SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, December 12. (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Minister of Public Works, Housing and Mobility of the Government of the Canary Islands, Pablo Rodríguez, insisted this Tuesday in the Parliament of the Canary Islands that his department reinforces the search for solutions to counteract the challenges that harm the connectivity of the archipelago.
In this sense, it has urged the State to hold a bilateral commission to address the approval of a law that contemplates the participation of the archipelago in the regulation, planning, programming and management of its ports and airports, as stated in the Statute of Autonomy of the Canary Islands.
Likewise, during the plenary session, Rodríguez stressed that “many measures promoted by the European Union and the State to address the climate crisis and guarantee the development of more sustainable transport cannot be applied in the same way in the Canary Islands, since generate great consequences in the archipelago”.
In this sense, the counselor has reported that the Executive has commissioned studies to find out the economic effects that the measures approved by Europe to compensate for emissions in air and maritime transport would have in the Canary Islands.
“I will convene all the spokespersons of the parliamentary groups to make them aware of this data and jointly address the strategy that we will draw up for the coming years,” he explained.
In his opinion, “both Spain and Europe must recognize our condition as an outermost region, our particularities, as well as the challenges that we must face due to our geographical location.”
For this reason, he indicated, “it is essential that initiatives in clean energy and energy efficiency be promoted, but differentiating ourselves from the rest to overcome obstacles in terms of connectivity and prosper in an increasingly interconnected global environment.”
In this sense, the counselor has highlighted that since he arrived at the Ministry he has not stopped looking for solutions to face the challenges that threaten connectivity on the islands, launching initiatives such as the Canary Islands Observatory of Connectivity and transport prices. air or requesting that the OSP Lanzarote-Madrid pilot project be promoted.
EXEMPT MARITIME TRANSPORT FROM THE EUROPEAN EMISSIONS STANDARD
“In addition, we are working to be exempted from the European standard on emissions in maritime and freight transport, to update standard costs in freight transport, or to maintain free buses and transport, among others. “, he points out in a note sent by his department.
Rodríguez has stressed that, at this time, the measures promoted for the decarbonization of air and maritime transport lead the Canary Islands to disconnection and the increase in transport costs due to dependence on tourism and imports.
“In the Canary Islands we cannot choose between different modes of transport for our trips abroad or for the reception of essential goods for our development and supply. Therefore, since I arrived at the Ministry, together with my team, we have set ourselves the objective of setting a strategy that allows us to have instruments capable of balancing polluting emissions due to our daily activity and continue advancing on the path of sustainability and respect for our environment, which has its own singularities that we must preserve and protect,” he noted.
