The Government of Canarias has expressed its profound perplexity regarding a request from the Government Delegation in Canarias, asking the Directorate General for Child and Family Protection to appoint temporary representatives for unaccompanied foreign minors during the triage phase within fifteen days, under threat of potential action for non-compliance.
The Minister of Social Welfare, Equality, Youth, Childhood, and Families, Candelaria Delgado, who was in Madrid to attend the Sectoral Conference on Immigration (ultimately suspended due to lack of quorum), conveyed to Minister Elma Sainz that it is particularly striking that this demand is made without first explaining to the autonomous communities the scope of obligations derived from Regulation (EU) 2024/1356, nor establishing common criteria for its application throughout the national territory.
In a subsequent meeting, both administrations agreed to hold a bilateral meeting on August 26 to address all agenda items from this call and any other of interest to Canarias, aiming to advance institutional coordination and respond to the specific needs of Canarias as a border territory.
Candelaria Delgado stated that Canarias will respond to the request by refusing, arguing that "it has not yet been established by the Spanish State ministries how this protocol will be implemented, or who should be involved in this triage." She explained that the minister and her team were unaware of this specific request from the Government Delegation in Canarias, and that the minister committed to speaking with the Minister of the Interior and the Minister for Childhood to define the protocol for triage actions.
The Government of Canarias had planned to ask at the Sectoral Conference on Immigration – the first convened in approximately sixteen months – for the ministry to clarify the scope of new obligations arising from the European Pact on Migration and Asylum and to establish a uniform procedure for all autonomous communities to ensure the necessary institutional coordination for its correct application, as it has been expressly requesting in writing from the relevant ministries for months, and as previously expressed at the Sectoral Conference on Childhood.
This circumstance is even more surprising given that the General State Administration itself recently stated in a press release that "the main impact of the Pact has been detected within the General State Administration" and that, "as soon as the implications for the autonomous communities are specified, they will be immediately informed and the necessary cooperation and coordination measures will be taken to support them in the implementation of the PEMA."
In the opinion of the Government of Canarias, the received request raises significant legal and competence-related questions that should have been resolved beforehand and in coordination among all involved administrations.
Firstly, it is necessary to determine which administration is competent to appoint the temporary representative of the minor during the triage phase, considering that this procedure corresponds to the State and that regional competencies in child protection are activated once this process is completed and the person's minority is determined.
Likewise, Canarias considers it necessary to clarify why this request is directed at the autonomous community when the State itself had communicated that the implications of the new Regulation for the communities were still pending concretization and would be subject to information and coordination before implementation.
Similarly, the regional Executive understands that, if the General State Administration has established various working groups to develop the application of the European Pact on Migration and Asylum, including one specific to the triage procedure, it is essential to know whether a common action protocol for the entire national territory already exists or, conversely, if actions are being demanded from the autonomous communities before such a framework has been defined.
The Minister of Social Welfare, Equality, Youth, Childhood, and Families recalls that she has always shown her utmost willingness to collaborate with the State in the protection of migrant children and adolescents and in the correct application of European regulations. Precisely for this reason, she considers that a matter of such importance must be addressed through institutional cooperation, legal certainty, and respect for the division of competencies, and not through unilateral requests accompanied by warnings about potential legal consequences.
