An issue regarding the legislation concerns the move to create zones where holiday rentals are permitted. If a property which is currently rented out legally is not in a zone, it will have to comply with the new law. "If it doesn't meet the regulations, it cannot be registered. If you want to set up a bar, you also have to comply with regulations."
Under the plan to allocate regulated holiday rental places - as envisaged under the new legislation - it will initially fall to the Council of Majorca to decide zones. Town halls would then have to agree, but a general principle which is being spoken of is that rentals will not be in areas where there is pressure on residential accommodation.
This has the potential to therefore conflict with what is currently available and also with certain town halls' preferences, to say nothing of holidaymakers and of course owners. As yet, nothing specific has been stated. The legislation is only at its consultation phase, so much has still to be decided.
On airports and ports, the vice-president adds that if the government were to have co-management of airports, the pressure of tourism could be reduced by controlling the number of flights that would be authorised at certain peak times of the year. He says that his tourism ministry would also like to work with the Balearic Ports Authority and the cruise sector in coming up with a system of "rational stopovers and arrivals" in order to avoid there being too many ships at one time.
With regard to the crisis within Podemos, Barceló believes that Podemos has not acted correctly in dealing with this - it revolves around the Balearic parliament president (speaker), Xelo Huertas. "Internal problems should not be transferred to the institutions," he says of the affair. Everything should have been done to have avoided placing parliament in the position it now is. He hopes that the situation can be resolved as quickly as possible so that parliament can return to normal.
On Podemos formally entering the government, he believes that it should be involved, just as it is at the Council of Majorca and certain town halls. The non-involvement, he suggests, has led to some specific misunderstandings.
The three parties - PSOE, Més and Podemos - operate according to their agreements for change, and a revision of these, observes Barceló, has been spoken about for several months without a real way of doing so ever having been found. His view is that any revision would need to be adapted to "realities" and from consensus rather than unilaterally. He says that he has been satisfied that the agreements have covered much of the electoral programme, even if application has run up against some specific differences. Where PSOE and Més are concerned, these differences have not been as great as with Podemos.
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Yes, one has to agree with all the comments here. It shows that in reality Spain is still very much a third-world country really. It has no place in Europe at all, people starving, beggars in the streets, corruption from below up to the royal family, and more. Pathetic really.
Keeping airports and ports under state control prevents tinpot dictators imposing their will and destroying a country's economy.
Barcelo - Minister for Looking After His Own Interests.
Wow - sorry about the typo.! Seems like we've all been on the booze!!
Well - he is either extremely clever or more likely a sad case of a man educated well beyond his intelligance. I'm sure I know what most people think.
".... that rentals will not be in areas where there is pressure on residential accommodation". Complete nonsense once more from this chump. There is plenty of residential accomodation everywhere on the island. The fact that in some areas people only have six months work a year so cannot pay for it is largely due to the same hoteliers that he is trying to appease.
You couldn't make it up could you. Continued issues of too many tourists, so what do they do. Give millions of taxpayers euros to rich hoteliers to make reforms to create more rooms, and approve the plans to build another 800 room hotel in Palma Nova. Unbelievable. Now Barceló wants to ban holiday rentals in these areas. What is this guy smoking ?