Balearics push ahead with financial reforms

THE Balearics may well be the richest community in Spain, but the the regional government believes it about time that the Balearics revises its financial structure and rights the wrongs such as having “the poorest administration” and therefore the biggest public service deficit in the country. Yesterday deputy Balearic Chief Minister, Pere Sampol, met the Catalan Minister for the Economy, Artur Mas, in Barcelona to discuss Catalunya's financial structure with the aim of introducing a new system in the Balearics for the year 2002. According to Mas both Catalunya and the Balearics, two of the nation's richest regions, are losing out to central government in comparison to the rest of the country. The Catalan government's proposal is for the two regions to co-operate in the payment and management of taxes, which in turn would prove more beneficial to the Balearics and Catalunya than under under the present control of central government. Sampol does not want to see the Balearics “breakaway,” but while he accepts that the region will continue paying higher taxes, the deputy Chief Minister wants to see the islands receiving the same treatment in the public service sector as the rest of Spain.