Ángel Víctor Torres announces that the Interministerial Commission on Immigration will be constituted next week

The Minister for Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory, Ángel Víctor Torres, also announced that the constitution of the Interministerial Commission on Immigration will take place next week: "It is made up of seven ministries, and although there is a month to convene it, we approved it last Tuesday. What is more, given the migratory phenomenon- an issue on which all institutions must stand as one with a single message- we are going to set it up for coordination in the next few day".

He advanced that each of the ministries will put on the table their management and the negotiations within the scope of their competences.

The minister also stressed that "the 17 autonomous communities must stand alongside the Canary Islands and the two autonomous cities, and that the EU, with the recent asylum and immigration pact, should also respond to the demands made by the Canary Islands".

World Food Programme (WFP)

The announcement was made by Ángel Víctor Torres during his visit to the headquarters of the World Food Programme (WFP), where he celebrated "the milestone of installing this logistics base in 2012 in the Port of Las Palmas".

The minister took stock of the WFP's decade of service to the world: "Some 635,000 tonnes of food and material have passed through its hands. To give you an idea, the capacity of each container in the port is 20,000 kilos, so 635,000 tonnes is equivalent to 32,000 containers, which have left Las Palmas for many countries in need".

The United Nations World Food Programme is the world's largest humanitarian organisation, saving lives in emergencies and providing food assistance in areas recovering from conflict, disasters and the impact of climate change.

A milestone in the WFP's international recognition was the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2022, "an immense joy that I celebrated as president of the Canary Islands, although it was unsurprising in that this base has been and is key to supporting emergencies in Northwest Africa," said Ángel Víctor Torres.

The Las Palmas base has become a major international food supplier for the countries of the northwest coast of Africa (such as Mauritania, Sierra Leone, Guinea Bissau, Guinea and Benin), representing an option for the pre-positioning of food for Latin America and the Caribbean, and also supplying countries such as Cuba and Honduras.

The average food delivery time has been reduced by 73%, from 120 to 32 days. The last airlift was to attend to the emergency in Ukraine, transporting shelters and blankets. The Las Palmas base was also key to the Ebola epidemic, with the Port of Las Palmas the departure point for the ships chartered by the WFP to supply food.

The Government of Spain's commitment to international cooperation

The WFP base in Las Palmas was set up with funding from the Government of Spain and the Cabildo de Gran Canaria, and the space in the Port of Las Palmas was transferred at no fee until 2027. The Government has also approved new funding for the base until 2026.

The funding enabled the base to distribute 20,000 tonnes of food in 2023 alone, and to build a permanent stock of 5,000 tonnes of nutritious food for children, which is double the amount in 2022.

Ángel Víctor Torres stressed the Government of Spain's commitment to international cooperation and to the WFP: "This is the commitment of the president and of the whole of the Government of Spain to the global challenges of climate change, desertification and hunger caused by wars.

Non official translation