Lafuente denies having dismissed the general director of Costs "due to external pressures or specific files"

PalmaThe PP and Vox have prevented the Minister of the Sea and Water Cycle, Juan Manuel Lafuente, from giving explanations for the dismissal of the Director General of Coasts in a formal appearance. However, the minister has not been able to dodge the questions asked by the left regarding this matter during the control session of the Government, nor in an interpellation about the management of the coastline. Pressed by the MÉS per Mallorca deputy Maria Ramon, who questioned whether the dismissal complied with the regulations, Lafuente asserted that the dismissal was not due to "external pressures or a specific file".

The head of the department thus addressed the criticisms from the left, after it was made public that the former Director General of Coasts Maria Joaquina Ferrer had a restrictive approach to the granting of sunbeds in Formentera that the Government did not share. In fact, her replacement, the former mayor of Llucmajor Joan Jaume Mulet, endorsed in eleven minutes the 80-page report that changed the criteria, as reported by ARA Balears.

"This minister has never interfered in any specific resolution, he has interfered in one thing that is very clear, which is a matter of meeting deadlines," argued Lafuente. On the other hand, Ramon reproached him for having "a problem with technical criteria that do not say what you would like them to say," and recalled that 21 civil servants publicly supported Ferrer when she was removed from her position. "Maria Joaquina Ferrer should not have been dismissed, the one who should resign is you, although I don't know if we would notice your absence much," she defended. Be that as it may, the minister reiterated that "the regulations were strictly complied with," in relation to the authorizations for the items on the beaches of Formentera.

During the interpellation of the minister, the deputy spokesperson for the PSIB parliamentary group, Marc Pons, praised the director general's judgment. "Neither their pressures nor their threats made the director general change her mind," said Pons, and he criticized that Ferrer's substitute has a "clearly political" profile and lacks knowledge in the field of Coasts and Littoral.