Més in Majorca will today present a motion in parliament that calls for there to be no sunloungers, parasols and bars on Balearic beaches. Spokesperson David Abril said yesterday that the coasts law needs to be amended and that the party's motion is against the "re-privatisation" of the Balearic coast.
Abril referred to the words of a former Partido Popular national minister Miguel Arias Cañete, who once said that the coast was for profit. "This is the opposite of what we think. We consider that it is for the common good. This is why there must be an amendment of the coasts law with a philosophy that is different from that of the PP."
He added that the central government is in breach of the statute of autonomy and the Constitution. The powers should be the Balearic government's as established in an article of the statute. The central government, he observed, is unwilling to give up powers and lose the nine to ten million euros that the Costas Authority derives from concessions on the public beach domain.
Marga Prohens, the PP's spokesperson, mentioned the Més motion yesterday in highlighting it as an example of policies being developed by the government against the main industry in the Balearics. She lamented the fact that the government's "tourismphobia" is already slowing down tourist occupancy in Ibiza and slowing down the Balearic economy as a whole. "This is just what happened with the previous 'pact of progress'."