More class, deputies

I'd like to think there was a time when Parliament served a purpose beyond applauding one's own and booing the opposition. A place where the government was held accountable and the opposition held it accountable. If that time ever existed, it's long gone. Today, parliamentary debate is, above all, an exchange of speeches designed for the gallery.

The question-and-answer system has been so perverted that the opposition admits to posing broad questions as traps to catch the councilor off guard, while those in power simply answer what they want. It's embarrassing to see councilors reading like robots (who knows if for the first time) the talking points written by their advisors. They stand up, straighten their ties, adjust their microphones, and spout a string of vague statements and "whataboutism" that leads nowhere. "Whataboutism," by the way, that makes no sense after three years in power.

The gross annual salary of a backbencher in the Balearic Islands exceeds €62,000. The minimum wage is just over €17,000. Many people, who survive on barely €1,200 a month, also voted for them. Although the average citizen doesn't care much about what happens in Parliament, the members should remember every time they take their seats that they must raise the bar and fulfill their obligations.

Questions should be clear and direct. And answers should never be read verbatim. This leads us to how party machines choose who makes up their lists and forces us to reconsider whether they shouldn't have certain requirements to be public servants.

I've seen members of parliament ask for committee meetings on matters under the jurisdiction of other administrations or be unable to defend their own due to sheer ignorance. I'm not suggesting that Parliament should be a bed of roses, but rather a level of discourse that transcends platitudes, clichés, obvious recriminations, and inertia.

The opposition should leverage its experience in government to demand answers (instead of handing over the 2027 elections), and those in power should provide them clearly. This would also be a good way to combat populism and disinformation. And it doesn't seem like an unreasonable demand for public representatives who earn more than €62,000 a year.