The Government of Spain will hold the first Bilateral Commissions of the 15th Legislature with the Canary Islands and the Basque Country

• Steps are being taken in negotiations with other communities such as Catalonia or Galicia and the number of agreements with the Autonomous Communities is increasing, avoiding recourse to the Constitutional Court • Negotiations with the Basque Executive are progressing with technical and political meetings for the transfer of the agreed competences • The management and management of the coast will be the main issue of the Bilateral that will be held with the Government of the Canary Islands Madrid, February 14, 2024.- The first Bilateral Commissions that will be held in this XV Legislature will be those of the Canary Islands and the Basque Country, communities that have formally requested their celebration. This was advanced by the Minister of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, in his appearance at the Congress of Deputies on January 29 and he recalled it today before the media that asked him today about the state of the negotiations. Ángel Víctor Torres assures that “it is the will of this Government of Spain to strengthen relations of cooperation and the search for consensus and agreements through dialogue and negotiation.” With regard to the Basque Country, the minister highlighted the advances that have been made, both technically and politically, in the transfers agreed in the investiture and legislative pacts, such as the management of the railways; the homologation and validation of foreign degrees and studies; and the phase of personal autonomy of the reception system. In the case of the Canary Islands, and following the request presented by the previous Government of the Canary Islands – and which has been ratified by the current regional executive – a Bilateral Commission will be convened that addresses issues related to the transfer in terms of the management and management of the coast, contemplated in the Statute of Autonomy and which has been in the hands of the Autonomous Community of the Canary Islands since January 1, 2023. Once these requests have been analyzed, the minister explained that they have been transferred to the Ministry of Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge to obtain the mandatory report, “and as soon as this documentation is received, the Bilateral Commission will be convened with the will, from the Ministry of Territorial Policy, to reach the maximum agreements without having to reach the Constitutional Court.” Speaking to the media on Wednesday, during an event in Granada, Torres insisted that the Statutes of Autonomy must be developed because “more autonomy is not less Spain, but quite the opposite”. He also recalled that “this Government of Spain firmly believes that the joint, coordinated and daily work path is the only one that allows to improve people’s lives and at the same time shows the best face of politics as a tool for conflict resolution.” In fact, he pointed out to journalists that in less than three months of the legislature nearly thirty agreements have been reached with Catalonia, Andalusia, Madrid, Galicia, Extremadura and the other communities “and we continue working to expand that number of agreements. In the face of noise, there is a daily and invisible work that gives results,” he concluded.