The spokesperson for the opposition socialist parliamentary group, the former Balearic Minister for Tourism, Iago Negueruela, denounced on Monday that Marga Prohens’ term as Balearic president ‘has not only failed to combat tourist overcrowding and saturation, but is currently moving in the opposite direction’.
Negueruela criticised the fact that the Balearics are maintaining an increasingly high rate of tourist growth, which already exceeds 19 million visitors, ‘without the regional government having taken any measures, and even encouraging further growth’. Among the measures not implemented by the Prohens government, such as increasing the ITS tourist tax, the water tax, establishing a tax on rental vehicles from outside the region and combating illegal accommodation, Negueruela added ‘new failures such as traffic restrictions in Menorca and Mallorca’.
In Menorca, they do not want to implement the restriction on vehicle entry, a measure planned since the approval of the Biosphere Reserve law, and which ‘the Menorca Council does not want to go ahead with after having said it would’. According to Negueruela, the same is happening in Mallorca, where ‘they do not want to introduce restrictions on vehicle entry or apply new taxes to car rental companies’. The Socialist spokesperson and former Minister of Tourism believes that ‘at the moment, there is no direction in tourism, but rather “free will”’.
He has even drawn attention to measures announced as “protectionist”, such as the Serra de Tramuntana Protection Law, in which “if you read the small print, you can see that what they want is to limit and restrict the movement of local people on the roads while at the same time facilitating complementary uses for landowners, which will lead to ’greater touristification”, he warned.
Meanwhile, the government ‘is not addressing the needs of the population or the economic sectors’. The socialist cited the taxi sector as an example, ‘another broken promise by Prohens’, because ‘she received them’, but has not fulfilled what she promised them, with unsatisfactory regulations.
Prohens seeks to ‘favour large landowners, as is the case in the Serra, and favour large companies, as is the case with Airbnb and Uber,’ Negueruela claimed while denouncing the constant deterioration of public services due to poor management.
Tomorrow, Tuesday, parliament will debate a motion to ban non-resident property purchases.
MÉS per Mallorca has criticised the Partido Popular and Vox for not supporting the bill to ban non-residents of the Balearics from buying property, which will be debated on Tuesday. ‘Throughout the entire legislative session, we have heard that they are working for the people here and that they are building housing for the people here. Who are they referring to?’ asked eco-sovereignist spokesperson Lluís Apesteguia at the press conference prior to the plenary session.
He questioned ‘who are the people here for the PP if not those who want to develop a life project in the Balearic Islands’ or, he continued, ‘are they only referring to wealthy people and investment and speculation funds? This is their homeland and their compatriots, those from Andorra or Switzerland,’ he reproached, adding that the initiative seeks to ensure that ‘normal people, working people live here’. In his view, the bill to be debated on Tuesday in the plenary session is rigorous and complies with both state and European regulations.
For her part, Vox spokesperson Manuela Cañadas did not reveal how her group would vote, although she stressed that they oppose any citizen being unable to buy a house in the islands. ‘They always make populist and demagogic bills that also clash with national and European regulations,’ Cañadas said at a press conference on Monday in the Parliament. The PSIB, for its part, will support the legislative initiative because, according to its spokesperson, Iago Negueruela, the party agrees ‘in general terms’ with the proposals put forward.
He considered that the groups ‘have to accept that new measures must be adopted’ and, in his opinion, the Socialists have presented “bolder” initiatives. ‘In this legislative session, both they and we have presented various initiatives that go in this direction, and therefore, we will give our support as a matter of course,’ he concluded.