Article published by Mr. José Carlos Francisco in La Gaveta Económica in the March 2017 issue.
In my penultimate book "The Necessary Reform. The Canary Islands in the Face of the Crisis of Our Lives" and in its fifth chapter, I exposed the characteristics of the new Canarian socioeconomy, which by virtue of five characteristic factors caused economic growth well below the potential of the islands. He spoke of corsets related to scale and geography, of the “mandarin” caste, of the legislative maelstrom, of the tourist moratorium and of the unaffordable time to develop a project.
Much later, in April 2016 and in these same pages, I spoke to you about a fundamental actor in the paralysis of public and private projects. The actor in question is the PIMELIA, a beetle supposedly endemic to the island of Tenerife.
A few weeks ago, as I mentioned in the previous issue of the magazine, the “Canary Economy Papers No. 2” was published, dedicated to the legislative overproduction that only in relation to regional legislation, advances at the rate of one Law and ten decrees a month.
The whirlwind is such that if you are thinking of launching any economic activity on any part of our territory, pay close attention, because each square meter is influenced by the General Urban Planning Plan, Island Territorial Plan, various Territorial Plans, Territorial Planning Law, Trade Law, Tourism Law, Environmental Law, protected species, coastal easements, airports, island water councils and mandatory reports of three or four administrations, especially equipped to make endless and usually negative reports.
Since there is so much legislation, it may happen that transcendental projects for the islands have been paralyzed, due to the appearance of the PIMELIA (a species protected in the 2010 catalogue), but which was subsequently eliminated from the catalogue, with officials not having found out about this circumstance until years later and having paralyzed useful investments for employment, connectivity and the well-being of the inhabitants of these islands.
