The Balearic government has denounced the ‘unsustainable’ migration crisis affecting the Balearics and has once again asked the Spanish government to ‘exclude this autonomous community from the distribution of unaccompanied migrant minors’ from the Canary Islands. This request was made by the Director General of Immigration and Development Cooperation, Manuel Pavón, on Monday in statements to the media, in which he lamented that the Balearics ‘are starting 2026 as they ended 2025, with a new wave of irregular immigration’, following the arrival in the last five days of seven small boats with around 150 migrants on board - 147 in total, according to information provided to the media by the Government Delegation.
For Pavón, this is an ‘unsustainable’ situation that shows that the migration crisis in the Balearics ‘is no longer a one-off event, nor something temporary, but a consolidated problem’ which, he has publicly acknowledged, ‘concerns this Government’. He has therefore once again called on the Spanish Government – specifically Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Home Secretary Fernando Grande-Marlaska and the Government Delegate in the Balearics, Alfonso Rodríguez – to ‘take action’.
‘The protection and control of borders is not a regional competence, but it is the responsibility of the Government to demand that regulations be complied with and measures be taken to put an end to the migration route from Algeria to the Balearics once and for all,’ he said, ‘and this is precisely what this Government is doing’.
The Director General of Immigration and Development Cooperation recalled that in 2025, more than 7,300 people arrived irregularly in the Balearics on board some 400 small boats, and ‘this year everything seems to indicate that things will continue in the same vein’ because ‘the mafias are profiting from human despair’.
However, Pavón warned that this ‘is no longer just a humanitarian crisis, but also an economic one,’ because ‘the destruction and handling of these boats has to be partly assumed by the Balearic Government, with an average cost per boat of around €600, which in the end,’ he specified, ‘is borne by all taxpayers.’ In response to this, he reiterated his request to the government to ‘take action once and for all’. ‘Enough is enough,’ he stressed, warning that ‘this government does not want the Balearics to continue to be the main route for irregular immigration, not only in Spain, but in the whole of Europe’.
‘This has to end,’ because ‘the reality is what it is,’ that ‘no matter how much they try to hide it and deny it, the Balearic Islands are the main point of irregular entry into Spain and, therefore, into the rest of Europe, and this has to end. If they don’t want to see it, this government, the national police, the civil guard and NGOs are already telling them,’ he said, reproaching the government for ‘doing nothing but contradicting the professionals who see what is happening on the islands’.
In fact, the NGO Caminando Fronteras has estimated that 1,000 people have died on the Balearic coast, and ‘what the government delegate has come up with is that they have only counted 63’.
‘For this government, as the police and civil guards have also said, one is enough,’ because ‘we cannot allow people to continue dying on the coasts of the Balearics. The Mediterranean is becoming a veritable graveyard,’ Pavón stressed.
As far as the Balearics are concerned, the situation regarding the reception of minors is ‘unsustainable’ because ‘with every wave of small boats, minors arrive, and the services are overwhelmed. There are not enough professionals or adequate facilities, and what the government is doing is forcing the Balearics to take in unaccompanied migrant minors from the Canary Islands, without taking into account the situation in the Balearics,’ which ‘currently,’ Pavón recalled, ‘already hosts 750 unaccompanied migrant minors, 300 of them of Algerian origin.’ Pavón has therefore once again asked the government to ‘exclude the Balearics from the distribution of unaccompanied migrant minors from the Canary Islands.’
Finally, in response to questions from the media about the ‘most necessary and urgent’ measure that the Spanish government should implement to combat the migration crisis in the Balearics, the Director General of Immigration and Development Cooperation recalled that the first thing this Government is asking for is to be ‘heard’ and for ‘the professionals who are working in this field to be heard’ because ‘if everyone is denouncing a situation, it means that something is happening and we must face reality and take action’.
‘Hiding the reality is of little or no use,’ Pavón stressed, pointing out that ‘the trend is clear’. ‘While in 2016, 20 people arrived irregularly on the Balearic coast, last year there were more than 7,000’. ‘The data speaks for itself,’ Pavón stressed, urging the Spanish government to ‘adopt international measures, such as international policies with the countries of origin, or implement Frontex.’
“The regional government has been calling for the implementation of Frontex for some time, and no matter how much the government delegate says that Frontex is operating in the Balearic Islands, this does not appear to be true. In fact, the European agency itself has denied this in a statement,‘ he recalled, adding that the regional government has already requested that ’if Frontex is working in the Balearics, it should be given access to flight logs,‘ information that ’has not been provided at this time.”
‘Also,’ the regional government has already asked the government to ‘listen to the police and civil guards who are demanding more material resources’ and who complain that their situation is ‘unsustainable,’ that ‘they do not have the capacity to deal with the waves of small boats arriving on the islands’; that it ‘take international measures and policies on immigration’, that it ‘align itself with Europe, because there is a migration and asylum pact at European level which Spain was the only country to vote against’; and that it ‘face reality’.