Basques and Andalusians want Spanish Space Agency in Maspalomas

That Maspalomas is the headquarters of the Spanish Space Agency runs into the criteria that are now emerging in the Peninsula against the south of Gran Canaria when these people have not been in the space race for 50 years because they were behind due to Franco's dictatorship. This Wednesday it was learned that Huelva, Seville, both in Andalusia, and the Basque Country want to remove the headquarters of this space R&D center from Maspalomas and that it would generate a boost to conference tourism as well as a professional opportunity for young talents from the south of the island.

The curious thing is that an entity that must be linked to the Defense of Spain generates in the Basque Country to be the headquarters when there is full activity on the islands with the IAC or the INTA center in Maspalomas. What will an INTA scientist prefer: the historical discretion of INTA in Maspalomas or the Basque and Andalusian pressures for public contracts that emanate from research? 

The mayor of Huelva, Gabriel Cruz, has insisted that the capital is the "most competitive" candidate to host the headquarters of the Spanish Space Agency, since he has recalled that it is the only capital in Andalusia that "is not the headquarters of any official body" so he considers that "that has to weigh" when it comes to "considering it as the ideal city for it to be in." The Governing Council of the Government of Andalusia considered this Wednesday that "once the criteria of the State Administration have been evaluated, we have verified that Seville meets more requirements than Huelva" as a candidate to be the headquarters of the Spanish Space Agency (AEA), a conclusion, as explained by the Minister of Sustainability and spokesman for the Andalusian Government, Ramón Fernández-Pacheco.

For its part, the Basque Government considers that the Basque Country has "an important space industry and a scientific and technological ecosystem" that make the Basque autonomous community "ideal" to host the headquarters. Euskadi will choose to host the headquarters of the future Spanish Space Agency. The Minister of Economic Development, Sustainability and Environment Arantxa Tapia has presented to the Government Council the suitability of Euskadi's candidacy for the establishment of the future Space Agency. The candidacy has been supported by the Basque Government and this support will be included in the official presentation of the candidacy.