The lack of coordination between ministries before the arrival of boats overflows the Canary Islands

The Arguineguín pier, in Gran Canaria, where this Wednesday more than 1,300 people slept in the open Elvira Urquijo A. / EFE

A new upturn in the arrival of boats has once again overwhelmed the Canary Islands.

The islands have received more than 10,000 migrants this year, a third of the number registered in 2006, the worst year of the so-called cayuco crisis.

It was a challenge announced since September 2019 - when the security forces anticipated the reopening of this migratory route - but the lack of a plan and the difficulties imposed by the pandemic have raised a specific peak of landings to the category of crisis.

Since Wednesday, about 1,300 people have been sleeping on the floor of the Arguineguín dock (Gran Canaria) due to lack of facilities to serve them.

The Executive of Pedro Sánchez, absorbed by the health, economic and political crisis, is now accelerating solutions to decongest the islands, which will resume part of their tourist activity this weekend.

Vice President Carmen Calvo convened this Friday in a telematic meeting all the Secretariats of State with powers in migration matters, including those of Foreign Affairs, Security and Migration.

According to sources familiar with the meeting, the CNI director, Paz Esteban, also attended the meeting, but not Defense, although it was called.

The situation in the Canary Islands monopolized the meeting.

The message of the vice president, who coordinates the ministries that carry out migration management, was clear: This is a government problem and not just one ministry, everyone has to cooperate.

And as soon as possible.

The lack of harmony between ministers has weighed down the management of landings in the archipelago.

The Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migrations, José Luis Escrivá, responsible for the reception of migrants, has had several fronts open for weeks.

The first is with the Ministry of the Interior, which stops transfers to the Peninsula.

The department of Fernando Grande-Marlaska, waiting to be able to resume the expulsions since they were suspended in March due to the closure of borders, rejects very numerous referrals of migrants to the continent, considering them an incentive for more people to cross the Atlantic.

Migratory routes to the Canary Islands

Agadir

120 miles

Canary Islands

SPAIN

Lanzarote

Sidi Ifni

Fuerteventura

Great

Canary

So so

MOROCCO

Tarfaya

Laayoune

Bojador

Ocean

Atlantic

SAHARA

WESTERN

MAURITANIA

Dakhla

Zone

enlarged

Cape Blanco (Western Sahara)

100 km

Source: Maritime Rescue.

THE COUNTRY

Migratory routes to the Canary Islands

Agadir

120 miles

Canary Islands

SPAIN

Lanzarote

Sidi Ifni

Fuerteventura

Great

Canary

So so

MOROCCO

Tarfaya

Laayoune

Bojador

Ocean

Atlantic

SAHARA

WESTERN

MAURITANIA

Dakhla

Zone

enlarged

Cape Blanco (Western Sahara)

100 km

Source: Maritime Rescue.

THE COUNTRY

Migratory routes to the Canary Islands

Agadir

120 miles

MOROCCO

Canary Islands

SPAIN

Sidi Ifni

Lanzarote

Fuerteventura

Great

Canary

So so

ALGERIA

Tarfaya

Laayoune

Bojador

Ocean

Atlantic

SAHARA

WESTERN

MAURITANIA

Dakhla

Zone

enlarged

Cape Blanco (Western Sahara)

100 km

Source: Maritime Rescue.

THE COUNTRY

However, transfers to the Peninsula are crucial for Migrations because their reception network, which is especially precarious on the islands (in 2019 there were only 70 places, now there are 3,500), it is only sustainable if the entry of new users is compensated with the departure of others.

But without ejections or shunts there is no rotation.

In the Peninsula, 55% of the places in the network are free, but the undocumented migrants who arrive on the islands cannot leave there if it is not with a pass from the Police, an authorization that has been granted discreetly and at the drop of a hat: close 1,200 since last September.

There are also disagreements between the Ministry of Migration and the Ministry of Defense.

The last has been on account of the use of military aircraft for future transfers of migrants to the Peninsula.

Defense has been willing to transport them, but demands health and safety guarantees (that is, the presence of medical and police personnel on flights) and asks for the kerosene to be paid, claiming that it does not have the budget to attend this service.

The main point of disagreement, however, centers on the transfer of military infrastructure to house the newcomers.

The department of Margarita Robles, reluctant to get involved in the immigration issue, offered two facilities that had been abandoned for years and that require heavy investments to put them into use: the El Matorral barracks in Fuerteventura and Las Canteras in La Laguna (Tenerife).

The offer did not satisfy José Luis Escrivá who asked, instead, that a part of the military zone of La Isleta be enabled, in Gran Canaria, the island that is receiving the most pressure.

Defense rejected it outright, claiming that, for security reasons, facilities that are in use by the Armed Forces cannot be partially transferred and soldiers and immigrants forced to share the same spaces.

The solution that is now being worked on is the fitting out of the old Barranco Seco powder magazine, some eight kilometers from Las Palmas.

The migratory pressure in the islands has all the signs of being maintained during the next months.

The Spanish information services have detected a large number of sub-Saharan Africans in southern Mauritania willing to make the leap to Europe and the economic situation in Morocco worsened by the pandemic is pushing hundreds of Moroccans to the Atlantic.

Cooperation with Senegal, Gambia or Mauritania to prevent departures and reactivate returns is good, but, according to government sources, it must be expanded and strengthened.

The search for new reception resources is now even more urgent after the announcement by Germany and the United Kingdom to lift restrictions on their citizens to travel to the Canary Islands.

The inauguration of the high season on the islands will foreseeably force the eviction of the more than 2,700 migrants who are staying in hotels emptied by the pandemic.

This is the second migration management crisis that Pedro Sánchez faces since he arrived in La Moncloa in June 2018. That year, Spain registered a record number of irregular entries (more than 64,000), and Maritime Rescue, the security forces and the The host network was overwhelmed and scenes of migrants sleeping on the decks of rescue boats were repeated.

Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska then marked the reduction of irregular immigration - a dangerous electoral trump card for the extreme right - as one of the flags of his mandate.

Morocco thus renewed its leadership and with the intermediation of Spain - which gave it 32 million euros - it received another 140 million from the EU to reinforce control at its borders.

The strategy made it possible to cut irregular entries in half in 2019, but the greater Moroccan control, especially in the north of the country, ended up opening another route and pushing migrants towards the Atlantic route, which is longer, more difficult to control and much more difficult to control. more dangerous.