Sánchez to seek urgent fix for Canary Islands migration crisis
“No one can be against alleviating the absolute emergency we have in the Canary Islands,” an official said.
MADRID – Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s government (PSOE/S&D) has set a 10-day deadline to find a temporary solution to the overcrowding in migrant reception centres for unaccompanied minors in the Canary Islands.
The islands’ reception centres are overwhelmed due to a surge in migrants arriving in precarious boats from West Africa via the dangerous Atlantic route, particularly since last August. Despite harsh winter sea conditions, arrivals have not stopped, as Canarias 7 reported.
The main opposition force, Spain’s Partido Popular (PP/EPP), urged last summer to decree a state of migratory emergency, while the party’s spokesman in parliament, Miguel Tellado, suggested deploying the army to curb irregular migration.
Now, Madrid and the regional conservative coalition of the PP and Coalición Canaria have committed to devising a temporary solution within 10 days, Spanish public broadcaster RTVE reported.
A significant point of contention is the proposed mandatory distribution of migrant minors across Spain’s 17 autonomous communities, which is currently voluntary.
Madrid wants to approve a formula that allows for such redistribution without modifying the Law on Foreigners—a move strongly opposed by the PP and the far-right Vox party (PfE). Sánchez’s government must also overcome the refusal of the right-wing separatist Catalan party JxCat, which provides key support to the Spanish prime minister until the end of his term in 2027.
According to the Canary Islands government, some 4,000 minors from the region and another 400 from the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in North Africa should be transferred to Spain’s mainland.
Fernando Clavijo, the regional executive president, said the extraordinary measure could be taken by decree law as a first step. “No one can be against alleviating the absolute emergency we have in the Canary Islands,” he said on Wednesday.
On 9 October 2024, Sánchez urged the European Parliament to accelerate the implementation of the Migration and Asylum Pact from 2026 to 2025 to ease the migration crisis.
(Fernando Heller | Euractiv.es)
