stated in article nine of the regional regulation.
Thus, at the meeting, the Government of the Canary Islands was asked to define this strategy as a starting point to address other issues related to the removal of Francoist vestiges in the Archipelago and, in addition, to avoid generating legal uncertainty in administrative acts related to the application of the law.
From the City Council it is defended that, once the Law of Historical Memory of the Canary Islands came into force, it must be applied as it is approved, hence proceeding to remove any vestige without all the previous steps have been taken contained in the standard could lead to legal problems for the city.
During the meeting, both Bermúdez and Díaz Guerra insisted that the Law, in its article 9, establishes that the Autonomous Executive must promote a strategy in this area, which includes the objectives, priorities and financing that must govern the process of application of said Law. , and that is key to knowing what framework the different administrations involved are going to work on.
The City Council delves into this explanation, pointing out that, in its third section, the Law says that “the collaboration of the Public Administration of the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands with the local entities of the Archipelago and with private entities to carry out actions in terms of historical memory, it will be conditioned to the fact that these are contemplated or are in accordance with the objectives and priorities established in the Strategy for the Historical Memory of the Canary Islands”.
In addition, they remember that said Strategy, as stated in the Law, must be previously informed in the Technical Commission and debated in the Parliament of the Canary Islands, before being approved.
The mayor insisted that “Santa Cruz will apply the Law in the terms in which it is expressed, but administrations need legal certainty for the development of administrative acts derived from it.”
