Balearic Government offered help to take immigrants

Joan Collins THE Spanish Government's Representative in the Balearics, Ramon Socias, said yesterday that the Government is willing to offer more help to the Balearic Government for immigration. The Balearic Government will need to apply for this help after taking some of the sub-Saharan immigrants who have recently arrived in the Canary Islands. Socias said that in his opinion this “new situation” will require “new cooperation” and, in view of this, he announced that the Spanish Government is planning to organise a meeting with the regional governments, to discover what they can do to help and how many immigrants each region can take. However, Socias would not be drawn on any proposed concrete actions or possible collaborations between both Governments, saying he needed to know what the national needs were and what means the Balearics had. At the same time, Socias questioned the creation of the Balearic Ministry of Immigration as, in his judgement, it would be “much more interesting” if there was an “action across all existing departments”, such as Education and Health, to help the immigrants. Nevertheless, he said he considered that the Balearic Ministry of Immigration makes sense “only if it meets the needs of integration for the immigrants”. He said that “practically 90 percent” of the Balearic Ministry of Immigration's budget is funded by the Spanish Government (some 4.5 million euros). “At the moment this is mainly used for projects of integration, but if the Balearic Government want more, we will give it to them”, he said, referring to the statement by the Balearic deputy leader Rosa Estaras, who said that the Balearics will take immigrants if it has financial help from the Government. The Senegal foreign minister Abdoul Malal Diop, in Palma to promote a housing fair, said that United Nations intervention was needed to solve the immigration problem.