Armengol and the government’s front bench today.

Armengol and the government’s front bench today.

Majorca Daily Bulletin reporterPalma09/12/2015 00:00
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President Armengol yesterday accused the previous government of the Partido Popular of choosing cuts ahead of claiming central government investments for the Balearics. She was responding to PP parliamentary spokesperson Marga Prohens, who, in the context of the 322 million euros of back pay investment agreed last week with central government, argued this was evidence of the result of efforts “carried out during the previous legislature to tackle the islands’ historic debt”.

Prohens said that the central PP government was meeting its obligations to the Balearics and that the Armengol government should do likewise in, for example, making outstanding payments to farmers. According to Prohens, the Bauzá PP administration had secured 444 million euros of European funds that are now available to the current regime in addition to plans for sewage-treatment plants and housing, which were both “signed by the PP”. She went on to praise the 29 investment agreements with central government which led to 157 million euros and 90 million more for main roads that was forthcoming in 2014.

Armengol disagreed. “The legacy that you left us with is not as you describe.” The president criticised the fact that the joint financing commission (Balearic and central governments) had not once met over the four years of the PP administration and that the special economic regime for the Balearics ran out without being renewed in 2014. Of investments that came to the Balearics, she suggested that there was not a single euro.

The president claimed that her administration has not found any formal documentation from the previous president or the national finance ministry regarding the “requesting of money or of a meeting (to make a request)”, and she added that PP deputies in Congress had each year voted in favour of a state budget that had condemned the Balearics to be at the back of the investment queue.

On the investment agreement reached last week,  Armengol said - as previously had Vice-President Barceló - that she was “moderately satisfied” but insisted that this was not “all” that was needed for the islands’ “under-financing”.

In continuing her rebuttal of Prohens’ claims of achievements by the Bauzá government, Armengol said that “you might say that the merit is due to you, but in five months this government has met with the prime minister and held the joint commission” with the result being an extension on a 55.4 million euros investment, the reimbursement of 26.4 million euros and the payment of the 240 million under the agreement for main roads and a date set for the meeting of the commission on the special regime, i.e. 16 December.