The president of the Balearic, Marga Prohens, announced on Tuesday in the Parliament that the government will act this summer ‘for the first time around the coast with a sea and coastguard service’, with a fleet of 22 vessels ‘to guarantee the correct anchoring and safety of bathers and sailors’. Of the 22 PortsIB (Balearic port authority) vessels, 12 will be used for surveillance in ports and 10 in coastal areas, the Regional Ministry of the Sea explained.
This fleet is different from that of the Regional Ministry of Agriculture and the Natural Environment, which ensures that boats do not anchor on Posidonia seagrass meadows. Prohens announced the launch of this fleet in the question and answer session with the Government in the Parliament plenary session, in response to Més per Menorca MP Josep Castells who asked if the government ‘in addition to talking, is really doing something to stop the mass tourism’.
Castells admitted that the government has captured social interest in sustainability but told Prohens that the Sustainability Board is ‘a smokescreen’ and no limits have been set. Prohens responded stating that combating the ‘episodes of congestion’ that occur is linked to the transformation of the economic and tourism model of the Balearics and is something ‘that is not done from one day to the next or from one year to the next’.
The president assured that by 2024 the government had managed to ‘grow the tourist industry more in value than in volume and that the increase in visitors is mainly concentrated in the off-season months’, which was its objective. Prohens cited measures that the government has already put in place, such as a 150 million investment in the concession contract to improve intercity public transport lines and frequencies and the regulation of vehicle entry into Ibiza, which is also being worked on for Mallorca. The purchase of the fleet to monitor the coast will be added.
Castells defended the moratorium on tourist accommodation that was approved by the previous government and told Prohens that the best thing her government has done is not to repeal it.
The president responded by accusing the left-wing pact governments of increasing tourist accommodation by 115,000 and of reaching an all-time record in one year for multi-family tourist rental licences.
Prohens said that the government would not adopt measures ‘based on perceptions, likes and dislikes’ because a diagnosis was needed. ‘We will have it with objective and measurable data and base measures on that; this is called common sense and responsibility,’ she concluded.
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