Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez was forced into a rather embarrassing U-Turn yesterday being forced to scale back his month-long state of alarm to just two weeks.
Sanchez had announced over the weekend that he wanted a 30 day extension to the state of alarm which would have lasted until the end of June in-line with the end of his phased recovery plan. But, he faced widespread opposition from all sides in a clear sign that Spain is growing increasingly uneasy over his tough lockdown measures. And worse could follow.
I took a stroll around central Palma yesterday (wearing a mask and keeping social distancing where possible) and only a handful of shops are open. Small shops had been given the green light to restart but only a small number have actually done so. Why? Because there are no shoppers. The resident population is caught between the partial lock down and a lack of funds and the fact that there are no tourists means that for the majority of shops in central Palma there is no point in opening. Quite simply for shops to reopen, Palma needs tourists and they will not be arriving until the end of June at the earliest.
At the moment most of Majorca is waiting for the airport to reopen to nonessential flights which could mean an influx of tourists. If ever anyone doubted that the Majorcan economy was heavily dependent on tourism then this year will be the time when all is revealed.