The Balearic Government has responded with disbelief to Spain's defence minister having told President Prohens that she knows nothing about the planned weapons facility at the Son Sant Joan airbase, which shares the same site as Palma Airport.
On Friday, there was a phone conversation between Prohens and Margarita Robles in which the minister reportedly told the president she knew nothing about the matter and suggested that the project for the storage of missiles and explosives might not even get off the ground.
When asked about a statement concerning the facility made by the Spanish Government's delegate in the Balearics, Alfonso Rodríguez, Robles apparently said she didn't follow regional news.
Rodríguez isn't alone in having spoken publicly about the project. At the time of the 75th anniversary of the airbase's inauguration in November, the base's commander, Colonel Carlos de Montemayor, also spoke openly about it and the safety and security measures.
News of the project first emerged in the media, which prompted Prohens to send a letter to the Spanish Government expressing the regional government's "surprise" that it had not been informed officially and trusting that "we will receive first-hand information about this military installation from the ministry of defence as soon as possible".
The Prohens government's astonishment at the comments made by Robles is heightened by the fact that the Spanish Government declared the airbase a zone of national defence interest on December 4. The government is also aware of the contract for building the facility having been tendered and awarded. Preliminary survey work at the airbase has been carried out.
The ministry has meanwhile yet to respond in writing to questions raised about the facility in Congress.