The new Balearic Coastal Law must not consolidate irregularities

There have been several coastal laws in Spain, and it can even be said that the one from 1969, during Franco's time, had a certain conservationist intent. Above all, because it created a great concept: public maritime-terrestrial domain, a strip that varies in extension according to different criteria, and which consecrates the first meters of the coast as an inviolable asset.

This concept was expanded and greatly improved in 1988 with the first democratic coastal law. Which is still a reference today. The legislator's central idea is to be able to travel along the Spanish coast without encountering any obstacle that privatizes it and blocks the way. This law served, for example, to finally demolish the illegal apartments in Ses Covetes, which had been built with a fraudulent license from the Campos Town Hall. This law has also served to practically define the strip and review everything that had been authorized even before the 1969 regulation.

And what has the Administration been finding? Thousands of irregular constructions. Some had an old and expired temporary concession, and others, not even that. Simply, they had been built in those times when everyone did as they pleased and no one looked. Today, fortunately, things have changed, and little by little – too slowly – the State and now also the autonomous communities, like the Balearic Islands (which have received part of the powers), are putting order to it.

In her first interview granted to the media, Maria Joaquina Ferrer, the new Director General of Coasts, admits to ARABalears that there is still too much of a culture of private appropriation in a space that is public. And so it is. Restaurants, bars, even hotels and, of course, swimming pools, like the one at Pedro J. Ramírez's villa, which after twenty years of litigation will be demolished. It is evident that the rule of law offers many guarantees, even to an offender, to appeal and prolong the enjoyment of an illegal occupation. It becomes long for the citizen and generates the culture that the Director General criticizes, that of the impunity of abuses.

But precisely for that reason, public authorities must act responsibly. Firstly, both the State and the CAIB, which share competences nowadays, must provide more resources for surveillance and file processing services. In some resolutions, the administration itself apologizes for having a building without a permit for 20 and 30 years on the frontline, occupying what belongs to everyone. Nor can false expectations be generated, as the PP did, for those who have small businesses and properties on public domain in Formentera. The law is the same for everyone, and now creating an autonomous one with the purpose of legalizing what the state law –of higher rank– prevents is legally a blunder and goes against the most precious asset we islanders have: a protected coastline, without constructions on the sea.