Ecologist indignation because the Government can unprotected Trenc by decree

PalmaWar drums are sounding in Mallorca's environmental sector. The Government of Marga Prohens, after a series of environmental deregulation and deprotection measures, has now dared to tackle one of the great symbols of Balearic environmentalism: Es Trenc.

The omnibus law approved by the Executive includes a discreet but politically and territorially significant modification: the possibility that the regulations of the Trenc-Salobrar de Campos Maritime-Terrestrial Natural Park can be modified by decree of the Governing Council, without the need to return to Parliament. In other words, Prohens grants herself the power to modify any aspect of the Natural Park's protection decreed during the Pact Government in 2017.

The modification occupies only a few lines in the new law, but it is explicit enough. Under the title of ‘Decriminalization’, the new provision establishes that “the Governing Council, by decree, can modify the rules provided for in this law”. Until now, any alteration of this regulatory framework required a legislative modification and a vote in Parliament. From now on, a Governing Council agreement will be sufficient.

“The discussion is not whether Trenc will be built tomorrow. The discussion is why the Government has decided to get rid of the parliamentary control that existed until now,” explains Jaume Adrover, spokesperson for Terraferida, the first entity to raise its voice upon seeing how a law, which is supposedly designed to favor strategic business projects, ends up being “an instrument to continue deregulating and unprotected, always hidden and from behind,” Adrover states.

According to Terraferida, the problem is not a specific action on Trenc, but the fact that “the Government has attributed itself the power to modify the park’s regulation without needing to return to Parliament”. The entity maintains that, if the Executive does not plan to alter its protection, “it is difficult to explain why it has considered it necessary to introduce this faculty”.

The opposition has expressed itself along the same lines. “If you don’t want to touch Trenc, or any other natural space, you don’t make a law to modify another, lowering the requirements to be able to intervene there. It is evident that they are not doing it to increase its protection,” said the spokesperson for MÉSper Mallorca, Lluís Apesteguia.

The change has set off alarms among conservationist entities. Not so much because there is currently any specific project on El Trenc, but because the Government has reserved a tool that it did not have until now. The question from ecologists and the opposition is: "If the Executive assures that it has no intention of modifying the park's protection, why does it consider it necessary to grant itself this power?", asks the vice-president of GOB Mallorca, Tonina Siquier.

GOB considers that the Government's decision to alter the current system of guarantees is already a cause for concern. The first vice-president and spokesperson for the Executive, Antoni Costa, has denied that the Omnibus Law has deregulated the Trenc Natural Park, as criticized by the opposition and ecologists. "They are lying," states Costa, and insists that the functioning of the natural park has been adapted to that of the rest of the protected territories.

"If all the natural parks of the Islands are modified by decree, can we say that they are all unprotected?", the vice-president has asked. "The only one that was regulated by law, and could only be modified by law and by Parliament, was this one, and it has been decided that it should be like the others, including Cabrera", he added. "Nothing has been unprotected", he insisted. He also assured that the Government, for now, rules out installing new beach bars and other banned beach services there.

The background of El Trenc

The sensitivity that any change on El Trenc awakens is no accident. The declaration of Natural Park promoted by the Pact in 2017 provoked a harsh backlash from some economic sectors linked to the area. The limitations imposed by the Pact's regulation on beach bars and other seasonal services generated a conflict that has never been fully resolved. “The managers of bars and restaurants, those who ran the so-called beach bars, are very insistent and grumble at any change that limits their business. In general, they are only interested in invoicing, and they don't forget,” comments a civil servant who closely witnessed the conflict during the Pact's time and who requests anonymity.

This legislature, sectors of the PP have also defended more flexibility regarding these uses. Therefore, within the environmental movement, some interpret the reform not as an isolated decision, but as a new chapter in a conflict that has been ongoing for years and has now culminated in the elimination of parliamentary control over the law of this emblematic Natural Park. “They feel very strong, I suppose, very impunity, and they think that now is the time to go further and prepare the ground. Environmentalists will not let anyone set foot in El Trenc again to do anything other than respect it,” warns Tonina Siquier.

Lowering the LECO

The Omnibus Law also modifies the Law on Areas of Environmental Relevance (LECO), one of the main environmental protection regulations in the Islands. It is here that environmentalists place an important part of their concerns.

According to conservationist entities, the reforms introduced by the Government share the same philosophy: to replace strict prohibitions and limitations with regimes of exceptions and authorizations. What was previously directly excluded now depends on certain administrative justifications, declarations of interest, or political decisions.

The Government rejects this interpretation and argues that the changes aim to simplify procedures and avoid unnecessary bureaucratic hurdles. However, Terraferida and the GOB maintain that the practical result is a greater capacity for intervention on land and spaces that until now enjoyed higher protection. The concern is not so much a specific modification as the sum of all of them.

Strategic projects on protected land

The third element explaining the ecologists' concern is the new regulation of Projects of Special Strategic Interest (PEIE), the twin of the law recently approved by Parliament and already in force. The figure is presented as a tool to speed up infrastructures, facilities, and investments considered priorities. But it also allows, under certain circumstances, for these projects to be located on protected rural land. A new step that threatens the lands known as Rural Areas of Scenic Interest (ARIP) and Areas of Special Natural Interest (ANEI), the jewels of the Balearic territory.

The Government reiterates that environmental controls, specific limitations, and conditions derived from state and European regulations will continue to exist. The ecologists, on the other hand, see a new loophole and warn that they will defend El Trenc with legal actions and mobilizations if necessary.

The Government lowers restrictions for opening businesses in the maritime public domain

Among the provisions of the Omnibus Law, there is one that eliminates the restrictions that the Government (former PP councilor Gabriel Company) had promoted to limit the establishment of restaurants in the maritime-terrestrial public domain.

The modification entirely replaces article 18 of the 2013 order, which regulated seasonal installations on beaches, and renders ineffective the limitations that the Autonomous Community had imposed until now. Detachable establishments for the sale of food and drinks could not exceed 20 square meters and had to maintain a minimum separation of 100 meters from other similar establishments. In the case of fixed ones, the maximum authorized area was 150 square meters, only 100 of which could correspond to enclosed spaces. Furthermore, they had to be located at a minimum distance of 200 meters from other businesses with similar characteristics.

The Balearic regulation went even further. To calculate distances, concessions located on the sand were not the only ones taken into account. Bars and restaurants within the protection servitude zone, outside the public domain, but on the seafront, were also considered. This allowed new concessions to be denied when there was already an equivalent offer in the area, which was the philosophy of the Coastal Law: “That only the essential installations that cannot be found elsewhere be within the public domain”. An establishment could comply with the state coastal regulations and, despite this, not obtain authorization because there was a similar business less than 100 or 200 meters away.

The new wording eliminates these limitations of the regional regulations. From now on, dimensions, minimum distances, and occupation limits will be exclusively regulated by state coastal legislation. The consequence is that the restrictions that the Balearic Islands had decided to impose to protect the maritime-terrestrial public domain, which were more demanding than the state ones, disappear.