Prohens shoots institutional travel spending

PalmPresident Marga Prohens has multiplied spending on institutional travel in relation to the last term of Francina Armengol. This is evident from the response the Government sent to various parliamentary questions from the PSIB. According to this data, the head of the Executive has made 25 trips this legislature, of which 14 have been outside the Islands, with an accumulated expense of 151,841.55 euros. Whereas in the previous legislature (marked by the pandemic and the mobility restrictions it entailed), Armengol made 33 trips, 12 outside the Islands, which cost 98,173.95 euros. According to the data that the PSIB made public in the last plenary session of the Parliament, the main difference between the two presidents is that Prohens travels with a much larger entourage.

According to the parliamentary group's documents, the most notable expense is the trip to the International Tourism Fair (FITUR) in Madrid in 2025, for which the Government spent 26,049.9 euros, along with the 9,604.21 that Armengol's last trip cost. At that time, 29 people accompanied Prohens (with an expense of 21,479.78 euros), in addition to her cabinet (the director and the heads of the Protocol Secretariat and the Press Secretariat). At the World Travel Market (WTM) in London in 2025, the president's trip represented an expense of 20,389 euros compared to 9,576 for Armengol's last trip to the same place in 2022. On that journey, the head of the Executive mobilized eleven companions.

Prohens also exceeded Armengol's spending on her visit to the International Tourism Exchange (ITB) in Berlin in 2024. It cost 18,600 euros, compared to 11,286.9 for the previous Government. The figure also increases regarding the head of the Executive's trips to Brussels to participate in the Committee of the Regions. In 2024, Prohens made the trip for 3,997.73 euros. The figure increased to 7,809.65 euros for the same trip, but by spending an extra night there, in October 2025, and it cost 6,683.28 euros in December 2025 (also for two nights). In contrast, Armengol's trip cost 1,931.9 euros in 2019. Similarly, the expense of the informative breakfast at Europa Press (in Madrid) amounted to 3,906.33 euros of public money concerning the president's team. Compared to the 1,632 euros that Armengol's cost a year earlier. In February 2024, the president and several counselors also attended the ABC Forum in Madrid, which involved an expense of 4,366.52 euros.

In last Tuesday's plenary session, the PSIB deputy, Mercedes Garrido, presented these figures. During the government control session, the socialist reproached the second vice-president and Minister of the Presidency, Antònia Estarellas, for these expenses. "The expenditure containment of this Government is the same as the tourism containment," Garrido stated. To which Estarellas responded by accusing the deputy of posing a generic question to then detail the data orally. "You were not interested in me giving you an answer," she lamented.