SANTA CRUZ DE TENERIFE, July 4. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The president of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres, received this Monday, at the headquarters of the Presidency of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, a delegation from the Spanish Association of Tax Advisors and the Associations of Economists and reiterated the “close commitment” of his Government with the defense and compliance with the Economic and Fiscal Regime (REF) of the islands.
Although he stressed that, at present, it is when the advantages implied by the REF and the Canary Islands’ membership of the EU’s Outermost Regions (RUP) are most exploited, the Chief Executive is aware that there is always room for improvement and updating of a key mechanism in the socioeconomic development of the Canary Islands, in line with what these experts stated during the meeting.
Torres told the media that his Executive has shown in the last three years its firm commitment to the Canarian jurisdiction and during the meeting he told the tax experts that the Government is open to continuing to improve the REF jointly.
“The contributions they have made today are important, as is the work we have developed over the years, which has resulted, for example, in the extension of the period for the materialization of the RIC for one year or in the fact that all the 2022 budget items had a specific concept and added up to the highest global figure in the history of the REF,” explained the president in a note sent by his department.
However, Torres is aware that it is necessary to “polish, improve and update some issues”, for which it is necessary to “work hand in hand because the REF only belongs to the Canary Islands and the Canary Islands because it was difficult to achieve and, from the beginning, the singularities of this land became clear”.
In this sense, he is pleased that “it has never been as consolidated as it is now”, although he insisted on the need for it to be separated from the partisan struggle, for which he is “satisfied” that this has been recognized by the fiscal and economic advisers.
As an example of this need to update, the meeting referred to what happened with the La Palma volcano.
“We are also going to work together on this because it is that in future years, legislatures in the Canary Islands and on a national scale will have a large volume of economic resources from Europe,” he said.
TAKE THE REF TO THE SCHOOLS
To this is added the RUP condition of the islands, “which means that the Canary Islands have consolidated rights that are not random, but of justice due to our periphery, remoteness, insularity and differentiated economic and fiscal status compared to the rest of the territories”.
As he stressed, in defending these singularities “we are going to join hands with the Government, the parties and the fiscal and economic experts.”
The meeting also agreed on the desirability of the REF being better known among Canarian society and that it be disseminated in schools.
“It must be better known what the REF is and how it affects us, what the Canary Islands Special Zone is and how it is constituted, the Investment Reserve or being an Outermost Region. For that, we must take this information to the educational centers and make an effort disclosure of our economic, fiscal and cultural heritage on a day-to-day basis”, he stressed.
