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The Canary Islands government continues to strengthen its strategy to obtain European Union (EU) approval for restrictions on non-resident residence and home purchases in the archipelago. With this objective, President Fernando Clavijo will present his roadmap for addressing the demographic challenge to the General Assembly of the Islands Commission of the Conference of Peripheral and Maritime Regions (CPMR) of the EU, a summit of European territories to be held in La Palma next week.
The Canarian government leader’s intention, as reported by Tiempo de Canarias, is to continue the “political and legal offensive” he announced during the State of Nationality Debate to persuade Brussels to implement “specific and proportionate” regulatory changes that will help curb the islands’ sharp population growth.
Fernando Clavijo already conveyed this position of the regional government to the Vice President for Cohesion and Reforms of the European Commission, Raffaelle Fitto, at the summit of the Outermost Regions (ORs) held on the island of Réunion last week. At this meeting, the Brussels representative announced the renewal of the OR strategy to update and adapt it to new challenges, which will be based on pillars such as defense, water, energy, competitiveness, and housing. For the President of the Canary Islands, this reform represents “a window of opportunity” for the archipelago to limit residence and home purchases by foreigners.
In fact, the Brussels representative expressed openness to exploring, within the framework of this new OR strategy, responses to the demographic pressure and housing crisis facing the archipelago. This is the first time that these negotiations have been officially launched, a line of work that the head of the Canary Islands government will also share in La Palma with the European territories with which the Canary Islands share strategies and which have already supported the regional government’s “Responsible Islands” project.
The Islands Commission is one of the six bodies of the Conference of Peripheral and Maritime Regions. It brings together 18 European regional island authorities located in the Mediterranean, Baltic, Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans. These territories represent a population of 15 million. The main objective of this Commission is to urge the European institutions and Member States to pay special attention to islands, recognize the permanent disadvantages and vulnerabilities resulting from their insularity, and implement policies best suited to their condition.
President Clavijo attended the previous meeting of the Islands Commission held in Gonzo, Malta, last year, while Octavio Caraballo, Deputy Minister of the President’s Office, represented the Canary Islands at the meeting held in April 2024 in the Azores. La Palma will now host the first meeting of 2025, during which the islands seek to unify and relaunch their common strategy with Brussels.
