The Cabildo of Tenerife has decided to commence, 35 years after strongly supporting (since February 1990) a wine industry with public contribution and control, the administrative process to abandon its shareholding in the joint-stock company, still of mixed origin, called Bodegas Insulares de Tenerife (BITSA, established in August 1992), which is the flagship industry for the development of quality wine, under protected designation of origin (PDO), in Tenerife and the Canary Islands, from 1992 and with the creation of the first PDO in the archipelago: that of the Tacoronte-Acentejo region.
BITSA was a pioneer on the islands with that aim and scale, aside from becoming one of the renowned wine brand producers in the island sphere, with Viña Norte or Brezal, among many other labels or identifications. Nowadays, it markets references with the PDO Tacoronte-Acentejo and the PDO Canary Islands and manages the industry owned by the Cabildo of Tenerife known as Bodega Insular de Tacoronte thanks to a public concession granted in July 2024.
That political decision, the second upset received by the company in a very short time, was adopted at the meeting of the Insular Council of this Corporation held last Wednesday, 4 June, with the support of CC and PP, the parties currently forming the government in the Cabildo and holding an absolute majority in the plenary, a fact that initially guarantees final approval. Now, after the file is subject to other obligatory procedures, it must be approved by the Cabildo plenary, for which the date of the meeting is not yet known.
The new initiative by CC and PP, with the conservatives in charge of the Agriculture and Industry areas, implies shedding the public participation of the Cabildo of Tenerife in the said company, currently mixed or public-private. The island Corporation owns 45.66% of the share capital of the joint-stock company Bodegas Insulares de Tenerife, with 4,413 subscribed shares, titles that must be sold or transferred to new holders. The company BITSA supports the work of some 300 Tenerife winegrowers.
After the news became known, the main opposition party, the PSOE, has been very harsh and clear in conveying its opposition to that administrative process. The Tenerife socialists believe, and have conveyed through their primary sector spokesperson, Javier Parrilla, that “what the Government of Rosa Dávila has done has a clear ideological origin” of a distinctly “neoliberal” nature.
Parrilla acknowledged and valued the efforts of winegrowers and local wineries of that northern region, in particular, for the development of such productive activity in Tenerife. Furthermore, he highlighted that the reasons presented by the Cabildo Government to justify the current abandonment of the shareholding in the joint-stock company in question do not align with reality, especially because that public participation was then justified to support grape cultivation for winemaking and produce certified quality wines in the Tacoronte-Acentejo region amidst the fragmentation of farms, lack of business structure, weak training, and other issues… All are parameters that currently “must still be supported,” emphasized the socialist councillor, as nothing is entirely resolved, he concluded.
That agro-industrial activity has grown and consolidated thanks to the support of the Cabildo of Tenerife, whose presence has been key to generating business stability and reliability, mainly for small winegrowers, family economies, who will be the most unprotected with that political decision by the nationalist Government of Rosa Dávila, stated Parrilla.
The same source opts, unlike CC and PP, to “redefine the legal formula chosen by the Insular Government” these days to continue deepening in the management of that industry with the Cabildo as guarantor, in order to curb or counteract the possible neglect of the smaller farmers, addressing very clear socioeconomic ends.
