SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, Nov. 7 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The president of the Government of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, said this Tuesday that “it is not fair” that the debt of autonomous communities that fail to comply in fiscal matters be forgiven, as stated in the investiture agreement between the PSOE and ERC, which includes a debt relief of 15,000 million for Catalonia.
“We are not going to allow ourselves to be discriminated against,” he pointed out in response to questions from AHI and ASG in the control session of Parliament in which he pointed out that the Canary Islands have little debt with the FLA (Autonomous Liquidity Fund) because it had the capacity “to place debt and on favorable conditions”, hence he resorted more to financial entities.
In any case, he has pointed out that if the debt is to be forgiven it must be “equally”, and if in the case of Catalonia it is 1,875 euros per person, the Canary Islands must be compensated in the same way because if not “it would benefit the undisciplined who did not control spending.
The president recalled that in the Canary Islands “it was done at the cost of great suffering” and debt forgiveness in those terms “would be unfair to all the Canary Islands” because “they are going to be awarded.”
Clavijo believes that “it is not a democratic or healthy precedent” and although he does not believe that “such an outrage” will be committed – the Government has clarified that the condonation will be for all the CCAA – it opens the door to establishing other mechanisms that avoid ” grievance”.
Thus, he has proposed, for example, that the uncondoned debt be returned “via budgets”, that the 20% of the reduction affects the entire debt and not only that of the FLA or that the Canary Islands be granted an “extraordinary capacity to credit” at a time, furthermore, when per capita income is moving away from the average.
“The Government will be firm and this Parliament will remain firm, it is fair because we are still recovering from the cuts of the crisis,” he added.
Raúl Acosta (AHI), who has shown his “rejection” for the acts of vandalism suffered at the PSOE headquarters, has indicated that the Canary Islands “took seriously” fiscal discipline and deficit objectives and “had little use” for the FLA – -the debt is 1,270 million– when “hunger queues” had returned on the islands due to the “brutal cuts.”
Furthermore, he has warned that if the Canary Islands’ debt of 20% of the FLA is removed linearly “it will be a ridiculous amount.”
Casimiro Curbelo, spokesperson for ASG, has pointed out that canceling a 20% debt with the FLA “is legitimate” but at the same time he understands that “it would be unfair if the rest did not have the same treatment”, since it would cost the Canary Islands 259 million a debt of more than 6,000 million, and mostly banking.
Thus, he has indicated that the Canary Islands, which “has faithfully complied” with the deficit objectives, cannot have “similar treatment” which is why he has proposed that the bank debt also be compensated.
However, he has indicated that these types of decisions correspond to the Fiscal and Financial Policy Council and he is convinced that “there will be equal opportunities.”
