Back and forth at the helm of the Canary Islands government
In the Canary Islands, as in the rest of Spain, the 1978 constitution set the rules for the political arena. Since then, the country has become a constitutional monarchy, with Felipe VI as Head of State, succeeding his father Juan Carlos I after his abdication in 2014. The same constitution transferred a significant share of decision-making power to the regions, and since August 10, 1982, the Canaries have had autonomous status, like the other 16 Spanish regions.
On the executive side, local government is exercised by the Gobierno de Canarias, headed by a president who sits alternately, every 4 years, in Santa Cruz de Tenerife or Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. On the legislative front, the parliament (70 members elected for 4-year terms and permanently seated in Santa Cruz) is in charge. Administratively, the community is divided into 2 provinces: Tenerife, which includes La Palma, La Gomera and El Hierro, with Santa Cruz de Tenerife as its capital, and Gran Canaria, which includes Fuerteventura and Lanzarote, with Las Palmas de Gran Canaria as its capital. Each of the 7 islands is also governed by a cabildo, a kind of island municipal council, which enjoys a degree of autonomy in the areas of culture, tourism, the environment, health, roads and water, elected by direct universal suffrage for a 4-year term.
The regional elections of May 2019 marked a turning point in the governance of the Canary Islands, with Ángel Victor Torres, PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party), taking the helm of the Gobierno. This followed the so-called "Las flores" pact between the PSOE, winner of the regional elections, Nueva Canarias, Podemos and Agrupación Socialista Gomera, which put an end to almost 30 years in power by Coalición Canaria, a grouping of nationalist parties that had held the post since its creation in 1993, often after an agreement with the right-wing PP (Partido Popular). The regional elections of May 2023 saw another turn in the other direction, with Coalición Canaria returning to power and former president Fernando Clavijo Battle (CC) at the head of the Gobierno. Although the PSOE came out on top in these elections, it did not have an absolute majority, not least because of the collapse of its ally Podemos. This majority was obtained via a government agreement between the PP and the CC, joined by the ASG Agrupación Socialista Gomera. Majority achieved through a government agreement between PP and CC, joined by the ASG Agrupación Socialista Gomera and the Agrupación Herreña Independiente (close to PP).
The preponderance of tourism
The Canary Islands' economy is strongly dominated by services, since the tertiary sector alone employs almost three quarters of the active population and generates an identical percentage of GDP (gross domestic product). This is a long-standing trend that has only increased over the years. This sector is itself strongly dominated by tourism, which accounts for an average of about 50% of service sector jobs and 50% of its GDP. And more than 30% of the overall GDP of the Canary Islands. Even if the money earned does not always benefit the islands, since the many foreign companies present often invest the money earned in their own country or pay their annual taxes in headquarters located in the mainland. In addition, other activities in the secondary sector are highly dependent on tourism, such as construction, which employs nearly 8% of the working population and nearly half of all secondary jobs. While this activity contributed a great deal to the economy of the archipelago from the late 1990s to the early 2000s, it was deeply affected by the financial crisis of 2008, which led to the freezing and abandonment of many construction sites, whose "corpses" can still be seen today, because removing them would be far too expensive. In the secondary sector, Tenerife and Gran Canaria have 80% of the industrial companies and more than 90% of the jobs generated by this sector. The industry has also developed in port activities and oil refining (the most important center in Santa Cruz de Tenerife) as well as in the food industry, associated with the refrigeration industry. With 10% of the cultivated land, agriculture has a minimal share in the Canary Islands economy. The main products are barley, wheat, vines, potatoes, bananas and tomatoes, which are sold in Spain and Europe.
And always the ground y playa
While the arrival of European elites in search of calm and good health led to the installation of luxury tourist infrastructures in the north of Tenerife as early as the end of the 19th century, the tourism boom, which began in the 1960s with the development of regular shipping services between the islands and with mainland France, and was accentuated in the 1970s by the multiplication of air transport, gave rise to a completely different tourism model. Instead, the result was the creation of numerous hotel complexes in the south of almost all the islands, offering sol y playa vacations at the lowest possible cost. Although often denounced by certain tourism professionals who would like to see it replaced by quality tourism that promotes the archipelago's culture and inner riches, this Anglo-Saxon model of tourism development continues to flourish. Perhaps also because the English are still the Canaries', as well as Spain's, biggest market. In 2023, the Canaries will remain Spain's third most popular tourist destination, after Catalonia and the Balearic Islands. And the archipelago received over 14 million foreign tourists, a million more than in 2019, the last year before the Covid pandemic, but less than its record of 15 million in 2017. The English came first (1 in 10 foreign visitors), followed by the French (nearly 12%) and then the Germans (nearly 11%). This increase has been analyzed as a consequence of the decline of certain Mediterranean destinations such as Turkey and Egypt.
