The mayor of Esporles of MÉS responds to Ferran Rosa: "Only a comfortable political office can have this cross their mind"

PalmaThe mayor of Esporles and MÉS spokesperson in Parliament, Josep Ferrà, has harshly criticized deputy Ferran Rosa in a letter sent to the party's militants. In the letter, which ARA Balears has accessed, he makes it clear that the eco-sovereigntist's statements on the podcast L'hora de la sesta, in which he said that MÉS did not "push hard enough for degrowth" and that "the PP is the one who has best understood why the left lost" the 2019 elections, have offended a sector of the party. "Only a comfortable political official could think of this," Ferrà snaps in the text, in which he criticizes Rosa for having questioned the party's action during the Pacte de Progrés "with a certain arrogance and relaxed on a sofa, and with an absence of coherent self-criticism from someone who held positions in the PSIB and Podem ministries at the end of the 2015-2019 Pact and throughout the 2019-2023 Pact".

In the letter, of nine pages, Ferrà responds one by one to the declarations critical of MÉS, and especially of the previous eco-sovereignist parliamentary group and also the former president of the Consell de Mallorca Miquel Ensenyat. "I share that any political project that wants to move forward must be able to review what it has done, recognize errors and learn from them. MÉS per Mallorca must never be afraid of self-criticism," Ferrà's text begins: "But one thing is self-criticism and another, very different, is to turn it into an amendment in its entirety to the work done by the colleagues who, for years, assumed institutional and party responsibilities." In the opinion of the mayor, who claims to represent a group of disgruntled militants, Ferrà warns: "This is not self-criticism, Ferran; it is a disqualification, and I think it is unfair and misguided."

"What is relevant is that these declarations are not opinions expressed in private by a militant: they are public declarations of a deputy, a member of the Permanent of MÉS and head of Communication; that is, of who represents us," he insists. Rosa said on the podcast that "MÉS per Mallorca should not have entered the Government in 2019." He also lashed out at the management of some of his party's leaders, and specifically Ensenyat: "Leading is doing things correctly, not a Miquel Ensenyat, who builds a highway in Campos and goes to see how they make Saint Juníper Serra." Furthermore, he pointed against the previous leadership of the party and the parliamentary group, considering that the eco-sovereignists should have pressured the PSIB more to limit tourism. "Those who were supposed to do this work within MÉS did not do it, and they should not do it within the Government, but within the party or the parliamentary group," he remarked. Regarding the Government, he considered that, despite the fact that "very good regulations were made," the Pact's policies were more "continuist" than "transformational." "We have gone for the worse as a society," he said. The summary video of the podcast shared on Instagram, in which he expresses part of these criticisms, has spread like wildfire among the internal cadres of MÉS per Mallorca.

In the letter circulated among the militants, Ferrà reproaches him for making these criticisms public instead of channeling them through the party's executives and open assemblies. "We are a group of militants who feel with pain the contempt towards us as a result of your statements and we think we have to answer them," he laments. Firstly, he questions "the resounding assertion that the left should have lost in 2019": "He states that the PP, Vox and Cs tandem should have added a majority against a left that did not deserve to repeat". "What you say, Ferran, makes no sense, apart from despising all of us who worked with heart and passion to reverse the four horrible years of policies of the PP of José Ramón Bauzá," he snaps: "Although the generated expectations – which were very high – were not met one hundred percent, there was credit and trust for four more years".

Regarding the opinion expressed by the deputy that MÉS per Mallorca should not have entered the Government in 2019, he justifies that this decision was voted on in assembly. "With all this, coming from someone who held a position between 2018 and 2019 and accepted another between 2019 and 2023, I would expect at least self-criticism and a little more humility in his statements, because I do not recall any intervention from you against the Pact nor any leadership to avoid repeating it," he explains. Among other issues in the long text, he also attacks Rosa's assertion that MÉS was "excessively loyal" to the PSOE, which he defines as a "smoke screen": "We were loyal to the Pact".

Regarding the criticisms of the previous leadership of the parliamentary group and the party, Ferrà assures: "You show a significant degree of ignorance (...) However, excluding the Government, where you were sitting and said nothing, perhaps out of fear of a scolding from your Podemos bosses." During the previous legislature, Rosa was the managing director of the Balearic Energy Institute, which depended on the Ministry of Energy Transition. Despite this, the mayor of Esporles defends the work done by the previous Executive and questions the criticisms of the left for not curbing tourism during the covid-19 pandemic: "Was this the time when the people of Mallorca should have been worried about tourism? Only an accommodated political official could think of that." Despite the harshness of his statements, Ferrà ends the letter by accepting that an internal discussion on these matters should be opened. "Some colleagues from MÉS and I myself do not understand if with your statements you want to open a debate," he considers: "If so, I accept it, and I believe that the best forums are the MÉS per Mallorca bodies or an open assembly."