Antich calls for unity over 2011 budgets

BALEARIC President Francesc Antich said yesterday that although the Socialists and their “Bloc” coalition allies were in the minority in the regional Parliament, he felt sure that all parties could come to some agreement over fixing next year's spending budgets.

“All it takes is a bit of sense in our discussions,” claimed Antich who said he would do “everything he could” to secure the support of the opposition Partido Popular and Majorcan Unionist parties.

Speaking on a Balearic radio station, the President said that “extending” the 2010 budget would be an option “if there were no choice,” but the real objective would be to negotiate and agree on seeing a way forward financially into 2011.The President mentioned the multi-million euro Playa de Palma reform project, largely being funded by Central Government. He described it as a “very complicated but very necessary” modernisation programme but that there was no need for “losing one's nerve” over it.

Antich recognised that the reform project was going to take “a tremendous amount of negotiation and exchange of views” but he said that he had been pleased by the commitment of other parties to reach consensus on what has recently become a highly controversial scheme.

The President admitted that it was going to be “very difficult” not to have at least one group of residents or traders affected by the urban remapping of the Playa de Palma although there would be legal compensation for those that lost properties or businesses, he said. Residents in Can Pastilla recently lobbied against part of the programme which would involve the loss of 91 properties to make way for an esplanade and there is to be a demonstration against the reform today at government offices in Palma by other affected local people.

The reform involves only action that is “necessary”, nothing “unnecessary” will be done, claimed Antich. To illustrate his point he said that when a road is built or a city suburb modernised, he said that there is bound to be government buy-out of land but only the minimum to allow the project to go ahead.

The Playa de Palma reform programme, declared the President, should remain outside the “political and electoral arena”.