Preparing for a new beach bar in Alcudia, Mallorca

After one of the old beach bars was demolished. | GOB

Andrew EdeAlcudia21/04/2024 18:30
TW
1

In February, the Balearic tourism minister, Jaume Bauzá, announced that 303 projects had been presented to the ministry of tourism, culture and sport for European funding of improvements to tourist areas. One line of investment, he explained, would be for any local activity to improve tourism activity, this investment coming from the EU Next Generation funds that have been channelled to the regions by the Spanish government under the plan for recuperation, transformation and resilience (post-Covid).

I hadn't appreciated that among these projects was Alcudia's replacement of the six old balneario beach bars. It must have been, as it has been announced that Alcudia will receive four million euros of EU funds for the project. This covers the budgeted cost of the entire project - demolition and rebuilding.

A reason why it took until March for the project to start was that the budget hadn't actually been approved, which appeared to have been a budgeted spend by the town hall. Now come the EU funds, this announcement being made at more or less the same time as it was explained at the last council meeting that the town hall's budget surplus - cash it has in the bank - has risen to 120 million euros.

This surplus was already gargantuan, the current administration having been critical of the previous one for not spending some of it on municipal projects. Meantime, it has gone up by some twenty million. And the EU's paying for six beach bars? Is this cash mountain ever going to be used for something meaningful?