The Vice President of the Government of the Canary Islands, Manuel Domínguez, stressed this Wednesday that both the European Union (EU) and Latin America must show "ambition" to "build a common future" and consolidate an alliance that "does not live only off its past".
During his speech at the opening of the Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly (EuroLat), which is taking place in Tenerife, he stated that it is a "true pride" that the event has moved from Brussels to be held in the Canary Islands, a territory that "knows very well" that the Atlantic "has never been just an ocean that separates continents" but "a round trip path, of encounters, opportunities and many shared stories".
In this context, he emphasized that Latin America "has never been a distant reality" for the archipelago and that it is part of its "history and identity". At the same time, he focused on another side of the Atlantic "much harsher": that of African emigration, with almost 47,000 people arriving on the islands in 2024 and, in just the last week, more than 1,500 people arriving in El Hierro aboard around twenty cayucos.
"Behind those figures there are people, there are families and there are many lives lost on one of the most dangerous migration routes in the world," he pointed out, calling for more resources, a "true application" of all the laws and a "true involvement" of each and every one of the administrations.
He warned that "we cannot continue facing each migration spike as if it were an unpredictable threat, we cannot be satisfied with managing the consequences when the boats have already reached our coasts, we must also act at the source, cooperate with African countries and directly combat those criminal human trafficking organizations".
Domínguez framed his call in a scenario of "deep international transformations", marked by "competition" between powers and the advance of protectionism, and urged the EU and Latin America to "decide what role they want to play in the world".
Regarding the Canary Islands, he recalled that the agri-food sector employs more than 63,000 people and that it has "emblematic" products such as bananas, tomatoes or wine, which are part of the economic "identity" of the archipelago. For this reason, in addition to "opening markets", he defended the need to increase investments.
Finally, he has reiterated the importance of strengthening cooperation in matters of security "and defending without ambiguity democracy, the Rule of Law and Human Rights".