The PSIB Balearic opposition Socialist party has stated that its position on airport matters ‘has always been co-management,’ although it hopes to reach ‘positions of understanding’ on the proposed law by MÉS per Mallorca and Més per Menorca, which calls for the management of these facilities. This was the response of PSIB spokesperson Iago Negueruela at the press conference following the Parliament’s Spokesperson Committee meeting, in which he pointed out that his position on this matter ‘has not changed’, and that he will announce how he will vote next week.
Negueruela accused the minority centre right Partido Popular Balearic government of only seeing ‘the reality of Vox’ and of being “oblivious” to the real problems of the citizens of the Balearics, in response to the government’s claims that ‘there is no longer tourist saturation’, when July saw a 1% increase in international tourists, representing more than 25,000 additional visitors.
Therefore, at the next plenary session of the Parliament, he will ask the president of the Balearic Government, Marga Prohens, if she believes there is ‘tourist saturation’ and if she will take measures, because ‘if there are more tourists, the islands require more measures. ‘This is the reality that the islands are suffering beyond the blindfold that the president is wearing,‘ he argued.
‘In one year, the president has gone from saying that limits had to be set to taking no action in this regard. In fact, Prohens promised to increase the Sustainable Tourism Tax, raise the sanitation fee for large consumers and introduce measures for the entry of vehicles onto the islands, but after a year she has not fulfilled any of these initiatives proposed by herself,’ he stressed.
He also criticised the fact that the regional government ‘talks about restraint’ and then puts 1,500 tourist places up for sale, and that the president of the Consell de Mallorca, Llorenç Galmés, says that ‘there are no longer traffic jams on the roads without having gone out onto the streets today’.
In any case, he maintained that if the president of the regional government ‘does not take measures against saturation, with more tourists than ever, she will have deceived the public once again.’