The promoters of the Maritime Museum demand the dismissal of the manager and accuse the Council of years of "political neglect"

PalmaThe Mallorcan Business Circle (CMN) and the Mare Mar Foundation have requested the Consell de Mallorca for the dismissal of the managing director of the Maritime Museum of Mallorca, Albert Forés. The two entities, promoters of the original Museum project, denounce a management marked by "paralysis", "inefficiency" and "alleged irregularities", while the institution defends that it complies with the Consortium's objectives and claims the work done in recent years.

The letter, registered two weeks ago and addressed to the Vice-President of Culture and Heritage, Antònia Roca, comes, according to the president of the CMN, Bartomeu Rosselló, after years of warning the Consell about what he considers a drift of the Museum. "We held meetings with the Presidency, we put these irregularities on the table and nothing was done," he assures. Rosselló attributes the situation not only to the management of the Consortium, but also to a "very important political neglect".

The Consell rejects this diagnosis. In response to ARA Balears, it defends that the Consortium fulfills the purposes provided for in its statutes and highlights the inauguration of the first museographic proposal at les Voltes, in October 2025, the declaration of the Museu de la Mar as a museum and the approval of an initial Master Plan in February 2020, in addition to the annual action plans approved by the Governing Board. The institution has also confirmed that Antònia Roca will meet with the representatives of the CMN in the coming days. The meeting was only activated after ARA Balears requested information about the conflict.

Precisely the Master Plan is one of the main points of discrepancy. In the letter, the Mallorcan Business Circle assures that it has no record of this document having been approved or executed and maintains that the Museum has operated without a defined museographic strategy. It also denounces that the facilities at les Voltes were closed for years due to non-compliance with safety regulations.

Content emptied

Rosselló considers that the project has been emptied of content and regrets that the Consortium has not incorporated entities linked to maritime heritage or has not managed to generate complicity with the sector. He also criticizes that external consultants have been used while, as he states, the knowledge of local experts has been set aside. "It is a necessity for this island. Order must be established and all initiatives that work for maritime heritage must be brought together. Having four nets, four posters, and a raft in the middle of the Voltes space does not make a museum. The Sóller headquarters closes at midday. Public attention is pathetic. All of this is very serious and I am ashamed when other maritime museums ask us about ours and do not understand how we can have this, given that it is the Balearics", he maintains.

Among the requests made to the Council are the review of the manager's appointment, a management and economic audit of the Consortium, clarification of the functioning of its governing bodies, and the dismissal of Albert Forés due to loss of confidence derived, according to the signatories, from his management.

The Council, however, has not responded to this newspaper's questions about whether it maintains confidence in Albert Forés, whether it plans to open an audit following the letter, or why the request for incorporation into the Consortium presented by the Cercle Mallorquí de Negocis in 2018 was not answered.