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10-08-2022, 10:19 PM
Noticias:
The government of the Canary Islands also enters the debate of the population burden.
The vice president hopes that the debate will not drag on for two decades again because "the population increase due to the arrival of foreigners, especially Europeans, stresses the labor market, infrastructure and the environmental burden"
The Vice President of the Canary Islands and Minister of Finance, Budgets and European Affairs, Román Rodríguez, warns that excessive population growth compromises the social and economic recovery of the islands. In his opinion, it hinders the absorption capacity of the labor market, despite recording historical data on Social Security contributors; it strains existing infrastructures – roads, housing, hospital or educational facilities, water treatment plants or waste treatment – multiplies the problems of land mobility and increases electricity demand, territorial occupation and water consumption. In short, it threatens sustainability.
Rodríguez recalls that the Canary Islands have experienced a population growth of more than 30% so far this century, increasing their number of inhabitants by more than half a million. In the same period, the Basque Country – a territory of similar size to the island – grew by 3.76% (about 80,000 people), which is eight times less than the percentage increase of our community and already has less population than the islands. The whole of the Spanish State did so by 17%, just over half that of our land. If we take the year 1990 as a reference, the population in the Canary Islands has risen by almost 52%, compared to 2.9% in the Basque Country and 22.1% of the state average.
Of this demographic increase in the Canary Islands (530,000 more inhabitants in just two decades), only a part – about 70,000 – correspond to vegetative growth (number of births minus the number of deaths). The rest, some 460,000, are people who came from other parts of the world, mainly from other autonomous communities and the European Union, a very relevant circumstance in the face of selective xenophobic discourses. Of the current foreign population on the islands, 53.28% comes from EU states (mainly, and in order, Italians, English and Germans) compared to 25.77% from America and only 10.23% from Africa, percentages that undo prejudices.
More specifically, the gain of residents in the archipelago is due, in the last year, to the foreign population since the vegetative balance (birth versus deaths) is negative. Of 2,252,565 inhabitants, 287,488 (13%) are foreigners.
The Vice-President of the Government stresses that the progression is not linear in all the islands. Faced with processes of overpopulation in the islands of Gran Canaria and, especially, Tenerife, there is an outstanding growth in Fuerteventura and Lanzarote, where the native population begins to be a minority. In La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro, the population stagnates or even descends, leading to specific and adequate responses to their realities.
2.5 million inhabitants
The projections included in the report of the Economic and Social Council of the Canary Islands (CES) for eleven years from now, place our archipelago with 2.5 million inhabitants. "An unsustainable barbarity from any point of view," emphasizes Román Rodríguez. Tenerife would exceed one million, with a foreign population of around 29%. Gran Canaria would increase more moderately, by 9%, reaching 920,000 and with a 17% foreign population. Fuerteventura would increase its current population to a huge 45%, with a minority of the native population, and Lanzarote would rise by 29%, with 192,792 inhabitants, of which 38%, 73,260 people, will be foreign residents.
"Such an uncontrolled demographic process causes distortions that force an exercise of study, rigor and efficiency in which we start from the premise that to speak of population is to speak of an economic model. This is the only way to control demographics," he explains. Therefore, "the role of the study commission on the demographic challenge constituted in the Canarian Parliament must really be key".
"The forecasts a decade ahead would not only hinder the social and economic recovery that all the data in these areas confirm, but there is a certain risk that they multiply some of the problems that exist today, especially those linked to sustainability," says the Minister of Finance, Budgets and European Affairs.
Both the current data and their projections in the short and medium term "advise urgent and bold measures, not only diagnoses and proposals. Almost two decades have passed since the Committee of Experts that I promoted as President of the Government presented its conclusions on this matter, as valid as they were not applied."
In that report, they concluded that "the pressure of the population on the territory has a special character in the Canary Islands. Islands do not support the same capacity as mainland territories, especially remote islands." They already stressed then that those who arrived at the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the XXI were, fundamentally, young people with small children or who had them once established on the islands. Assuming, therefore, a greater weight of the potentially active group in the workforce as a whole.
On the other hand, the conclusions of the Committee of Experts highlighted the importance of the territorial planning and sectoral guidelines for tourism – approved by Parliament in 2003 – to reorient the economic model towards sustainability and modulate population growth as the only feasible option to reorient the situation, given the complexity or impossibility of a residence law restricting free movement within the European framework. But successive governments caused those norms to decline. Thus, demographic policy actions should be subordinated "to options for future development in the field of the economy and the environment, in particular".
Rigorous and prompt debate
Almost twenty years after that document, "the debate reopens and we want it to be rigorous and without previous closed positions. What seems clear is that, from the Canary Islands, we must look for formulas that make it possible to stop uncontrolled population growth to continue reducing unemployment, through an adequate management of the territory and natural resources. Only in this way can the lag in our public services and circulatory chaos on the roads be avoided, while promoting sustainability. But this debate cannot drag on for another two decades. Not even one because the two crises that have occurred since then require actions as immediate as possible," says Román Rodríguez.
The government of the Canary Islands also enters the debate of the population burden.
The vice president hopes that the debate will not drag on for two decades again because "the population increase due to the arrival of foreigners, especially Europeans, stresses the labor market, infrastructure and the environmental burden"
The Vice President of the Canary Islands and Minister of Finance, Budgets and European Affairs, Román Rodríguez, warns that excessive population growth compromises the social and economic recovery of the islands. In his opinion, it hinders the absorption capacity of the labor market, despite recording historical data on Social Security contributors; it strains existing infrastructures – roads, housing, hospital or educational facilities, water treatment plants or waste treatment – multiplies the problems of land mobility and increases electricity demand, territorial occupation and water consumption. In short, it threatens sustainability.
Rodríguez recalls that the Canary Islands have experienced a population growth of more than 30% so far this century, increasing their number of inhabitants by more than half a million. In the same period, the Basque Country – a territory of similar size to the island – grew by 3.76% (about 80,000 people), which is eight times less than the percentage increase of our community and already has less population than the islands. The whole of the Spanish State did so by 17%, just over half that of our land. If we take the year 1990 as a reference, the population in the Canary Islands has risen by almost 52%, compared to 2.9% in the Basque Country and 22.1% of the state average.
Of this demographic increase in the Canary Islands (530,000 more inhabitants in just two decades), only a part – about 70,000 – correspond to vegetative growth (number of births minus the number of deaths). The rest, some 460,000, are people who came from other parts of the world, mainly from other autonomous communities and the European Union, a very relevant circumstance in the face of selective xenophobic discourses. Of the current foreign population on the islands, 53.28% comes from EU states (mainly, and in order, Italians, English and Germans) compared to 25.77% from America and only 10.23% from Africa, percentages that undo prejudices.
More specifically, the gain of residents in the archipelago is due, in the last year, to the foreign population since the vegetative balance (birth versus deaths) is negative. Of 2,252,565 inhabitants, 287,488 (13%) are foreigners.
The Vice-President of the Government stresses that the progression is not linear in all the islands. Faced with processes of overpopulation in the islands of Gran Canaria and, especially, Tenerife, there is an outstanding growth in Fuerteventura and Lanzarote, where the native population begins to be a minority. In La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro, the population stagnates or even descends, leading to specific and adequate responses to their realities.
2.5 million inhabitants
The projections included in the report of the Economic and Social Council of the Canary Islands (CES) for eleven years from now, place our archipelago with 2.5 million inhabitants. "An unsustainable barbarity from any point of view," emphasizes Román Rodríguez. Tenerife would exceed one million, with a foreign population of around 29%. Gran Canaria would increase more moderately, by 9%, reaching 920,000 and with a 17% foreign population. Fuerteventura would increase its current population to a huge 45%, with a minority of the native population, and Lanzarote would rise by 29%, with 192,792 inhabitants, of which 38%, 73,260 people, will be foreign residents.
"Such an uncontrolled demographic process causes distortions that force an exercise of study, rigor and efficiency in which we start from the premise that to speak of population is to speak of an economic model. This is the only way to control demographics," he explains. Therefore, "the role of the study commission on the demographic challenge constituted in the Canarian Parliament must really be key".
"The forecasts a decade ahead would not only hinder the social and economic recovery that all the data in these areas confirm, but there is a certain risk that they multiply some of the problems that exist today, especially those linked to sustainability," says the Minister of Finance, Budgets and European Affairs.
Both the current data and their projections in the short and medium term "advise urgent and bold measures, not only diagnoses and proposals. Almost two decades have passed since the Committee of Experts that I promoted as President of the Government presented its conclusions on this matter, as valid as they were not applied."
In that report, they concluded that "the pressure of the population on the territory has a special character in the Canary Islands. Islands do not support the same capacity as mainland territories, especially remote islands." They already stressed then that those who arrived at the end of the twentieth century and the beginning of the XXI were, fundamentally, young people with small children or who had them once established on the islands. Assuming, therefore, a greater weight of the potentially active group in the workforce as a whole.
On the other hand, the conclusions of the Committee of Experts highlighted the importance of the territorial planning and sectoral guidelines for tourism – approved by Parliament in 2003 – to reorient the economic model towards sustainability and modulate population growth as the only feasible option to reorient the situation, given the complexity or impossibility of a residence law restricting free movement within the European framework. But successive governments caused those norms to decline. Thus, demographic policy actions should be subordinated "to options for future development in the field of the economy and the environment, in particular".
Rigorous and prompt debate
Almost twenty years after that document, "the debate reopens and we want it to be rigorous and without previous closed positions. What seems clear is that, from the Canary Islands, we must look for formulas that make it possible to stop uncontrolled population growth to continue reducing unemployment, through an adequate management of the territory and natural resources. Only in this way can the lag in our public services and circulatory chaos on the roads be avoided, while promoting sustainability. But this debate cannot drag on for another two decades. Not even one because the two crises that have occurred since then require actions as immediate as possible," says Román Rodríguez.