The conflict surrounding the Santa Águeda cement plant has moved beyond the realm of legitimate administrative disagreement and into the murky territory of social blackmail. The latest offensive by Cementos Especiales de las Islas (CEISA), owned by the Asturian group Masaveu and the Brazilian company Votorantim, requesting precautionary measures against the dismantling order issued by Puertos Canarios, is not merely a legal maneuver; it is a declaration of war against the very logic of progress on Gran Canaria.
It is imperative to denounce the information terrorism strategy that the company, and its suppliers with official signing authority in Las Palmas, are employing against the citizens of the south. Threatening to clog the island's main artery with one hundred trucks daily and burden the lungs of Gran Canaria's residents with an additional 3.000 tons of CO₂ is a despicable tactic. They are not seeking dialogue, but rather the capitulation of the public administration through fear. CEISA intends to subordinate the public interest to an expired concession that has long since fulfilled its historical purpose after 70 years of operation.
The manipulation of employment figures is particularly egregious. Maspalomas24H has evidence of an artificial inflation of the number of workers by subcontracting companies. In a morally reprehensible display of cynicism, these actors have chosen to play the "union card" and incite social unrest instead of approaching their respective employers' association to negotiate the logical transition of a sector undergoing restructuring. It is unacceptable to exploit the anguish of families to protect industrial privileges that are numbered.
No less questionable is the role of the CEISA Works Council. It is outrageous that the workers' representatives have allowed the company's management to exploit their jobs in a real estate chess game. The Council has failed in its oversight role, allowing the union's actions to be played outside ethical boundaries and permitting management to dictate a narrative in which the worker is used as a human shield against the law.
The proposed solution in Fuerteventura, with a 6.000-meter concession in Puerto del Rosario, is a balanced approach that guarantees production without jeopardizing the future of tourism in southern Gran Canaria. Persisting in the Santa Águeda blockade, inflating figures, and threatening traffic chaos only confirms that the cement company's management has lost touch with the reality of the Canary Islands, which has been its home for seven decades. Justice and the administration must not give in. The future of southern Gran Canaria cannot be held hostage by an industry that, faced with its inevitable relocation, chooses to burn its bridges at the expense of the citizens' well-being.
