The recent commercial mission to Dakha, where there was an official who has to prepare the stevedoring specifications in Las Palmas as reported by Canarymaritime without anyone informing Brussels yet, and led by Fedeport, the port employers’ association of the 1978 regime in Las Palmas, has raised a wall of distrust in Gran Canaria that the president Antonio Morales has not hesitated to highlight by name. For those who defend the sovereignty and economic future of the Archipelago, the attitude of the port employers’ association is not pragmatism, but rather a worrying myopia that prioritizes immediate business profits over the strategic security of the Islands. The ‘general interest’ that the federation claims to defend seems to dissipate when crossing paths with the ambitions of Morocco, which does not hide its desire to stifle the leadership of Las Palmas.
The argument presented by Morales is as solid as it is alarming: one cannot walk hand in hand with those who seek to ‘snatch’ waters and air control. For Morales, while Fedeport justifies its presence in Western Sahara as a way of ‘knowing the competition’, the reality is that its participation lends a veneer of legitimacy to a project, the port of the former Villa Cisneros, designed to be the executioner of Canary logistical activity. Just as happened with Algeciras and Tangier-Med, for Morales, the technical or commercial support from the Canary Islands today could be the death certificate for thousands of jobs in the Port of La Luz tomorrow.
Morales has criticized the opacity of Fedeport given that its president, Juan Socas, is a partner of the Turkish group that has cruise terminals, just like in Las Palmas, but in Morocco, where he is awarded a concession in Casablanca recently. For Morales, it is incomprehensible that, while the primary sector in the Canary Islands is still bleeding from unfair competition from Moroccan products, the port employers’ association chooses to ignore the lessons of history. Participating in Morocco’s ‘Atlantic vision’ is, in practice, accepting a secondary and submissive role for the Canary Islands, turning the Archipelago into a ‘maritime prison’ surrounded by infrastructures financed and promoted by a neighbor that systematically ignores international law.
Morales’ attack on Fedeport touches upon a sore spot: Who do our business elites really serve? At a time when the Rabat-Washington-Tel Aviv axis is pressing on the Sahel and Canary waters, the lukewarmness of the employers’ association and its collusion with official business prospecting missions are seen by Nueva Canarias as a betrayal of the self-government and security model.
News written by Gara Vega. Edited and verified by Pedro Marrero. Cross-referenced information without institutional filters. This analysis has not been financed by official advertising or conditioned by lobbying interests.
