The restaurants association within the Pimem small to medium-sized businesses federation is pointing to a 50% fall in Christmas bookings and a 40% drop in income. These decreases are attributed to the latest wave of Covid infections (the sixth wave) and to the Covid passport requirement where interior capacities are 50 or more.
On Tuesday, the president, Eugènia Cusí, and the vice president, Helmut Clemens, argued that it is not scientifically proven that bars and restaurants are sources of Covid contagion. The passport requirement is "legally questionable" and contrary to the right of privacy and to data protection.
Their view was that the sector is being "stigmatised" and that customers are being divided. Some say they will not go to bars and restaurants because they have to prove that they are vaccinated, while others will not go if the passport is not required.
They called on the media not to be a "channel of communication" for public institutions and the government and asked where the journalistic "deontology" was. "Critical voices" should be listened to and not only the "official" ones investigating the relationship between Covid and restaurants from a scientific point of view.
Cusí referred to the "institutional degradation" of the Balearic government in legislating on the restrictions instead of the Balearic parliament. "The separation of powers is conspicuous by its absence."