SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, July 18 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The President of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, has warned this Tuesday that Canarian companies “cannot wait any longer” and has reiterated the claim to the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda of the Government of Spain so that it “attends in the most urgent way possible” the petition raised by your Government and also by several Canarian business organizations to resolve the problems that have arisen with the new law on subsidies approved in 2022 and the difficulties in accessing public aid for the transport of goods to or from the archipelago.
“We see how the Council of Ministers continues to expand its work to process such an important issue for all Canaries in their daily lives,” he said, while recalling that resolving the situation only depends on a decree issued by the Minister of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda, Raquel Sánchez Jiménez, at her table.
“It only takes political will to solve this huge problem,” he explained.
According to Clavijo, “when the new legislative modifications were approved, they did not take into account their great impact on compensation for maritime and air transport of goods to the islands”, and now it is necessary “to open an effective way so that Canarian companies can receive up to 100% of the subsidies stipulated for the transport of goods and that the Economic and Fiscal Regime is fully complied with”.
In this scenario, the head of government affirmed that the Canary Islands companies “can no longer wait for the subsidies” for the transport of goods to be fulfilled and that the delay causes “very high cost overruns” that, in practice, “do not allow that there are competitive prices” in the network of commercial establishments existing throughout the archipelago.
In addition to requesting by letter the “real compliance” in these public aids for the transport of goods to or from the Canary Islands to the Spanish Minister of Transport, Mobility and the Urban Agenda, Raquel Sánchez Jiménez, the President of the Government showed his “most resounding support “to the claim about the application of the new law of subsidies of 2022 that is also made by the associations of companies that operate in the Canary Islands such as Asinca, Asocan, Asprocan and Fedex so that this “important inconvenience” for the normal development of the transport of basic necessities to the archipelago.
“We are all aware, and the Government of Spain also knows it, that this system of public aid for the transport of goods was activated to guarantee the balance in the conditions of real competition in the Canary Islands with respect to the rest of the State territories, compensating for extra costs derived from the remoteness of the Canary Islands”, stressed the President of the Canary Islands Government, alluding to the “principle of continuity” in the transport by sea and air of essential merchandise in our economic activity.
AID SYSTEM COVERED BY THE REF
In this scenario, Fernando Clavijo recalled, “because it seems that it still needs to be remembered”, that the aid system for cargo transport in the Canary Islands is covered by article 138.1 of the Spanish Constitution and also by article seven of the Economic and Fiscal Regime (REF).
He also stressed that the lack of adaptation of the aid system for the transport of merchandise has a direct impact on the economies of Canarian families “who today can only buy half of what they did yesterday” in supermarkets.
For this reason, Clavijo specified, “a liter of oil costs twice as much in stores on the islands as it does in a supermarket in Andalusia.”
In the economic field, the President of the Canary Islands also recalled that “this non-compliance with the consumers of the islands by the Government of Spain” coincides in time with an inflationary situation with increases in the price of freight transport ranging between 300% and 500% according to sectors.
“It cannot be argued that the standard cost model has not been updated since 2019, when prices were much lower than at present,” argued Fernando Clavijo, alluding to the political work carried out by the two nationalist deputies Ana Oramas and María Fernández. in the last negotiation of the General State Budget of 2023 to manage to include an item of 100 million euros as a public financial endowment in aid for the transport of merchandise.
