Torres and the minister sign the protocol that increases the bonus for public transport up to 50%

 

The president of the Canary Islands, Ángel Víctor Torres, signed this morning, at the headquarters of the Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda (Mitma), and together with the minister of the sector, Raquel Sánchez, the collaboration protocol to coordinate the application of the expansion of the transitional aid measures for regular and land public transport on the islands.

 

The Minister of Public Works, Transport and Housing, Sebastián Franquis, also attended the signing. After the signing, and at a press conference, the president of the Canary Islands stressed the importance of this step to alleviate inflation resulting from the invasion of Ukraine by Russia and insisted that the islands receive more help for transportation by bus and tram. than other communities, by raising the state contribution from 30 to 50%.

 

According to him, and in the maximum calculations, the measure could mean a contribution of 24 million euros by the central government, which is added to the 170 million that the different administrations transfer each year to public transport on the islands, “which "It represents a great public effort in the maintenance and operation of these services."

 

Torres thanked the work carried out by the teams of both governments that have prepared this protocol and once again valued “the effort that the Spanish Executive is making at this difficult time to, uniting all administrations and all of us striving for the common good, respond to the inflation suffered by Europeans, Spaniards and the Canary Islands, take coordinated measures and put them into practice in the best possible way.”

 

The president of the Canary Islands recalled that these measures will be applied from this Thursday until December 31 and, although he hopes they will be sufficient, he does not rule out their extension by the central government if necessary after that period. Torres insists that, if the Canary Islands had local and medium-distance trains, he would enjoy a 100% discount, “but we don't have them and, therefore, we proposed that, given the singularities of the islands, the percentages had to be rearranged according to our legal and fiscal framework of the REF, raising it from 30 to 50% for buses and trams in the metropolitan area of ​​Tenerife.”

 

The total public transport on the Islands is subsidized by 50%

 

The president and the Minister of Transportation reject that there is a comparative grievance with the Canary Islands over the free commuter and medium-distance trains. As he explained, in the Canary Islands, 50% of existing public transport (buses and trams) is subsidized by 100%, while in the peninsular territory these trains represent only 10% of total trips. The president considers the decree necessary, he does not understand that some parties that demand total gratuity have voted alongside the right and the extreme right when inflation affects the entire economy and all population sectors, "so it is contradictory."

 

 

 

Torres warned that these measures will change transportation habits and asked for understanding for possible errors that may occur at the beginning, among other things due to the large volume of bus and tram trips that occur in the Canary Islands, “because, for example, in At the end of a normal year, like 2019, there were more than 45 million travelers. The bonds drop by 50% and this will lead to more use of public transport, which pollutes less and is convenient from an energy point of view.”

 

“I have always defended that there are trains in the Canary Islands, because they pollute less, and you can ask for everything to be free, but that could mean that we would not have the current welfare state. What is not true is that there is a comparative grievance with the Canary Islands and the data is conclusive because it is a 50% saving for all our public transport systems, which are integrated, and the 10% free use on the Peninsula. local or medium-distance trains. The economic contribution of the State to the islands, therefore, is greater and must be recognized.”

 

The protocol signed today commits the two administrations to analyze the situation of regular, collective and land public transport on the islands and evaluate the proposals for transitional aid that have been approved in Royal Decree-Law 14/2022, of August 1. The objective is to promote the expansion of this type of transitional aid mechanism that provides service in the Archipelago, for which those 20 percentage points have been raised.

 

To explain today's agreement in detail, the Minister of Transport of the Government of the Canary Islands plans to appear in the regional Parliament and clarify any doubts or misrepresentations about what these measures mean in the islands and the comparison with the rest of Spaniards.

 

The Canary Islands Executive has always maintained that regular public, collective and land transport in the archipelago constitutes a first-order need for the development of communications, paying special attention to the geographical reality and the obligatory interoperability with other modes of transport such as maritime or the aerial. In this regard, both insularity and forced intermodality have formed a transport sector in the Canary Islands that presents notable differences with respect to its organization, size and operation on the Peninsula.

 

Furthermore, due to this special geographical configuration, most of the mobility carried out in the Canary Islands is carried out by land transport and, of this, the most relevant corresponds to what can be called island mobility. For this reason, the Government of the Canary Islands invokes article 8 of the Law of the Economic and Fiscal Regime of the Canary Islands (REF), in which regular public passenger transport is recognized as an essential public service and that its planning and management will be carried out in an integrated manner and with an insular nature, its financing being guaranteed through the General State Budgets.