SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Jan. 25 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The president of the study commission on the demographic challenge, Luis Campos, announced on Wednesday the opening of a new term for the parliamentary groups to present more speakers. Luis Campos believes it is necessary to incorporate other profiles on the incidence of population movements for the present and future sustainable development of the Canary Islands.
Since the commission was established on September 22 and until the last meeting last Monday, Luis Campos reported that five work sessions have been held in which seven specialists have appeared, from the doctor in Regional Geographic Analysis of the University of La Laguna (ULL), Luis Jérez; the graduate in Economic and Business Sciences from the same university, José Miguel González, to the president of the Economic and Social Council (CES), José Carlos Francisco.
Also the professor of Human Geography at the Carlos III University, Guillermo Morales; the doctor of Human Geography of the ULL, Juan Israel García; the director of the Canary Institute of Statistics (ISTAC), Gonzalo Rodríguez, and the professor of Human Geography at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (ULPGC), Josefina Domínguez.
After their presentations, Campos stated that, in the commission, we “agree” on the need to open a new period to listen to other speakers, evidencing the “complexity” of the analysis and the need to have a “broader” vision of this challenge.
The groups, he added, believe that there is a lack of profiles related to the territorial model for the sustainable development of the Archipelago and with the maintenance of the welfare state, that is, the set of actions decided by the public administrations of the Canary Islands, the State and the European Union ( EU) for the maintenance of health, education, social services, housing and infrastructure of all kinds demanded by the population.
“We are agreeing”, he continued, that the economic model conditions demographic movements in a “remarkable way”. It has also appeared, in a “recurring” manner, that the population pyramid shows a progressive aging, she explained. These facts, for Luis Campos, advise the incorporation of sectoral specialists.
In addition to the need to add more legal profiles, including specialists in EU legislation and the condition of the Canary Islands as an outermost region, to assess the viability of the debate that argues for the setting of limitations on the purchase of homes by foreigners given its impact on the local market, among other issues.
In this regard, in his capacity as spokesman for Nueva Canarias (NC) in the aforementioned commission, he once again called attention to a reality that “we cannot lose sight of.” It is that, in the Archipelago, what happened in the Balearic Islands is beginning to be reproduced years ago, that is, that in the Canary Islands more than 30% of home purchases are already made by foreigners.
The spokesman for the progressive canarians highlighted the recent decision of the Balearic Executive, the legal profession and the public university of the aforementioned community to form a study team to analyze the possibility of limiting the purchase and sale of residences to foreigners. One of the first decisions, as he recounted, was to evaluate the European legal framework to find specificities that serve to contain this type of operations that, together with other causes, cause the increase in the price of homes in the Archipelago of the Mediterranean.
In parallel to the incorporation of new speakers, the president of the study commission confirmed that the groups believe that the “rush” and the dissolution of the Chamber on April 3 due to the call for elections on May 28 of this year, “should not condition” the elaboration of an opinion, which will be “strategic for our land”. “We don’t see the point in falsely closing” this forum, he observed. Hence, it is contemplated to resume work after the elections and constitution of the new Chamber, foreseeably next July, according to Campos.
