Thursday, April 02, 2009
How many chickens are there in Tenerife?
No, it's not a trick question. We all know that old saying, don’t count your chickens before they hatch, meaning don’t assume that you’ll get the things you want until you have them. Presumably, there's no translation of this concept into Spanish, because the Tenerife authorities appear to be counting, if not their chickens, the number of euros of european funds that they think they have to build the port at Granadilla.
The wording on the above sign board says "The present Project is co-financed by the European Union" and mentions an investment (obviously the total, not just the EU bit) of 114,582,734.45 Euros (and I really have to wonder at the person mean enough to mention 45 cents on a 114 million euro project too. 
)
Folk have been saying that the sign is a lie because EU funds had not been granted and, it appears that Brussels has confirmed this and deny that the works on the port are co-financed by the EU. This report goes on to say:
The European Commission confirmed on Tuesday in Brussels, during a meeting of the Committee on Petitions of the European Parliament - which considered a complaint from the Citizens' Platform against the port of Granadilla - that it has not begun the process to provide funds to this port infrastructure in the south of Tenerife, but it has formally accepted the application for the funds.
It's not just the sign though, apparently, the argument that the Canarian Government used to beg the courts not to paralyse the work (the court did stop it) was that they were getting 68 million euros and would lose EU funds. These same ones they've only put an application in for and got no decision on.
Just the application form, nada mas. What the hell are they playing at?
More to the point, dare we hope that now they'll never get the funds?
Image of the offending sign, courtesy of Mataparda.
Labels: Puerto de Granadilla
