SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, 21 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The president of the Congress of Deputies, Meritxell Batet, has vindicated this Thursday the value “of the word, of the commitment, of the pact” of the parliaments in the institutional act that has been developed in the Chamber of the Canary Islands on the occasion of its 40th anniversary .
During his speech at the institutional plenary session, which lasted a little over half an hour and in which the four autonomous deputies of Sí Podemos Canarias were not present as a protest against the withdrawal of Alberto Rodríguez from his seat in Congress, Batet wanted to underline that parliaments continue to be “vital” for the organization of coexistence “in peace, freedom and prosperity, in short”, he said, for “coexistence in democracy”.
Thus, he wanted to emphasize that an act such as the one held “supposes a vindication of democratic institutions” at a time like the present in which the Spanish, and especially the Canarians, have suffered from the La Palma volcano, and to which he added the Covid-19 pandemic is added and “now a terrible, cruel war” in Ukraine – noting that these days he has been in Poland, on the border with Ukraine, where he has been able to be with the refugees and learn their stories -.
Faced with these moments in which “such exceptional things” are being experienced, he has considered that “dignifying, respecting the democratic institutions” that represent the citizens, is the “best service” that can be “done for the strengthening of democracy” because it is through it that one can “be more effective, more useful in overcoming crises and suffering”.
AUTONOMIES
In relation to the 40 years since the first Statute of Autonomy of the Canary Islands was approved, he pointed out that the access of regions and nationalities to political autonomy has meant a “radical transformation” of Spain in terms of progress, well-being, cohesion social and territorial.
Batet explained that at the base of the “success of political decentralization” has been the “majority will of the citizenry for freedom, to want to participate in the construction of their future, to see their demands for modernization and well-being satisfied, neglected or neglected many times. for centralism.
Thus, it has considered that the Canary Islands “have seen” the highest levels of autonomy possible with the new statute of 2018, “ambitious from the point of view of competence, committed to citizenship by establishing a wide catalog of rights and guiding principles, and that enshrines the specificities and differential facts of the island’s democratic system”.
Within this framework is the Canarian Parliament, which “is essential” to endow the autonomy of “its political nature” and which has some peculiarities “in guarantee and preservation” of the singularities of the territory, such as participation in the procedure in the state regulations that affect or modify the Economic and Fiscal Regime (REF) of the Canary Islands; the articulation of the interests of the islands with the community; or the right of suspensive veto to a qualified majority of deputies from the same island constituency against those decisions that they consider detrimental to the island.
This, he said, “points out on the one hand the peculiarities of the Canarian political regime” but on the other they put the “value of dialogue to move forward” to agree on “certain rules”, which he considered is a model “demanding for all” and that “cannot apply to all” areas of policy.
In relation to this, he considered that it is also “healthy” that politics “is contrast”, “debate” and “discussion”, although he denied that it is “confrontation” because this distances citizens from politics.
“Making tension and division the means to do politics is profoundly irresponsible with the general interest because the citizens lose out and we cease to be useful and exemplary. The word ceases to be an instrument of persuasion to become a weapon of destruction of the adversary , encouraging unnecessary, sterile and harmful extremism from politics. Faced with this scenario, we must claim the value of the culture of the pact,” he added.
40 YEARS WITH CHALLENGES AHEAD
For his part, the president of the Parliament of the Canary Islands, Gustavo Matos, recalled that on August 10, 1982, the first Statute of the Canary Islands was approved, so this 2022 “commemorates 40 years of self-government, 40 years of parliamentarism”.
Matos stressed that the anniversary occurs at a time when the democrats have to “face the challenge” that poses a “double threat that hangs over parliamentary regimes as spaces of coexistence, tolerance and progress, and over the State of the autonomies as a mode of territorial and political organization” of Spain.
To this he added the “global threat” to liberal democracies as systems of guarantees of freedoms and rights, which in the case of Spain he has pointed out is “a threat” to its model of the state of autonomies enshrined in the 1978 Constitution; while at the international level there is the invasion of Ukraine.
Although, in these 40 years, Matos indicated that “it has been verified that politics and decision-making that are closer” to the territory, as well as the ability to choose one’s own destiny in the sphere of competences “have led to the time of greatest progress that the Canary Islands have experienced throughout its history” although he admitted that there are still “great structural challenges to overcome, social, cultural and economic challenges, but it is indisputable” that the years of self-government represent the “most prosperous” stage that the Canary Islands have experienced.
He added that in these 40 years the ability to make the decisions that are specific to each territory has contributed to “strengthening the democratic regime” in Spain and to “indisputable social progress”, which “takes on special importance” in the islands, for their “territorial singularities, for the existence of historical jurisdictions that are not a privilege, but the recognition of a different reality that must be respected in this way”.
Finally, he pointed out that this anniversary should also serve to dream of the Canary Islands that are wanted for the next forty years. “At a time when the world is reset and everything restarts in some way, the Canary Islands must also think about what they want to be,” she added.
