Twenty-four hours after Sergio Rodríguez, President of the La Palma Council, assumed the rotating presidency of the Canarian Islands Federation (Fecai) during an assembly where the Canarian Government tried to clarify to the island councils their doubts about the “urgent” modification decree of the Climate Change Law, up to five island councils expressed objections on Tuesday, to varying degrees, in the Parliament both to the content of the text and to the “uncourteous” manner of the Government led by Fernando Clavijo when it comes to seeking council collaboration in a regulation that directly affects them.
The most outspoken were the Regional Policy Councillor of the Gran Canaria Council, María Inés Navarro, criticizing that the text affects other laws and goes against the autonomy of the island councils; and the Waste Councillor of the Fuerteventura Council, Enrique Pérez, who believes that the competencies of councils and municipalities in territorial planning and organization are being infringed and “it opens the door to installing energy infrastructures haphazardly anywhere.”
Tenerife believes that “there are administrative aspects that need clarification”
[–>
Although Navarro agreed with the acceleration zones that Fuerteventura rejects, she criticized the “short period for submitting allegations and this process has not been very participative because listening is not the same as hearing. This modification is neither urgent nor extraordinary and could clash with national law and the European directive that has not yet been transposed.”
Rosa García, Education Councillor of the La Gomera Council, requested that the location of infrastructures be “agreed upon” with the island councils; Pablo Díaz, Culture Councillor of the La Palma Council, also agreed that they should participate “in decision-making” and lamented the absence of geothermal energy in the text, while Presidency and Planning Councillor of the Tenerife Council, José Miguel Ruano, criticized the short time they had to submit allegations and considered it necessary to refine the legal terms regarding the so-called Climate Action Projects that must be authorized according to a declaration of works of general interest, which currently only the Government can do under the current Land Law. “There are administrative aspects that need clarification” to effectively coordinate island planning and natural resource management, Ruano emphasized.
The socialist Alpidio Armas, President of the El Hierro Council,, was the only one who did not raise objections to the decree that will be approved before August even though the PSOE is very critical of the content of a regulation that, as reiterated yesterday by deputy Alicia Vanoostende, “completely modifies the law” approved by the previous ‘Pact of the Flowers’ Government led by the current minister Ángel Víctor Torres. For Armas, on the other hand, the new decree will allow El Hierro, whose Gorona del Viento hydro-wind plant generated over 50% of the island’s electricity production this year, to reach up to 80%.
The Deputy Minister of Ecological Transition says “we need to take a giant leap forward” in renewable energies
[–>
The Deputy Minister of Ecological Transition, Climate Change, and Energy of the Canarian Government, Julieta Schallenberg, was tasked with defending the Government against council criticisms and pointed out that in the Canary Islands “we have not reached 20% renewable energy penetration and we need to achieve 58% by 2030.”
[–>
According to the deputy minister, the debate in the Council Committee showed that “there is consensus on everything related to streamlining administrative processes and the concerns raised by Fuerteventura, we hope to resolve them in the meeting we will have next week, as we have already done with the Lanzarote Council.”
Subscribe to continue reading
