The President of the Balearics, Francina Armengol, has asked for a meeting with the Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, when he travels to Palma on Friday, for the first of two summer meetings with the King, to discuss the urgent matter of improving central government funding to the Balearics. But Rajoy has not replied.
Armengol has asked for a meeting on two separate occasions now on the grounds that the financing of the Balearics by Madrid needs to be immediately addressed and that, as Rajoy is flying to Majorca on Friday any way, why can he not set aside some time for Armengol who, unlike the King, he has not met since she won the local elections in May.
She has since met King Felipe VI twice and they have discussed a number of very important topics, including the opening of the grounds of Marivent Palace and the King has responded positively.
Rajoy, in the meantime, is making a rod for his own back.
His centre-right Partido Popular party was punished at the local elections and playing hardball with the new regional administration is only going to make the PP’s chances of winning the general election in November even more unlikely.
The new government’s primary objective is to secure fair funding from Madrid, and the majority of the local population support the move, so Rajoy is in fact snubbing tens of thousands of Balearic voters, not just Armengol.