The Council of Ministers has approved the declaration of the island of La Palma as an Area Seriously Affected by a Civil Protection Emergency and has authorized to allocate a first aid of 10.5 million euros that will be sent to the autonomous community to meet the needs of the most urgent housing and household goods for those affected.
During the press conference after the Council of Ministers, the Minister Spokesperson, Isabel Rodríguez, made this announcement, which she described as “the most important” related to the emergency at this time to give aid to the island where it has been ten days ago. the eruption of the Cumbre Vieja volcano began, which has caused “many families” to have lost “everything.”
Thus, he explained that the Special Reconstruction Plan of La Palma begins, which begins with this first emergency phase, but will then be maintained over time during the recovery phase so that when the volcano stops, an evaluation of the damages to start the recovery of the island.
For this, the first necessary step has been the “formality” of declaring the island as a severely affected area as a civil protection emergency, which is the formula for incorporating all the Ministries in responding to the emergency.
But for the moment, to meet the first housing needs and to acquire the most essential belongings of the palm trees, Rodríguez has announced “concrete aid” through a direct grant that will be sent to the autonomous community of the Canary Islands, for an amount of 10.5 million euros.
Of them, as specified, 5.5 million will be allocated to the purchase of 107 homes and another five million will be distributed through a wallet card to those affected so that families can acquire the most essential items.
Regarding the housing part, Rodríguez has pointed out that the global aid will be managed directly in collaboration with the autonomous community, which will also provide a loan for the same purpose.
As detailed, “they can be publicly or privately owned but can be occupied immediately.” In the case of aid with the purse card model, he has said that it is pending to specify how this aid will be articulated.
Likewise, it has informed that different commissions will be formed to guarantee the agility of the aid and to monitor them in such a way as to guarantee rigor, but taking into account the current concern that “agility is required” in their processing.
Thus, he said that on Tuesday afternoon, the president of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, will preside over the first meeting of the Mixed Commission that brings together all the institutions that are going to address this monitoring.
The Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, the Minister of Territorial Policy, Isabel Rodríguez, the Government delegate in the Canary Islands, Anselmo Pestana, the President of the Government of the Canary Islands, will form part of this Commission. Ángel Víctor Torres, representatives of different councils, the president of the Cabildo and the three affected municipalities – El Paso, Los Llano and Tazacorte.
Likewise, the Government has created an Interministerial Commission with representation from 12 departments to gradually add up the initiatives that are emerging to help the island of La Palma, not so much immediately but in the second phase of reconstruction.
This commission will meet for the first time next Monday, October 4, and will work on measures such as repairing damage, housing, road or hydraulic infrastructures, livestock farms and crops, forest areas and public facilities.
With this package of three measures, as specified by the minister spokesperson, the Government wants to give immediate help but at the same time “transfer that its commitment is permanent, that it lasts over time”, hence there is a second phase to attend to the recovery , which will begin when the eruption of the volcano has ceased.
In his opinion, “this type of emergency has valued the necessary cooperation of all administrations.” “It is very important to be all together in emergency situations, unfortunately we are suffering too many in a short time, and that value of working together regardless of political color has shown the greatness of our democracy,” he stressed.
For her part, the Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, has announced the incorporation of the “volcanic ERTE or ERTE for La Palma and the Canary archipelago” that are subject to the ordinary deadline of February 28 but leave the door open to study the need to extend these measures. In addition, it has proposed a specific employment and training plan for the Canary Islands and, specifically, for La Palma.
For his part, the Minister of Inclusion, Social Security and Migration, José Luis Escrivá, has announced, also in relation to the emergency on La Palma, that they will establish an extraordinary benefit to facilitate access to it for the self-employed of the island, without requiring the minimum 12 months of contribution and setting a “counter to zero” for five months.
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