We are an angry people: the time to take action!
After indignation comes the time for proposals. A few days ago in this same media, our comrade Margalida Ramis, an environmental activist with a long trajectory and a reference person for Less Tourism, More Life, asked in her opinion article And now, what? Impossible to be clearer. A key question.
This summer of 2026 will go down in the history of social movements in the Balearic Islands as the summer when a good part of our public opinion made the click. Made the change. Externalized what had been brewing for a long time. The 70,000 people taking to the streets on July 26th in an extraordinary demonstration that ended in brawls – an outcome for which the Spanish National Police and the PSIB-PSOE managers Alfonso Rodríguez, Rosario Sánchez, and Aina Calvo are primarily responsible, but which cannot detract from exemplary popular mobilization efforts – has been the photograph that exemplifies it. Surely, with the two young women from Santa Maria handcuffed by the Civil Guard a few days earlier for denouncing, through graffiti, the excesses of touristification and the current model. A model that has fundamentally benefited and enriched the environment of the Popular Party (let's remember the disastrous Delgado law of 2012 and a pernicious executor for the welfare of the popular classes like Jaime Martínez). But also, and this is not a minor detail, the sociological world represented by regionalist centrists (formerly UM, now Coalición per Mallorca). All of this well-seasoned by the lack of courage of the PSOE when we have articulated progressive governments.
The people have said enough. Limits must be set. And we must seize the opportunities we have in the future. Because many more trains will not pass. In recent years, the sovereignist and green left in the Parliament of the Balearic Islands and in the Spanish Congress has fulfilled its role. We have registered serious proposals for airport co-management and for limiting sales to non-residents that will be debated soon. We have done what we could while helping to fuel the fire that led us to July 26th. Meanwhile, Marga Prohens' Government is clearly promoting growth and urban speculation and is not applying the Housing Law regarding tense areas and rent regulation. Sánchez's state executive, for its part, is not being diligent with the measures we have on the table and that would be feasible. The extension of contracts, for example, was an urgent matter where there is a lack of involvement.
And these limits will not be imposed solely by institutions. They will also be imposed alongside social movements that have been on the front lines all these years: Less Tourism, More Life, the Civil Society Forum, and so many other platforms and entities that have made it possible for the debate to be different today. The change of model will only be possible if institutions and civil society walk together, with shared objectives and with the necessary determination to confront the interests that want to maintain the 'status quo.
The Majorcan and left-wing proposal is very clear. Move towards economic transformation and achieve a Special Regime for the Balearic Islands (REB) to implement degrowth as it should be. Make airport co-management possible and a new financing model that takes into account our demographics and socioeconomic reality. All of this, true taboos for the governments in Madrid, whether conservative or progressive, for decades. But any democrat must understand that they are the only way for the Balearic Islands to regain dignity and, in essence, the best anti-authoritarian antidote for the dark future that the PP and Vox want for the peoples of the State.