The Minister of Public Works during Suárez's first term, Sánchez Rof, was the one who, in 1981, authorized the Mogán City Council to build and operate a home or wintering marina on Mogán beach, in accordance with the Marinas Law of April 26, 1969, signed by General Franco at the Pardo Palace years before the end of the Franco regime in 1975. However, there was a special clause: a 50-year term. That term ends in 2031, the year in which the legislature that will run from 2027 to 2031 concludes. But other things have happened since then, and not everything is under municipal control.
The framework governing the port sovereignty of the autonomous community rests on a solid legislative structure, the centerpiece of which is Law 14/2003, of April 8, on Ports of the Canary Islands. This main law, published in the Official State Gazette (BOE) on June 5, 2003, and in the Official Gazette of the Canary Islands (BOC) on May 6, 2003, was enacted under the statutory powers assumed by the archipelago and serves as the fundamental instrument for regulating, planning, and managing coastal infrastructure that is not of general state interest.
At the heart of the debate sparked by the demands of Mogán's mayor, Onalia Bueno, formerly of CC and now of the PP, this legal framework protects the regional government's actions against the town council's attempts to intervene in the operation of the Puerto Rico and Mogán marinas. While the council demands accountability and asserts its own institutional legitimacy in the coastal area, strict adherence to this set of regulations guarantees that the processing of concession applications and competitive bidding are governed exclusively by technical criteria and the public interest, thus curbing any attempts at local interference in the port's public domain.
The architecture of Law 14/2003, of April 8, on Ports of the Canary Islands, is not an isolated text, but rather is enriched and modified by a series of complementary regulations that have adapted the sector to the economic and territorial challenges of recent decades. In terms of its original jurisdiction, the law is based on Organic Law 10/1982, of August 10, the Statute of Autonomy of the Canary Islands, whose Article 12.8 empowered the autonomous community to assume full powers in port matters. Furthermore, to reconcile port operations with strict respect for the environment, the original text already incorporated the provisions of Royal Decree-Law 9/2000, of October 6, which transposed the European directive on environmental impact assessment.
Throughout its validity, the technical rigor of the text has required specific adaptations through successive legislative amendments. Among these, Law 5/2007, of March 16, stands out, which introduced adjustments to the delimitation of powers and the procedures for assignment, as does Law 4/2012, of June 25, which expressly declared the validity of key provisions such as Article 35 to provide legal certainty to the tariff structure.
The regulatory framework was subsequently strengthened by the enactment of Law 9/2014 of November 6, which added Article 48 bis to optimize the management of activities in the public domain, and culminated in the comprehensive update introduced by Law 4/2017 of July 13, which amended the annex classifying the facilities and added the third transitional provision to address the complex reality of the island's docks. This set of seven fundamental regulations safeguards the actions of Puertos Canarios against any municipal disputes.
