Deadlock in Balearic constitutional crisis

PALMA
BALEARIC President Francesc Antich again extended an olive branch to the opposition Partido Popular (PP) and Majorcan Unionists (UM) in the regional Parliament yesterday.

He however avoided the mention of a constitutional crisis caused by his decision to expel the UM from his ruling coalition following a series of corruption scandals.

Both the PP and UM were severely critical of the President's failure to give neither an explanation of what his intentions were now that he was governing in a minority nor of how he intended to proceed with his 13-point economic rescue plan for the Balearic Islands.

The Parliamentary session had been requested by the PP so that the President could explain to them what way forward he saw, now that the region was facing a constitutional crisis. They wanted to know if the government could remain stable after Antich had thrown three UM ministers out of the Balearic government, and rescinded the party's powers in the Council of Majorca and Palma City Council.

The President had instead decided to bypass these issues and focus on his economic policies, asking that the opposition join him in his “counter-crisis plan” of chiefly legislative and economic measures.

He said that he was aware that his decision to expel the UM from his ruling coalition would make inter-party relations more difficult, but he claimed that it was vital that all Parliamentary parties regardless of their ideology, should work together so that people in the Balearic Islands viewed the government as being capable of steering the region out of the economic crisis.