By Casimiro Curbelo, president of the Cabildo of La Gomera
The Canary Islands cannot understand their mobility with the same parameters as a continuous territory. We are a fragmented archipelago, with complex orography and communication difficulties that, on many occasions, occur even within the same island. For this reason, roads are not only infrastructure: they are instruments of territorial cohesion, access to services and equality between citizens, wherever they live. These geographical singularities and their impact on communications are part of the Canary Islands' own road planning.
For decades, road agreements between the Canary Islands and the State have been a decisive tool to modernize our road network and make possible actions that require significant investment capacity, taking into account that our islands have neither a railway network nor high-speed lines.
The current agreement has a maximum financing of 1,448 million euros and its execution horizon has been extended until 2030. However, practically all of these resources have already been committed, which forces us to look beyond the current framework and prepare in time for the next investment cycle.
That must be one of the great axes of work in the coming years. It is not about waiting for the current agreement to end to begin negotiating the next one, but about anticipating it. I have argued that this new framework must begin to be prepared sufficiently in advance so that it can provide continuity to investments from 2027 and avoid gaps in the financing of new actions.
Planning is especially important for councils, which need certainty to order priorities, mature projects and coordinate their decisions with the Government of the Canary Islands and the State. Road infrastructure requires time to plan, process and execute. If we want to respond adequately to the needs of each territory, we must work with a medium and long-term perspective.
Furthermore, the next agreement must start from a basic premise: the Canary Islands are not a homogeneous reality. Each island has different needs, conditioned by its population, its relief, its territorial model and its connections with ports, airports, health centers and main centers of activity. Hence the importance of the new investment cycle allowing the incorporation of strategic actions on all the islands and completing and modernizing their road networks.
In La Gomera we know well the importance of this instrument. Thanks to the road agreements, essential actions have been promoted such as the Paredes-Alajeró-Airport road. The Vallehermoso Bypass, the connection between the hospital and the port of San Sebastián and, as a priority, the improvement of the GM-2 from Degollada de Peraza to the port of the island capital also remain relevant.
Moving towards a new agreement means, ultimately, planning for the future responsibly, providing continuity to investments and offering administrations a stable framework to continue modernizing our communications. In a territory like ours, improving mobility also means shortening distances, reinforcing cohesion and preventing the difficulties imposed by geography from translating into inequalities of opportunity.
