The rivalry between the islands to be the headquarters of a national or international organization returns to the present once the canarian government has confirmed that the Archipelago will be the headquarters of the Spanish Volcanological Center. 24 hours after announcement Tenerife and La Palma have requested to be the headquarters of this scientific centerin a line similar to the dispute that arose when the Spanish Government backed the Canary Islands to be the headquarters of the European Tourism Agency and several islands came to the fore fighting to host this new community body.
The president of the Cabildo de Tenerife, the socialist Pedro Martín, already assumes that the island will have the Volcanological Center. In this sense, he affirmed yesterday that “no one would understand that Tenerife was not the chosen place” to house the National Volcanological Center, and assured that he had already talked about this location “for months” with the Canarian president, Ángel Víctor Torres. In a statement, Pedro Martín expressed his satisfaction about the installation in Tenerife of the National Volcanological Center, a circumstance that “finally has occurred”, according to the head of the Tenerife Cabildo.
With the proposal for the establishment of this Research Center on the island, “Tenerife becomes the center of volcanological research in all of Spain, which will further promote research in these scientific fields, in addition to having the support and funding of the State and the Government of the Canary Islands and it also means that the work that we have been carrying out from Involcan in research and prevention against volcanic risk will be ratified even more, if possible, “he added.
The scientific coordinator of Involcan, Nemesio Pérez, also pointed out that “according to the statements that have been made so far, it is reflected that the main headquarters of the Volcanological Institute of Spain must be in Tenerife with sub-headquarters in the rest of the Canary Islands with volcanic risk” .
However, the political forces of La Palma have joined in the claim for the island of the National Volcanological Center, after the announcement made by the regional president, Ángel Víctor Torres, that the Archipelago is the one chosen to host this research institute. Thus, from the Cabildo palmero, the procedures will be promoted before the competent administrations to request that the Spanish Volcanological Center be located on the beautiful island, taking into account that “the Islands are, without a doubt, the best place in Spain to host this center given our volcanological nature and that we are the only volcanically active region of the national territory». Both the president of the Cabildo, Mariano Hernández Zapata (PP), and the nationalist Nieves Lady Barreto support this location of the scientific center on the island.
The palm institutions hope that the next visit of the president of the central government, Pedro Sánchez, to the island in the coming days will also serve to promote La Palma as the headquarters of this center, especially considering that with the recent eruption of the volcano of Cumbre Vieja scientific research on the volcanic phenomenon will have an advantage because it is an event in which the traces are still there and the subsoil continues to emanate gases.
