The central government has warned the Canary Islands that Decree-Law No. 4/2025, approved in July regulating procedures for assessing and qualifying the degree of disability in the archipelago, may be an unconstitutional invasion of state authorities and contravene immigration regulations. The two administrations have begun a dialogue through the State-Canary Bilateral Cooperation Commission, the Official Gazette (BOE) reported on Monday. If an agreement is not reached, the dispute will likely end up in the Constitutional Court.
The contradiction centers on Article 1.2 of the decree, which states that persons “registered with actual residence” in any of the archipelago’s municipalities may request recognition of disability. For the central government, this expression opens the door to the interpretation that foreigners who do not have legal residency can also do so, as long as they are registered, something that Moncloa considers incompatible with the country’s legal framework. For the State, this wording is ambiguous and can be interpreted more broadly than the legal concept of legal residence. If this is the reading, the Canary Islands would allow foreigners without a residence permit to access the assessment procedure, which in turn would give them access to benefits that, according to the central government, cannot be granted to those who lack regular administrative status.
“It is a formal issue due to the terminology used in the Canary Islands Decree which the Ministry of Integration considers may be a cause of legal uncertainty,” sums up the spokesman for the central government, headed by Pedro Sánchez (PSOE). “It’s not about substance,” he asserts. “It’s about form.” He adds: “There is no actual residency as a legal term, and there is no ineffective residency.” “It is not an issue focused on excluding migrants or tourists, but rather it happens that an unused term is used, which can lead to dysfunctions and, in the long term, problems. The people targeted by the decree must be precisely defined, with appropriate legal terminology.”
Hence, the National Executive emphasizes that recognition of the degree of disability is not a simple administrative procedure, but one that provides access to benefits and benefits that go beyond basic social services. Among them, it mentions free access to public transport, parking cards, financial allowance for dependent children or various social support measures linked to the disability certificate.
Therefore, remember that the State has exclusive jurisdiction over basic social security legislation under Article 149.1.17 of the Constitution, and that State regulations on disability – including Royal Decree 888/2022, which establishes the degree recognition procedure – establish a mandatory framework for all autonomous communities.
In parallel, the central government points out that the Basic Law on Immigration (LOEX) only guarantees universal access for foreigners to “social services and benefits of an essential nature”, regardless of their administrative status. However, he emphasizes that the legal consequences of recognizing a disability go beyond this basic scope, which is why it requires the applicant to have legal residency.
To reinforce this interpretation, the State is also analyzing Law No. 16/2019 on Social Services of the Canary Islands, which regulates who has access to the public social services system. Article 9 of this law generally requires that third-country nationals living in the Canary Islands be “residents”, a term that should, in the opinion of the central government, be understood as legal residence. The regional law itself explicitly excludes only foreign minors and people in a state of social emergency, reinforcing the idea that remaining foreigners must have regular residence to access non-essential benefits.
Given this “potential defect of unconstitutionality,” the Ministry of Regional Policy proposed activating the cooperation procedure provided for in Article 33.2 of the Basic Law of the Constitutional Court, a mechanism that precedes the filing of an appeal of unconstitutionality. This procedure is clarified through the Bilateral Cooperation Committee between the State and the Canary Islands.