In the business association of the port of Las Palmas, the tone is no longer one of caution, but of structural urgency. José Mayor, president of Oneport —the association where executives, unlike the official technocracy, risk their own capital—, pointed out on Tuesday the sore point of an administrative decay that threatens to turn the Special Registry of Ships and Shipping Companies of the Canary Islands (Rebeca) into a mere bureaucratic memory. At an event organized by the College of Economists of Las Palmas, Mayor stated that ‘in the port of Las Palmas there is no staff, nor is it expected’, condemning an anachronism that has caused an unprecedented loss of maritime sovereignty to more agile jurisdictions like Madeira.
Mirage
The disconnection between economic reality and academic training exacerbates the diagnosis. José Ramón Barrera, Commissioner of the REF, speaker at the event that analyzed the potential of the Outermost Regions (RUP) such as the Canary Islands in the EU, highlighted a piece of data that explains the lack of succession in defending the Canary statute: 98% of university students are unaware of the catalog of incentives of the islands. In light of this gap, Oneport has called for leadership to change the perception of the Economic and Fiscal Regime (REF) from the port and logistics sector. For investors, the message is clear: without a deep reorganization of the incentives map and a real staffing of the registry, Rebeca will remain a ‘mirage of sovereignty’ in an Atlantic that predominantly speaks other fiscal languages.
Employees
The case is that in the Canary Islands many executives of port companies are administrators or commercial agents, which is essentially the same, and do not defend anything related to REF incentives in the naval sector unless there is official assistance midway through the BOE. This is why Rebeca is half-dead.
Setback
The figures from 2025 confirm that the Canary registry has entered a phase of technical dismantling. For the first time in contemporary history, the fleet under the national flag has fallen below the psychological barrier of 90 vessels, now standing at only 84 units. This historical minimum is not just a matter of inventory; it represents a loss of financial muscle. The gross tonnage (GT) has plummeted by 16%, dropping below 2 million tons for the first time in 22 years. The departure of large vessels, especially LNG carriers —whose tonnage has dropped by 22%— demonstrates that major energy operators no longer find the Canary tax incentive a sufficient reason to endure the administrative paralysis of the State.
The phenomenon of foreign flagging has ceased to be a tactical option and has become the norm for survival. While the Spanish registry languishes, the fleet controlled by national shipping companies under foreign flags has climbed to 119 units. Today, nearly two-thirds of the total tonnage (64%) controlled by Spanish shipowners sails under flags of other States. In just five years, the share of the national flag has lost ten percentage points. This ‘flag arbitration’ reflects an institutional failure: Spain is losing control over its strategic transportation assets while the port service environment of the Canary Islands observes how companies permanently established in its docks operate under the Portuguese flag at the stern.
