Francisco Linares, together with the Secretary of Organization of CC de Tenerife, Rosa Davila, and the nationalist spokesman in the Cabildo, Carlos Alonso, held a meeting with mayors and nationalist spokespersons in the South of the island to demand that AENA build the new terminal at Tenerife South Airport and that this infrastructure be included in the Airport Regulation Document 2022-2026 (DORA II).
Present at the meeting were the mayor of Granadilla, Jose Domingo Regalado; the mayor of San Miguel de Abona, Arturo Gonzalez; the nationalist councilor in the Cabildo de Tenerife Diana Mora; the CC spokesperson in Vilaflor, Chano marrero, and the councilor of CC in Santiago del Teide, Enrique Perez. The meeting was also attended by the mayor of Arico, Sebastian Martin (PP).
The nationalists assured that if the new terminal is not built “Tenerife’s interests will be damaged, since the facility is obsolete and does not respond to the needs of the millions of tourists who visit the island. ”
In this sense, Francisco Linares assured that its construction “would be essential to fight against unemployment in the area”, since in the Abona and Southwest region “there are 30,000 unemployed people, which represents 27.1% of the unemployed of the island of Tenerife “.
For his part, the nationalist spokesman in the Tenerife Cabildo, Carlos Alonso, called for a common front on the island “so that AENA understands the importance of the construction of the new terminal.” “We have reached out to the president of the Cabildo, Pedro Martín, to add everyone, that is why we took a proposal to the extraordinary plenary session this Monday for all political groups to support,” he added.
He recalled that from CC they have been working for this for years and months: “In 2018 an agreement was unanimously approved in plenary session with AENA so that in DORA 2022-2026 the project would be drawn up and the investment we need began. We hired technical assistance from first level, which works very well. That is what we have been working on since 2018 (a comprehensive rehabilitation) and now it is necessary to truly translate it, with the investment for the drafting of the project (10-12 million euros) and a first investment of at least 100 million euros to start the works in the period 2022-2026. They have to collect it as a strategic investment. ”
Alonso explained that the South Airport is the third most profitable in Spain. “There is no justification for not investing in something that gives benefits. Tenerife South has a transit of 11 million passengers,” he stressed.
USE THE STATUTE
The Secretary of Organization of CC of Tenerife and regional deputy, Rosa Dávila, demanded that the Government of the Canary Islands use an instrument as powerful as the Statute of Autonomy, since in one of its articles it attributes powers in matters of airport programming. “And it has an instrument such as the Airport Coordination Committee that we immediately demand its convocation to demand from AENA the construction of the new Tenerife South Airport terminal,” claimed Dávila.
According to the nationalist deputy, “we made an effort with all the social and economic agents of the island, together with the political parties, in 2018. We managed to get AENA to understand the importance of investing, but now we see that they leave us out.”
“We have to have a unanimous position again and vindicate what had been agreed to build the new southern terminal. There is an opportunity to start AENA’s commitment, but that happens by having a unanimous position from Tenerife and the Canary Islands,” he said Dávila, who recalled that the DORA II “is 2,250 million euros. They are about 400 million euros a year. Therefore, we have to aspire to include the drafting of the project and the execution, not just the drafting of the project.”
