From the Caribbean to the USA: the other presidential trips

PalmMarga Prohens' dances in the Dominican Republic have become the leitmotif of the latest debates in the Parliament. The opposition does not forgive her the bachata class she gave in mid-March during an institutional trip, during which she also met with the country's president, Luis Abinader. There are no documented precedents of Balearic presidents joining in Caribbean dances, a gesture that Prohens defended as a sign of "respect" for the hosts. But the archives do show the intense relationship that the governments of the Islands have maintained with Latin America. From Gabriel Cañellas' visit to Puerto Rico in 1992 to Francesc Antich's six-hour dinner with Fidel Castro in the year 2000, the presidents' foreign agenda has been busy.

In an interview on the occasion of the death of the Cuban leader in 2016, Antich referred to this meeting on La Ser. “He didn't stop talking”, he said, recalling Castro's lengthy chat, who had summoned him to the Palace of the Revolution in Havana. “I tried to speak on several occasions, but I couldn't”, confessed the socialist. The dictator's monologue dragged on until past four in the morning, and some members of the Government team were already “half asleep” at the table. “When we were leaving, [Castro] stopped in a very long corridor and said to me: ‘Mr. President, we haven't talked about Varadero’”, recalled Antich. That still extended the conversation by half an hour.

All the presidents of the Islands have had an international agenda. In addition to Cuba, Antich visited Argentina (2008), Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic (2009), and Panama (in 2010, with the then Minister of Innovation, Pilar Costa). The first official trip of a president to the Caribbean dates back to 1992, when President Cañellas met with the governor-elect of Puerto Rico, Pedro Rosselló, who had Majorcan roots. Under Cañellas's mandates (1983-1995), the networks of relations with the Balearic communities in America were created and have been expanding. According to the official record, Jaume Matas also traveled through the Dominican Republic and Cancun in 2005, and in 2006 he spent three days in Colombia. The trips of the popular party were part of a strategy to expand tourist capital, and especially some hotel chains. But, with the outbreak of corruption cases associated with the president, the Government's external action was not saved from judicial scrutiny. The well-known Rasputin Case, which began with an official trip by Matas to Moscow (Russia), opened a debate about the limits of the executive leaders' agenda. Matas went to Argentina in April 1998, a trip that over time was connected with the Mapau corruption case, which ended with convictions for using public money to attract votes among Balearic descendants. He also flew to New York, allegedly to promote island culture there.

José Ramón Bauzá stood out for having an intense agenda in Madrid. Nevertheless, he also traveled outside of Europe. In October 2013, he toured Uruguay, Chile, and Argentina. A month later, he accompanied the princes of Asturias to the United States, for the second centenary of the death of the missionary friar Juníper Serra.

Despite the setbacks of the pandemic, Francina Armengol flew to Argentina in 2022. Two years earlier, she also visited various cooperation projects financed by the Government in India. Although the most talked-about trip of her first term (2015-2019) was not starred by the socialist, but by her vice-president, Gabriel Barceló (MÉS per Mallorca), who in 2017 ended up resigning for having accepted a trip with all expenses paid by Globalia to Punta Cana (Dominican Republic).

The tourism sector and its interests have often led presidents to destinations such as Berlin (Germany), London (the United Kingdom), as well as to annual tourism fairs. In the same vein, presidents are increasingly pushed to travel to Brussels (Belgium) to defend the interests of the Islands in Europe. In addition to her last official trip to the Caribbean, Prohens also spent two days in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) in 2023, where she defended the candidacy of Menorca Talayótica for Unesco World Heritage.

The opposition, on the attack

The opposition's criticism of the Government's foreign policy is also a common occurrence. The PP accused Armengol of "escapism" for going to India, and Bauzá received similar attacks for leaving for Uruguay when teachers were in full protest. The left has also lashed out at Prohens for being away during the price crisis caused by the war in Iran. In the last plenary session, the PSIB criticized the cost of the president's institutional trips, which has increased compared to Armengol's last term (from 2019 to 2023). Prohens has spent 151,841.55 euros, along with the socialist's 98,173.95 euros, according to parliamentary group data. Two plenary sessions ago, socialist deputies left a towel and a jar of sunscreen on Prohens' seat. Since then, the drumbeat has continued to set the pace of the debate.