Prohens fuels the anti-immigration discourse hand in hand with Vox: "Half of the Serra de Tramuntana has come by boat"

PalmaSecond session of the general policy debate in which the president, Marga Prohens, has distanced herself from the left and has sought an approach to Vox. After the far-right extended its hand to approve the budgets and govern in exchange for "firmness on immigration and locals first", the head of the Executive has accepted their offer. "25,000 illegal immigrants have arrived on our coasts [in the last five years]," said Prohens, and continued: "half of the Serra de Tramuntana has arrived by boat in the Balearic Islands".

The president has ignored the fact that most of these migrants, those who are adults, leave for the peninsula as soon as they disembark. "This demographic growth is unsustainable," she insisted. The president has fueled the anti-immigration discourse by insisting that the island councils are already hosting 919 guardianship-protected migrant minors. After an opposition deputy shouted "lie!" from their seat, the popular member replied: "They call us liars because they don't care about the conditions they are in.".

On the other hand, she responded to Vox's offer by assuring that "what is important is to respect differences and the correlation of forces." "While some were saying, 'be careful, Vox is coming', they were stealing and colonizing the institutions," she said in reference to Pedro Sánchez's PSOE. In the same vein, she dug into the Ceuta crisis and the extraordinary regularization to attack the socialists. "If Europe tightens the criteria and we have mass regularizations, it cannot be that we later say that there is a lack of resources," she said.

"I hope the seats serve them well"

"Don't call it love, call it chairs". Prohens has put the leader of MÉS per Mallorca, Lluís Apesteguia, in the crosshairs during the first part of her reply in the general policy debate. The Popular Party member has attacked the decision of the eco-sovereigntists, federated under the Ara Més umbrella, to run in the 29-N elections hand in hand with Ada Colau's Broad Front. "Your speech passed through Ferraz and Ada Colau before coming here," she said, considering that the alliance questions the sovereignty of MÉS. "You have just buried the coherence of a party that had always defended these islands," she said: "I hope the chairs do you good"

After Apesteguia proposed that the number of tourists be reduced to 13 million annually, Prohens demanded that he go up to the podium and "say how many thousands of workers he would send to the street" with this measure. "You come here with populism," she retorted.

In response to the criticisms from the eco-sovereigntist regarding the rise in grocery prices, the popular party member announced an injection of 125 million euros to compensate for the price increase of hydrocarbons as a consequence of the war in Ukraine. This is the second aid package in this line, which adds to the 175 million approved to support transport, distribution, the agricultural sector, and fishermen. Therefore, a total of 300 million euros will have been allocated, as the president explained in the hemicycle.

Criticism of Armengol: "They look like virgins"

The president also referred to the legacy received from the previous governments of Francina Armengol. On the occasion of the celebration of the Day of the Virgins in the Islands, she lashed out at the left, saying that "they seem like virgins and as if they had never governed." Thus, Prohens referred to the statements made by the PSIB spokesperson, Iago Negueruela, who said that if she has not increased the Sustainable Tourism Tax (ITS), it is because the PP "has masters" who have prevented it. "The powerful are those who said they had been so comfortable with Armengol and Negueruela, because they have not said that about us," she replied. "Young people have abandoned the left, just as thousands of workers have abandoned them," she said.

After the PSIB, MÉS per Mallorca, and Més per Menorca accused the Government of failing to address the problems of access to housing and tourist saturation, Prohens responded that they are "the result of eight years of left-wing government." "And they come here to rend their garments? 'H' for hypocrisy," she said, and defended that the Government has 2,000 public homes tendered or in the process of being tendered.