The attempt by major foreign industrial capital to regain a direct foothold in the Spanish Parliament has encountered an unexpected obstacle within the PP. Germán Suárez Calvo, director of Greek-owned Astican, head of the APD business association in the Canary Islands, the Canary Islands Maritime Cluster and vice-president of the Confederación Canaria de Empresarios (CCE), representing Fedeport, made an explicit call last February 2026 on Cadena SER to unite the nationalist movement into a parliamentary bloc in Madrid. Six or seven lawmakers, said the representative of the Las Palmas port shipyard founded by López de Letona, the minister from the winning side of the Civil War.
Snubbing Cayetana, isolation and empty gestures
Since Suárez Calvo’s proposal for a strong CC presence in Madrid — one that runs counter to the interests of Nueva Canarias, the PP and the PSOE — relations between him and the PP have been semi-frozen, as they have with the hard-line wing of the Canarian PSOE, despite an attempt at rapprochement during a low-key visit by Industry Minister Jordi Hereu to Laskaridis’s main business in the Canary Islands, held without a press call. This September, at a PP luncheon with the APD and Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo at the Hotel Santa Catalina, Suárez was present only for the opening photo and then left, according to sources confirmed by the Canarian PP.
The illusion of local power
Last weekend, in Canarias 7, regional vice-president and Popular Party leader Manuel Domínguez was unequivocal in certifying that the nationalist influence project promoted by the ship-repair company has no political future ahead of the 2027 elections.
Calculations by the island bourgeoisie
It was not only in an interview on Cadena SER. At an event with business leaders in Las Palmas, he said at the beginning of 2026 that «given Spain’s current circumstances, yes, I believe — and I will not shy away from saying so — that it would be appropriate to return to a time when a nationalist unity had a significant number of lawmakers in Congress, which brought advantages for the Canary Islands». «And what are the Canary Islands’ needs? In response to that question, we say that we need to strengthen our position in the Congress of Deputies, and that is a task the parties must undertake: joining forces and running together in national elections».
The arithmetic of disillusionment
For vice-president Manuel Domínguez, the island business community is guilty of arithmetic nostalgia by placing its faith in the figure of the “176th lawmaker”, which historically allowed Coalición Canaria to influence the approval of Spain’s General State Budgets. The PP leadership expects a comfortable majority in the 2027 elections that will neutralize the leverage of peripheral parties, leaving a hypothetical united nationalist group with no real negotiating power vis-à-vis a central government that will not need its votes to govern.
Irrelevance as a destination
Domínguez was unequivocal in dismissing the impact of local forces in the next national parliamentary term. The Canarian PP leader stated that «no nationalist movement, including CC, will carry any weight because a comfortable PP-led government is expected and, of course, if there are issues that are necessary for the Canary Islands, I will be this land’s strongest advocate wherever I am». The vice-president stressed that he was not advocating the disappearance of the regional parties, but predicted their irrelevance, assuring that they would have «no weight whatsoever, neither the radicals nor the non-radicals, because the numbers will add up. Spain currently has a government held hostage in exchange for several votes that keep it alive».
Bureaucracy of survival
The Popular Party leadership assumes that the defense of the Canary Islands’ economic interests — including the additional €1.337 billion a year in regional financing and the provisions of the so-called “Canary Islands decree” — will be handled directly by the PP in Madrid, eliminating the need for business intermediaries or regional parties.
The ruin of intermediary ambitions
This standoff has widened the gap between the port’s agenda and the interests of nationwide parties. While Laskaridis’s representatives in the Canary Islands are demanding a political arm under their control in Madrid to protect their business from competition by other international hubs, the Popular Party is redefining the rules of the game by maintaining that, in the post-2027 landscape, there will be no room for nationalist arbitration, leaving the intermediary parliamentary ambition frozen before it can even get started.
The article The Arithmetic of Decline: PP Puts an End to Astican’s Hopes for Coalición Canaria in Madrid was first published on canarymaritime.com.
