Asinca has lost the fight. In this land redolent of haze and supermarket sangria, where politicians cruise around in official cars while workers patch up things that can't be helped with duct tape, it had to be a mattress entrepreneur who called it quits. His name is Alexis Amaya. He's the CEO of Dormitorum, and what he's done hasn't been done by those who beat their chests at tourism galas or those who applaud with their ears at Berlin trade fairs. Until now, AIEM has been associated with food, but this is affecting tourism: from pool paint to the PVC of new windows in complexes being renovated, generating an impossible financial overrun in southern Gran Canaria amid competition from sun-and-beach destinations.
No one opposes the AIEM on a whim, but rather the absurdity of taxing things that make no sense. To avoid it, for example, a Russian company clones Tirma ambrosias—yes, those of the president of Asinca—and places them on the shelves of hard-discount supermarkets on the islands. It's the perversion of the round bed of the Canarian industrialists, to put it bluntly: every bed needs its box spring, and here that role is played by a political class disconnected from reality and surrendered to the game of the economic elites.
Amaya raised her voice like someone breaking down a door locked with a European bolt. She said it without fear, without Vaseline or nineteenth-century Chamber of Commerce protocol: the AIEM is an abuse. And she doesn't say this from the vantage point of an office with fine linen curtains, but from the warehouse where every mattress that enters pays a toll disguised as aid. The Tariff on the Importation and Delivery of Goods is an invention that, beneath the veneer of protecting local industry, serves to line the pockets of a few with the sweat of those who build businesses in the trenches of everyday life.
And that—and here comes the big one—hits the nail on the head for southern tourism. Because washing machines aren't manufactured in Maspalomas, Playa del Inglés, San Agustín, or Meloneras. They're purchased, imported, and serviced there. What's a hotelier's fault that there aren't sheet factories in Telde? Why should someone who rents a vacation home to a German family who comes to spend their wages on rum, salted sardines, and peace and quiet pay absurd overcharges?
Alexis Amaya's isn't the tantrum of a spoiled boss. It's a smackdown. A warning with the force of someone who knows the dock, the container, and the customs form. He knows—as does Sebastián Grisaleña, one of the few remaining importers with a sharp tongue—that the AIEM is nothing more than a collection machine that reeks of privilege and favors collected under the table. And now, to make matters worse, the European Commission is coming in with a magnifying glass in hand, because what was sold as aid and has ended up being an unjustifiable tax smells rotten.
And what are the Las Palmas media doing in the meantime? Silence. Concrete silence. But in the south, in that urbanized desert that sustains this island's GDP, Maspalomas24H has gotten involved within its modest means. It has told the story without any embellishments, without any frills. Because in the south, people live off tourism, not subsidies. And here, every additional cost is another stone in the backpack of the early bird. Amaya has broken the sanitary cordon that Asinca imposed years ago and has said what many think but few dare to, for fear of upsetting those in power. Finally, someone has spoken. Finally, someone has put a name to the outrage. Let those who oppose logic tremble. Let the AIEM prepare itself. Because the south of Gran Canaria is not a colony of Las Palmas. The south is the driving force. And it was about time someone said it clearly: the south also exists.
