How many diagnoses do we need?

PalmThat the Balearic Islands must diversify their economy, that they cannot base their growth on the consumption of natural resources, has been said since the late 1990s. Therefore, for more than three decades we have known that we must invest in technology, in agribusiness, and, ultimately, innovate. Studies, meetings, symposia, workshops, and all kinds of analyses have been carried out, all of which only coincide in the risk of depending on just one activity (in reality, there are two, tourism and construction, but they are closely related).

So, the island economy is a patient with thousands of diagnoses. And yet, it seems that more resources are still being devoted to continuing to monitor how the patient's heart beats than to thinking about, and above all, defining, where we can move. The most specific information we can find is simply recommending other sectors, without a concrete plan. The Balearic Islands wouldn't be the first economy to be reconverted; in Spain, there are at least partial cases of reinvention or adaptation to modern times that have worked reasonably well.

So, how many more diagnoses are needed to make decisions? Surely none more. What is missing, and this challenges us all, is to move beyond the current debate, focused solely on finding those to blame for saturation or the lack of alternatives.

Businesses, the political class, and civil society must engage in an honest exercise to sit down face to face and find concrete, strategic, and focused proposals to break this cycle from which we cannot escape, no matter what they say, based on increasing tourist arrivals each year and the resulting impacts. And for that, leadership is needed, which is currently lacking.