Clavijo's U-turn after his immigration pact with Feijóo scandalizes the government: “He has joined the theses of the PP and the extreme right” | Spain

The agreement reached this Tuesday between the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, and the head of the government of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, to combine the criteria on how the orientation of migrant minors between communities should be carried out has provoked a new confrontation with the central Executive. After months of discussions with the government to proceed with a legislative change that imposes a redistribution of the reception of migrant children – an initiative that Junts, PP and Vox ended up overthrowing Congress in July— Clavijo, who claims to be overwhelmed, has changed his interlocutor. The new strategy led the leader of the popular parties to visit Clavijo, in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, where they signed a document that includes a good part of the demands demanded by the PP, such as the declaration of a national emergency on immigration, the urgent convening of the Conference of Presidents or forcing the State to assume all expenses related to reception when a community (and not only the Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla) exceeds 100% of its capacity. The meeting upset the Minister of Territorial Policy, Ángel Víctor Torres, who blamed Clavijo, leader of the Canarian Coalition, for the change in his party. Torres accused him of bowing to the discourse of the right and the extreme right.

With this movement, a new chapter opens in the complicated negotiation that began before the summer to convince a parliamentary majority to accept into consideration the modification of article 35 of the Immigration Law to make the distribution of migrant minors between territories mandatory. In Tenerife, Feijóo made it clear that he would not resume negotiations on the proposal of La Moncloa and the Canary Islands government to modify this law and defended the new guidelines signed with the Canarian nationalists. “It is a document that seeks consensus and solves present and future problems,” he said after Tuesday's meeting. “We hope that the central government adheres to the vision of the State that is reflected in this document,” he added. The text, called Agreement to address the migration crisishas the consent of the Congress and the Senate and of the 14 autonomous communities and autonomous cities that the popular govern, according to Feijóo and Clavijo.

“The Popular Party,” he said, “can today propose an agreement with the will to negotiate,” which will be sent, as he explained, to the Spanish government. “It is a proposal,” added the popular leader, who accused the Central Executive of not having raised “a single one.”

Proposals

The document justifies the declaration of a migratory emergency throughout the territory to facilitate hiring and “attract attention” in the European Union. At the same time, it calls for an urgent appeal to the Sectoral Conference on Children to agree on the distribution criteria and “guarantee that no LACC is exempted”, as Feijóo pointed out. It also includes what the parties have called the “Action Plan against uncontrolled immigration control”, which, in turn, includes six points, among which are the improvement of police control at the Spanish borders or the provision of more human and material resources to the General Commission on Immigration. Here, aspects that are already part of the current migration policy are also demanded, such as the deployment of security forces in the countries of origin and transit “and the deployment of Frontex and the European Asylum Agency”.

The agreement also requires a commitment from the central government to “respect the extreme situation and criteria” of the majority of the autonomous communities. The fifth point establishes that there is a “guaranteed financial sufficiency” for the communities, which must be established at a joint meeting of the Sectoral Conference on Immigration and the Conference on Children and Youth. This section requires the creation of a contingency fund for the autonomous communities and that the reform of the Immigration Law specifies that the State will assume the “financial commitment” to cover the extraordinary resources of the communities whose assistance capacity is “exceeded”.

In recent weeks, the Government of the Canary Islands and the PP have explained their financing proposal, which is also explicit in the agreement: the autonomous communities will continue to care for children in their centres until 100% of their capacity is reached. reached. ; When the centres are between 100 and 150%, they will continue in the centres managed by the communities, but the State will have to transfer economic resources to them and, when this 150% is exceeded, the State will be the one to welcome the minors in accommodation solutions provided for this purpose, as is the case for adults.

In the corridors of the Senate, the head of territorial policy and democratic memory, Ángel Víctor Torres, responded this Tuesday that the agreement means that the Canarian Coalition has “joined the theses of the Popular Party”, which previously had “already” added to the theses of the extreme right. The minister reminded Feijóo and Clavijo that they had an agreement signed by nine political groups and that would have allowed the reform of the immigration law, but he was frustrated by the votes of the PP, Vox and Junts, in reference to the plenary session of July 23 that reversed the reform of the norm.

According to him, the objective of the PP president is not to solve the problem, but rather to act “to delay, delay, prolong, make partisan and political use,” he stressed. “If I really believed in the urgency, there is a document that has been in preparation for eight months. Vote yes and we will modify what can be modified. Torres also clearly expressed his willingness to continue working with the PP and the communities, and stressed that the ministry is finalizing a “rigorous, realistic, objective and updated document on the resources available to the autonomous communities.” Before him, the Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, Elma Saiz, spoke, denouncing Feijóo's “hypocrisy” and “cynicism” in matters of immigration, demanding that he “work rigorously” and “keep listening” to the Canary Islands, a territory that he considers to have “turned its back” by refusing to deal with the examination of the reform of article 35 of the Immigration Law. “I call once again on Mr Feijóo to leave the messages, the agreements fakeTHE representations“.

Last week, and after meeting with Sánchez on August 23 at an event that pushed the PP to accept the distribution of minors, Clavijo raised his voice against the central government, demanding greater involvement from the executive. After an alleged incident between the archipelago, the prosecutor's office and the security forces over the care of people who had just disembarked, the head of the Canary Islands government considered that Now, miners are under the responsibility of the central government, being in custody, and not abandoned or helpless, and announced that he was considering taking the executive to court to delimit powers.