The Balearic government has officially asked the ministry for development in Madrid to apply the new language laws to the names of the airports in the Balearics, which means using the Catalan names, so Palma airport would no longer be Palma de Mallorca airport but just Palma.
The announcement comes just 24 hours after the Balearic parliament agreed to debate a motion to revert the name of Palma de Mallorca to just Palma on the grounds that it was changed by the former Partido Popular government as part of its campaign to diminish the importance of Catalan and its culture in the region.
Today, the minister for transport, Marc Pons, revealed that he had made the official application to the minister for development, Ana Pastor, last week during a meeting over introducing flat rates for inter-island flight fares. Pons said, with regard to the move to change the names of the airports in the Balearics, he wants to table a motion in parliament in order to obtain the maximum level of consensus and be able to present a united front in Madrid, which is expected to oppose the proposal, providing the PP remain in office after the 26 June general election rerun.
In the meantime, the local Partido Popular is expected to fight the proposal. One of its reasons for maintaining the name is that the airport is internationally known as Palma de Mallorca and that is the name which appears on airline tickets and other official documents such as national identity cards.
But, as the Bulletin reported yesterday and Andrew Ede is writing about, name-changing appears to be topping the political debate at the moment - surely there must be something more important?
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Ron: Just to clarify, I was not referring to you when I mentioned ‘anti-catalan troll’. It was someone who yesterday referred to Catalan as an “artificial dead language” and the previous day said “the Catalan dialect is a joke” but offered little else in the way of argument.
Sara, what I meant was that the Mallorquins are proud of their "language" whereas the Catalans consider it to be a "dialect". Of course, Madriz considers both to be "foreign".
This government is being paid huge salaries to waste time debating about stupid issues - changing a name - or vowel here & there. They want the catalán -when it suits them. (They like Cala Rajada but not the catalán Cala Ratjada). Maybe someone said they don't want the word RAT appearing. By the way I am not an anti catalán troll. It is a very rich language when used properly, which personally, with all the dialects, I do not find here. We live in a bi-lingual autonomy and we should not have the imposition of a language which is useless within the framework of a modern Europe, of which Spain needs to be a big player. Instead the government should be resolving the main problems of this island - corruption from the politicians themselves, corruption within the police, a bad image throughout Europe due to their dislike of tourists (the island can't survive on potatoes, sobrasada and ensaimadas alone), the mugging prostitutes, the fake goods, the trileros & beggars and the drunkenness - every year they say the problems have been resolved and they never are, and of course the introduction of an unfair and unworkable eco-tasa, which is so badly thought out will bring this government down before too long anyway.
Its just the forerunner so they can up the tax. They really cannot have anything to do!
Simon: what 'exactly' do the Mallorquins say about the Catalans (apart from disliking them)? That the Catalans don't know whether what they speak is a dialect or a language?!! I was referring solely to the fact that yesterday 'troll' referred to Catalan as a language whereas the day before he referred to it as a 'dialect'.
Palma will be ok as the spelling and pronunciation not changed in any language,but what about Ibiza and Mahon? Eivissa and Mao? No idea mate,somewhere in Spain I think, ask the pilot,he'll know.
Sara, that's exactly what the Mallorquins say about the Catalans.
Just let them get on with their silly time-wasting, it's pathetic. As I said the other day with 62 places in the world named Palma, the travel industry will almost certainly continue using Palma de Mallorca just to avoid confusion for tourists booking tickets/holidays. Similarly the BBC weather site continues to insist on Palma de Mallorca/ Son Sant Joan airport.
Worse than wanting to change the name, they are demanding that the local government, the Consell and the Palma ( de Mallorca ) town hall, be allowed to have a say in running the airport.
NOW THEN, ARE YOU FLYING TO PALMA ?---or-- ARE YOU FLYING TO PARMA ?.To be the Airport question, or not to be the the question !.