The Balearic Government has confirmed that it received no prior information from Spain's ministry of defence about plans to build an explosives and weapons warehouse at Palma Son Sant Joan Airport. Spokesperson and vice-president, Antoni Costa, told a press conference on Friday that "there was no prior communication, not any".
He said the government had been "quite surprised" by the ministry's plans and believed that "purely as a matter of institutional respect, it would have been appropriate" for the ministry to have contacted regional authorities to explain its intentions for the military air base.
While reiterating the support of his party (the Partido Popular) for the armed forces' presence in the Balearics, Costa stated that the government was unaware of "the reasons behind" a project of this nature in Palma. "We cannot accept unilateral decisions in this regard."
The ministry will have to provide explanations in Congress. On Thursday, the former Balearic environment minister, Vicenç Vidal of Més, who is now a member of Congress, announced a series of questions and a request for the secretary of state for defence, María Amparo Valcarce García, to appear before Congress.
Vidal was critical of the ministry's lack of transparency and argued that the plans were "completely inappropriate due to the proximity of the air base to Palma Airport and the residential areas located near the base".