A contingency fund to cover expenses. This is the condition set by the PP leadership for its regional presidents to take on the hosting of thousands of migrant minors who are overwhelming the care centres opened in the Canary Islands. This was stated by the national spokesman, Borja Sémper, in a press conference this Tuesday in which he placed all responsibility for the negotiation on the regional governments, which are meeting tomorrow with the central Executive in a sectoral conference chaired by the Minister of Youth, Sira Rego. He asked the regions to accept the agreement “without exception”. “All of them”.
“We demand a contingency fund with enough money to provide the autonomous communities with personnel, material and technical resources to address the serious situation of the minors who have already been taken in and in the face of what we consider to be a flagrant inaction in foreign policy by the Government, particularly with regard to the European Union,” Sémper told the media.
The spokesman reiterated that the responsibility for the management of unaccompanied migrant minors “lies with the central government”, which must “provide the means and the management”. “We are in solidarity, but not with this government, but with the Canarians who are overwhelmed”, he said.
But the president of the Canary Islands, who co-governs with the PP, has called for a reform of the immigration law to make “mandatory” said distribution. A point that Sémper wanted to clarify on Tuesday. The spokesman has assured that the responsibility for the negotiation lies with the regional presidents, although any hypothetical modification of the law would have to be voted on in Congress and the Senate.
Asked specifically whether the national leadership of the PP is certain that all its regional presidents will accept the agreed distribution, Sémper did not want to answer and extended the demand to “all” the communities. “We want all the autonomous communities to participate without exception,” he said. A message that sources from the leadership do not limit only to Catalonia: “All of them, including Catalonia. Under the same conditions.”
But Sémper has avoided specifying how much money the contingency fund he has requested should have, whether all the PP communities are willing to accept the distribution, or how many minors each one. Not even whether or not they accept the reform to make the distribution obligatory. “I am not going to speak on behalf of the regional presidents,” he said in response to all the questions that sought to clarify the PP’s position.
In fact, Sémper has openly criticised the conditions in which minors are being housed by the autonomous communities, although he has blamed the Government. “What happens when the government sends dozens or hundreds of unaccompanied minors to autonomous communities that cannot accommodate them because they do not have the material conditions? What is happening? In what conditions are these minors living? In inhumane conditions, overcrowded? This is what the Government of Spain is causing,” he said.
“We refuse to allow human beings to live in inhumane conditions, and we especially refuse to allow children to live in such conditions. And what we want are resources,” he concluded.
Calls on EU to relocate migrant minors
As part of its offensive against the Government, the PP has raised its criticism of Brussels. “Given the inaction of the Government of Spain, we request that the European Commission immediately activate all the policies, instruments and tools at its disposal to address the migration situation in the Canary Islands,” said the spokesperson, Dolors Montserrat, in a letter sent to the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen.
The measures called for include the activation of the mechanism to relocate migrant minors throughout the EU and the “urgent deployment in the Canary Islands of Frontex and European Asylum Agency (EUAA) personnel to help with the management of asylum applications and support the State Security Forces and Corps in collecting information on immigrant trafficking networks.”
The PP also calls on Brussels to “continuously assess whether the conditions are met” to activate the migration emergency clause provided for in EU regulations.
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