Thanks to LANCELOT DIGITAL – Román Rodríguez: “The Canary Islands already have a further 1,000 million euros guaranteed to combat the crisis”
The Vice President of the Government and Minister of Finance, Budgets and European Affairs, Román Rodríguez, assured today in Parliament that the Canary Islands have already guaranteed this year 1,000 million euros in addition to those consigned in the regional Budgets, which will join the fight against the crisis caused by Covid-19.
The vice president insisted on the need to make the most of available budgetary resources – European, state and Canary Islands – as well as specific European funds for reconstruction, with proper management of them.
All of this, he explained, without forgetting that the complete reactivation of the economy and employment will occur only from the mass vaccination of the population and collective immunity.
Rodríguez recalled that the Canary Islands will receive 6.3% of the funds of the REACT-EU program to be distributed among the autonomous communities, which amounts to 10 billion euros, which this year will mean income of 504 million euros and another 126 million in 2022, destined for public services. To this amount should be added another 214 million from an extraordinary fund for financing the communities, in addition to 183 million for Ecological Transition; 60 million for urban rehabilitation and 34 for social services. These last three amounts are integrated into the regional section of the Recovery, Transformation and Resilience Plan, the development of which was regulated at the end of the year through a Royal Decree of the Government of Spain.
The vice president stressed that these extraordinary mechanisms and the ordinary budgets of the different public administrations will contribute to mitigating the effects of the coronavirus pandemic.
In the Canary Islands, in addition, the autonomous Executive has launched a tax moratorium that will allow the injection of liquidity to SMEs and the self-employed of 240 million euros with the postponement of the payment of taxes and the granting of additional direct aid to the most affected sectors due to the crisis, for another 165 million euros.
Rodríguez also recalled how the Canarian Government already allocated another 95 million euros to the economic sectors last year from the Budgets of the Autonomous Community itself to help the economic sectors and another 55 million for people and families in situations of social vulnerability.
In any case, the vice president warned about the need to responsibly manage the available resources to guarantee the sustainability of public spending in the coming years and avoid cuts in the services provided to citizens.
Rodríguez pointed out, in this direction, that the fundamental objectives of the Executive from now on focus on the vaccination of citizens, the capture of extraordinary funds and the efficient management of them.
Increase in state transfers
The vice president also detailed current transfers from the Government of Spain to the Canary Islands last year, which experienced a growth of 819 million euros compared to what was initially planned in the regional budgets, which represents a percentage increase of 19 percent.
A situation that is explained, among other reasons, by the expansive nature of public budgets to deal with the pandemic, “just the opposite of what the governments of the right did during the previous crisis, characterized by spending cuts” Rodriguez noted.
