Drugs, debts and dress - Mallorca news round-up

A great deal of caution should be exercised before leaping to conclusions regarding developments since last week's raids as part of Operation Checkmate, one of the biggest drugs operations ever mounted in Mallorca. The caution is especially necessary when it comes to Palma town hall. We have, after all, been here before, as with the cases of alleged corruption - most notably that with the owner of BCM, Tolo Cursach, at its centre - and which have collapsed in a heap when put to the test in the courts.

The Guardia Civil's Judicial Police are understood to be investigating meetings involving Vox representatives in Son Banya, the shanty town often nicknamed Mallorca's drugs supermarket. What are the police actually interested in? A Vox councillor who has been specifically named because of an apparent relationship with the Balearic federation of gypsy federations - she is said to take care of the federation's administration - has said that meetings prior to the election last May were publicised. The media knew they were happening. What's the issue?

The Partido Popular mayor of Palma, Jaime Martínez, has himself been forced into denying that contacts with Carlos Cortés ('El Charly'), the federation's president and one of the 23 people arrested last week, were to do with capturing votes from the gypsy community. He has noted that Vox polled higher than the PP in Son Banya. Vox in fact polled highest of all the parties both in Son Banya and La Soledad, where there were raids last week.

Even so, opposition parties are unlikely to let the matter drop. A Més councillor, Miquel Àngel Contreras, has called for the case to be "thoroughly investigated at both judicial and political levels". And this was before the Judicial Police made their interest known in the meetings.

Matthias Kühn - compensation and now under investigation

Another high-profile story with a follow-on concerns German property developer Matthias Kühn. Three weeks ago, the Supreme Court ruled that the Balearic government must pay him 96 million euros compensation in respect of the blocked development of Muleta II in Puerto Soller. He now mainly lives in Switzerland but was in Mallorca at the time of the ruling, which was when Tax Agency officials went to his home and seized computer data.

The agency, a court of instruction in Palma and the anti-corruption prosecution service are all delving into an allegation that bankruptcy proceedings related to some twenty of his companies were a manoeuvre to avoid the collection of debts owed to the agency - the reported figure is eleven or so million euros plus surcharges and interest. The prosecution service accuses Kühn of having created a complex network of shell companies and then declared them bankrupt so as to not have to pay the debts.

Waiting for a home

The realities of finding affordable housing are a world away from luxury developments in Puerto Soller - aborted or realised. And there is a further reminder of these realities from figures released by the Balearic government's housing ministry.

There are currently 4,366 people on the Ibavi housing agency's waiting list for properties to rent at prices that are no more than 30% of income - way cheaper than places offered on the free market. This number is down from 4,679 a year ago, but the decrease may not be due to people having been housed, as they are removed from the list for various reasons. Ibavi has a total of 2,362 properties to rent, while a further 424 are being built. This is a stock which is clearly insufficient to meet demand.

Opposition parties in the Balearics are warning of the "disproportionate growth" of rents because of the Partido Popular government's policies and are insisting that rent caps are applied. Under Spain's housing law, caps can be introduced for so-called "stressed areas", where average prices to rent exceed a stipulated percentage of average incomes. The whole of the Balearics should be declared a stressed area, maintain parties on the left. The government has said that it will not adopt this stressed-area principle and so therefore will not be applying rent caps.

No more air routes and no more tourism promotion

The opposition also point to disproportionate growth in terms of tourism. Reform of the tourism law and an end to the moratorium on granting new tourist accommodation places - introduced by the left-wing government as was in 2022 - will be like offering "a free bar".

Among others concerned about this growth are the environmentalists GOB. They are demanding that there be no more increases in Palma air routes. It was recently predicted that total passenger numbers (arrivals and departures) could reach 33 million this year; in pre-pandemic 2019 the total was 29.7 million. GOB insist that the government and others "stop endorsing" new routes and also stop spending public money on tourism promotion.

For GOB, therefore, news that the government and the Council of Mallorca are reviving an agreement to pay Real Mallorca for tourism promotion sponsorship will have gone down like a lead balloon. This agreement, which is worth 2.6 million euros over two seasons, is similar to one that PSOE proposed when they were in charge of the tourism department at the Council of Mallorca between 2019 and 2023. The proposal was dropped because of the enormous political row it created with PSOE's coalition partners, Més and Podemos.

Where air routes are concerned, GOB may have been less aghast at a report of an apparent Chinese invasion of Mallorca. There isn't, as there are no direct flights to and from Chinese airports; not yet, anyway. This "invasion" is due to Spain's national tourism agency Turespaña having reported that over 60% of pre-pandemic flights connecting China and Spain have been restored.

Shirts on and not lighting up

The season pretty much upon us and reports of a tourism nature are guaranteed to flow in abundance, especially if they are, shall we say, somewhat overblown. For instance, holidaymakers in Mallorca need to be aware that they could be hit with a hefty fine if they walk around the streets without tops on. The UK Foreign Office says: "In some parts of Spain it's against the law to be on the street wearing only a bikini or swimming shorts." Some parts are what matters. There is no general law, as this sort of regulation is one for town halls and is in fact applied in only isolated cases. Palma, for example, has a ban but not on the beach frontlines; this has been the situation for several years.

Then there is the apparent ban on smoking on beaches. There is no ban, as it has not been made legally enforceable. There may well come a time when it is, but for now there are so-called smoke-free beaches - fifty in all in the Balearics - where beachgoers are asked not to smoke; Playa de Muro is a new addition to the ranks. It relies on individuals' goodwill, not on law enforcement.

Who's bothered about how the tourist tax is spent?

Still in March and the tourist tax is a quarter of what it is during what is classified as the official tourism season - May to October. An increasingly less relevant classification, it has to be said, but for matters like the tourist tax it continues to be used. According to the Council of Mallorca's director-general of tourism, Josep Aloy: "We are all tourists at some point and we all like to learn about the places we visit and also know how our taxes are used."

By this, he means the tourist tax, thus avoiding a far heftier tax requirement - the payment of IVA (VAT). Aloy says that there must be "utmost transparency" in providing information to tourists about tourist tax spending. One possibility is to enable hotel guests to access the information via a QR code. Fine, but how many tourists are actually that bothered about how the tax is spent?

Closing the roads

Tourism season or winter, should there be further measures for healthier living and cutting pollution? The colleges of architects and doctors in the Balearics most certainly believe there should be. And to this end they will be asking the mayor of Palma to close the city's main roads at weekends. Cities like Barcelona and Madrid already do close some roads at weekends, and the colleges believe that reducing traffic in the centre of Palma is key to the future of the city.

Good idea perhaps, and it would mean that cruise ship passengers could walk unmolested by a weekend's vehicles. Not, of course, that cruise ships pollute.