Councilors are free to request more overtime from civil servants

PalmThe Balearic government's ministers now have the authority to request that civil servants in their departments work more overtime than the legally mandated limit of 80 hours per year. This stems from a government agreement reached last Friday and published this week in the Official Gazette of the Balearic Islands (BOIB). This measure will allow the government to streamline its work during peak periods. At the proposal of the Minister of Labor, Public Service, and Social Dialogue, Catalina Cabrer, the government has delegated to the ministers the "power to authorize exceeding the annual limit on overtime for civil servants assigned to their respective ministries," the agreement explains. The resolution, signed by President Marga Prohens and Second Vice President Antònia Estarellas, deems it "advisable" to give ministers leeway for "reasons of efficiency and administrative agility."

Article 22 of the General State Budget Law for 2025 establishes that salary supplements linked to the performance of extraordinary services outside of regular working hours, when exceeding 80 hours per year, must be authorized through an agreement of the Governing Council. Meanwhile, the Government continues preparing a new administrative simplification law that should expand upon the debureaucratization of the first one, which affected more than 50 laws and was approved at the end of 2024 amidst considerable controversy. The Vice President and Minister of Economy, Antoni Costa, said that it would be submitted to Parliament for processing this year. Furthermore, the decree on the acceleration of projects, which Vox rejected last September and which both parties are still negotiating, will be brought back to Parliament. This legislation should eliminate obstacles to the construction and implementation of selected projects. Recently, the President of the Balearic Government, Marga Prohens, met with representatives of the construction sector and real estate developers in the Balearic Islands. During the meeting, they expressed their concern about the slow pace at which municipalities process building permits, an aspect they consider key to project development and job creation. According to the business leaders, the administrative delays hinder "the planning and implementation of projects," and they are calling for measures to streamline municipal processes. Representatives of the business sector have lamented on more than one occasion that the Law on Administrative Simplification, which was intended to accelerate urban development projects to address the housing shortage in the Islands, has not yet yielded results. They attribute this to the complexity of the procedures and the backlog experienced by some municipalities and island councils that must issue mandatory reports.