The negotiation between the Government and the PP – with the presence on this occasion also of the Canarian and Ceuta executives – to modify the immigration law in order to relocate throughout the Spanish territory a part of the migrant minors who have been overcrowded since months ago in the Canary Islands and Ceuta it ended again without an agreement. The meeting that all the actors held this Thursday It only served to stage the distance that separates the central Executive from the PP also in immigration matters, and ended without any progress compared to two months ago, when the popular ones got up from the table for the last time.
Even before the meeting began, there was little hope of progress towards an agreement, as confirmed by the PP’s own spokesperson in Congress, Miguel Tellado, who minutes before the start of the meeting anticipated that the popular They were not going to move from their maximum position. “We demand from the Government a change in its immigration policy, and there is a framework to follow, the agreement that Alberto Núñez Feijóo signed in September, together with 12 autonomous communities (those governed by the PP), with the president of the Canary Islands Government”, said Tellado, who even stated that “if the Government wants an agreement, it should only sign its signature below those of Feijóo and (the president of the archipelago, Fernando) Clavijo.”
Logically, the Executive refuses to sign a document and make its own policies in whose design it has not even participated. Among other things, in this document Feijóo and Clavijo opened up to modifying article 35 of the immigration law, as the Government has been proposing for months. But, to do so, both leaders demanded that the State assumes the financial commitment to cover the resources extraordinary expenses of the autonomous communities when they exceed their capacity, although the Executive defends that it is already providing financial muscle to face the reception.
The plan of the PP and the Government of the Canary Islands also assumes the thesis that the immigration situation is a “lack of control” and, therefore, that it is necessary to improve “police control” of the Spanish bordersfor which it requests that the EU be required to intervene by the European Border and Coast Guard Agency (Frontex, in its acronym in English). The central Executive, however, assures that it has been in contact with Brussels for months to request help, and criticizes that the PP demands movements that are already taking place.
These opposing starting positions did not move one bit at this Thursday’s meeting. “Unfortunately, there is no agreement because today the Government has not brought any proposal,” denounced Tellado after the meeting, who criticized that “the only effort” of the central Executive is to modify article 35 of the immigration law to “impose” on the autonomous communities a distribution of minors that reach the Spanish coasts. “If there are countries in our community environment that are capable of stopping illegal immigration, Spain could also do so,” but “the Government does not have that spirit,” snapped the PP spokesperson.
Minister Torres, for his part, regretted that the PP is not “for the modification of article 35” of the immigration law, despite the fact that the popular party did assume this possibility in the text they signed in September. For the Government, “the only definitive solution” to address the collapse of reception facilities in the Canary Islands and Ceuta is precisely this reform, and it insisted that He is not going to “give up” on that idea. “We have to work to see if the PP changes its mind, it seems like it won’t, but we are not going to give up,” Torres snapped.
For her part, the Minister of Youth, Sira Rego, also present at the meeting, denounced that “the PP agenda is highly conditioned by Vox’s ultra policies.” The reference is not trivial, since last Wednesday the ultra formation suspended the negotiations with the popular ones to carry out the autonomous budgets in the five communities where their votes are necessary, accusing PSOE and PP of wanting to agree on the “distribution of immigration illegal and insecure”. Without the votes of Vox, the PP governments in those autonomies would not be able to approve their main tool for doing politics during the year 2025.