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Las Palmas de Gran Canaria – The president of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo, has requested in a letter to the new European commissioner for home affairs and migration, Magnus Brunner, to prioritize the archipelago – the EU outermost region – in the distribution of the funds planned to finance the implementation of the European Migration and Asylum Pact due to the “critical situation” experienced by the autonomous community with the migration crisis.
This was reported this Friday by the regional government, which also states that the highest authority in the Canary Islands has invited the Austrian leader to visit the islands to have “a real view of the situation” in the Canary Islands with the arrival of more than 45,000 migrants this year and the solitary hosting of about 5,400 unaccompanied minors.
The letter sent to Brunner recalls that, once the Spanish Execution Plan of the Migration and Asylum Pact is presented, the European Commission “will have to adopt during the first half of 2025 the decision to allocate the funds corresponding to the national program in the context of the mid-term review of AMIF and IGFV, as well as the funds from the mid-term review of the MFF”.
Likewise, the Canary Islands president asked the commissioner that the distribution of these financial resources takes into account “the enormous increase — of migrants — experienced during this year” by the Canary Islands.
“We would wish that the European Commission — he added — could issue a call for support, unity, and solidarity to achieve a common response to this migration challenge, which is not addressed by the regions that are on the front line, as outer borders, and which requires a coordinated multi-level response”.
The president reminded the new European head of interior and migration that the archipelago is suffering the largest migration crisis in its history, causing “a tremendous impact at all levels in a territory like ours, which already suffers the inherent conditions of outermost regions”.
Specifically, Clavijo described the situation of caring for more than 5,400 unaccompanied minor migrants alone as “completely unsustainable”.
Meanwhile, the letter to Brunner highlights the high mortality rate of the Atlantic Route. In fact, the annual report of the NGO Caminando Fronteras estimates that 9,757 people lost their lives in 2024, implying an average of 28 deaths per day.
This letter sent by the Canary Islands president to the European commissioner is complemented by another sent a few days ago to the head of the Spanish government, the socialist Pedro Sánchez.
In said letter, Clavijo requested access to the content and specific measures contained in the plan that Spain has sent to Brussels for the execution of the European Migration and Asylum Pact.
Likewise, he reminded Sánchez that “this document is fundamental for frontier regions like the Canary Islands, which bear much of the country’s migration pressure and will undoubtedly mark the next steps to be followed within the framework of the implementation of the European Migration and Asylum Pact throughout the European Union’s territory”.
Finally, Clavijo used the letter to ask Pedro Sánchez if “he has received a response from the European institutions regarding the proposal to bring forward the implementation of the Migration and Asylum Pact to the summer of 2025”. The Spanish president announced this request during a plenary session of the Congress of Deputies held on October 9. (December 27)
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