The Balearic Government has ordered the demolition of the terrace, swimming pool, and jetty at the property in Costa dels Pins that is owned by Pedro J. Ramírez. A major figure in Spain's media industry, Ramírez founded the El Mundo newspaper in 1989 and was its editor until 2014.
It is the pool in particular which has been at the centre of controversy, litigation and protest for the best part of 25 years. The pool was there before Ramírez and his then wife, the designer Agatha Ruiz de la Prada, bought the property in 1999; it in fact dates back to 1974. Work to the pool was carried out after the purchase, and Ramírez sought an extension for the pool to occupy public maritime land until 2074.
It was this that really sparked the controversy. Spain's Coasts Law of 1988 was by then finally being applied. The pool violated provisions of the law. However, the national environment minister at the time (2000 to 2003) was Jaume Matas, who had been the Partido Popular president of the Balearics from 1996 to 2000 and was to again be president from 2003 to 2007. He was subsequently jailed for his involvement in corruption scandals in Mallorca.
Matas managed to gain a concession for the pool's private use. When environmental activists started to protest, Matas, back as president of the Balearics, got the national environment ministry to agree to allow Ramírez use of the pool in summer and to make it available for school students at other times of the year. This was, to say the least, an unusual permission.
A bizarre decision prompted a bizarre protest. In August 2005, activists gained access to the pool and staged a demonstration. One of them was Jaume Sastre, who was to go on hunger strike in 2013 in protest against the education policies of then president of the Balearics, José Ramón Bauzá. A case against Sastre and others was ultimately dropped after the Supreme Court in Madrid ruled that there had been no criminal act. Matas and others, meanwhile, staged a counter protest.
In 2021, an appeal to the Supreme Court against an order to demolish the pool was rejected. Some five years on, and the Balearic minister of the sea, Juan Manuel Lafuente, has ordered the demolition of the pool, terrace and jetty. Land has to be restored to its original, natural state. And so it would appear that a generation of controversy is finally at an end.