The general elections of July 23 have handed out letters, keys and nails. In the absence of a policy of national concentration between the two major Spanish parties, Junts per Catalunya, with its political leadership based in Waterloo (Belgium), has played the most spectacular key. But there is a canary key, smaller – a single seat –, useful for all kinds of locks. La Vanguardia has interviewed in Santa Cruz de Tenerife Fernando Clavijo Batlle (San Cristóbal de la Laguna, 1971), current president of the Government of the Canary Islands and general secretary of Coalició Canà ria, to find out his leadership for the times ahead.
How will they use the canary key? What ideas are they going to Madrid with?
The last elections have highlighted a great political confrontation in Spain. There are two visions that are difficult for them to dialogue with. Perhaps communication strategies have eaten politics in this country. We are going to Parliament to try to facilitate a dialogue on fundamental issues. We are looking for a greater understanding, to place the citizen at the center of political action. We are a Canarian, constitutionalist formation that has contributed to stability many times: we did it with José MarÃa Aznar, with José Luis RodrÃguez Zapatero, with Mariano Rajoy, and also with Pedro Sánchez. We will defend a Canarian agenda, but this does not prevent us from contributing to a policy of responsibility. Citizens have voted. We need to provide solutions, not provoke new elections.
Sorry, an indent. Coalició Canà ria is sometimes defined in different ways: autonomists, nationalists. You have just mentioned the constitutionalist concept, but they once displayed the tricolor flag created in 1961 by the Free Canaries movement, later stylized by the late Mpaiac (Movement for Self-Determination and Independence of the Canary Archipelago). What is the exact affiliation of Coalició Canà ria?
We are Canarian nationalists. We are nationalists, progressives and, of course, constitutionalists.
What is your preference for negotiating stability? Who do they prefer to agree with?
We said from the beginning that we don’t want extremes. We will not support a government with Vox ministers, nor do we want to support Sumar.
Compare the two formations? Do you see Santiago Abascal and Yolanda DÃaz in the same shot?
What is Summar? It is not well known what Summar is. Yes, we know what Podemos is: the attempt to transport the Venezuelan political model to Spain. We are against the Bolivarian model.
Let’s go back to the Canary Coalition’s preferences before the new Parliament. Next Thursday the Congress is constituted and the Bureau and its president must be elected. Who will they support to preside over Congress?
We would like the Congress to be presided over by a [peripheral] nationalist. We would love to see Congress presided over by a PNB deputy. The polls have spoken and shown a very plural country. There is a reality that cannot be ignored, with which we must dialogue and with which we must reach agreements. I believe that democracy in Spain has reached enough maturity for a representative of this plurality to preside over Congress. Our bet is for the Basque Nationalist Party, for the presidency or vice-presidency of the Congress.
Have you talked to them about it?
We have very frequent conversations with the PNB.
This proposal highlights a PNB-Coalició Canà ria axis that would add six deputies. Six deputies in the current circumstances have weight. Together he has seven. ERC, another seven. Bildu, six.
The PNB and Coalició Canà ria have maintained a close relationship for years. For us, GNP has always been a benchmark. It is true, we are talking about very different realities, two very different economies, since the Basque Country is based on industry, and the Canary Islands, on tourism. But we share ideas and points of view. We talk often and coordinate. Euskadi and the Canary Islands have the same surface area and almost the same population, if we add up all the islands. As you said yourself, a legislature of complex geometry begins, and in this geometry, Coalició Canà ria and the PNB will collaborate.
Let’s go to the investiture. What is your priority?
I have already said it: create a climate of understanding that facilitates dialogue and great agreements. The rejection of the inclusion of extremist forces in the central government and the defense of the Canary Islands agenda.
What are the main points of this Canary agenda?
It is an agenda of a markedly social nature that tries to deal with the factors that slow down our development. We have more unemployment than the average in Spain and wages in the Canary Islands are lower. There are measures that cannot be adopted solely by the Government of the Canary Islands, for example in the field of Social Security.
Which?
We want risk-taking employers to be able to raise workers’ wages, and to facilitate this, we propose that the wage increase be exempt from Social Security contributions. This measure would not put State coffers at risk, would contribute to raising wages in the Canary Islands and would favor greater social convergence with the Peninsula. We are an ultra-peripheral region, with social problems of a structural nature that the State must help us solve. What I have just explained to you is one of the points on the Canary Islands agenda. There is more, of course. We will defend the co-management of our ports and airports, and we want to participate in the definition of bilateral relations with Morocco, a fundamental matter for the Canary Islands, a participation that occurred in the past.
Vox has said that it could support the investiture of Alberto Núñez Feijóo without demanding entry into the government. The PP announced this week an imminent negotiation with Coalició Canà ria. Is Núñez Feijóo your priority candidate?
Our relationship with Feijóo is excellent. I know him well. Vox, a very centrist party, seems to have taken a step back. That was one of our conditions. The other is to negotiate the Canary Islands agenda. But we expect the head of state to make the round of consultations.
Does the negotiation with the Popular Party exclude for you a negotiation with the PSOE?
No. Our relationship with Pedro Sánchez is also good. And the requirements are the same.
Podemos is in Sumar, but Sumar is not Podemos…
I’ve said it before. We do not accept extremism and prioritize the Canarian agenda. We have not yet sat down to negotiate with either one or the other. Everything in its time.
Morocco and the Sahel. With these two topics, another volume of the Canarian agenda can be written. Have they noticed an improvement in the relationship with Morocco?
No. Immigrants continue to arrive in the Canary Islands. Fewer of them arrive on the peninsular coasts, but they continue to arrive in the Canary Islands. A few days ago [Wednesday] five hundred people landed in Lanzarote. We were not informed by the Government of the change of policy in relation to Morocco. The fishing agreement with Morocco has expired and the part referring to Moroccan waters has not been renewed, pending the final judgment of the European court on the waters of the Sahara. Morocco wants to gain control of the airspace of the Western Sahara. After the earth, the air. Foreign policy is the responsibility of the central government, no one disputes this, but the Canaries want to play a role in bilateral relations. He had it in the past.
El Sahel.
Very concerned about what is happening in Niger and other countries in the area.
