Politicians look for culprits and citizens, home
Between announcements and promises, the parties circle around housing, saturation, and mobility
PalmaIt can be listed in any order, but the fact is that housing, saturation, and mobility are the major structural problems that the citizens of the Balearic Islands have been dragging since the beginning of the last legislature, that of the Pact. Governments, headlines, announcements, and press conferences have passed, but the difficulties have shown their resilience and public policies have not even been able to diminish them.
Many citizens are finding it increasingly difficult to pay for their homes, if they have them. Traveling by car is a daily test of stress, and there is little time left for tourist saturation to extend throughout the year, while the Government congratulates itself on having de-seasonalized. After two legislatures, it seems that everything is yet to be done, perhaps because fundamental problems are not solved with half-measures. The institutional script is based on saying that everything is underway or in the planning phase, plans are announced, and measures are being worked on. But without immediate solutions, it is inevitable that someone will be left behind. Someone from here, as the Government likes to say. Or someone from there, but who had come to the Islands in search of a future that has become a cruel present.
Twenty times. This is the number of times the Minister of Housing, Mobility and Territory, José Luis Mateo, mentioned the verb 'to work' in the last plenary session of Parliament: "The Government has the answer: work and more work for the citizens of the Balearic Islands"; "we continue working with real measures"; "we continue working to provide a response"; "we are working on the need for improvement"; "we are working on reliable measures"; "we are working, we are working to increase the SFM staff"; "it is now that we are working"; "we will continue in this line of work". And so every week. It doesn't matter that the Ibavi waiting list already exceeds 9,000 applications and that passengers go straight to the bus from Campos to Palma, or from Palma to Sóller.
Mateo works hard and gets very offended if anyone questions the effectiveness of his work. "You are specialists in finding clouds on the sunniest days. He who always finds fault, finds no peace", he told the MÉS per Mallorca deputy Ferran Rosa, when he pointed out that users do not perceive, not even remotely, the 50% improvement in supply that the minister recurrently claims without providing concrete data to justify it (all of Mateo's interventions are translated into Catalan, because the minister does not use the native language of the Balearic Islands in any intervention. The same happens with the Minister of Health, Manuela García, and with the Minister of Economy, Alejandro Sáenz de San Pedro). "Your words do not inform, they intoxicate. They do not contribute, they poison", he told the socialist deputy Mercedes Garrido when she asked him about vulture funds and regulated-price housing.
In fact, the Government has not yet explained why it has decided to allow companies and vulture funds to buy regulated-price housing in the Balearic Islands, thanks to an amendment by the PP to the Law on the acceleration of strategic projects. "The citizens of our Islands have been able to access housing with some form of protection, with prices below market value", Mateo replied to Rosa, referring to the eighty flats in the Lloguer Segur program – the Government had assured that it would capture between 2,000 and 3,000 in just the first phase of this initiative. "Are you listening?", the astonished ecosovereigntist asked him, because the question was whether he found it positive that vulture funds and large companies compete with families for regulated-price housing.
A legislature of customs
On the other hand, there are customs that have been established this legislature and that do not seem to be going to change. The Minister of Health, Manuela García, considers that all the evils of this world and of parallel universes are due to the doctors' strike to protest against the framework statute of the Spanish government. Has a light bulb blown in a health center? Strike. Are there complaints about the new application to make an appointment with the doctor? Strike. Has an ambulance tire been punctured? Strike. Are there professionals who cannot work in the Balearic Islands due to the cost of living? Strike, strike, and strike.
had its moment of glory when it spoke of "La Balanguera in schools, conditioned by the promise of improving their Catalan grade. This week, there have also been squatters, another crutch for the right and the far-right to avoid analyzing how deep the structural housing crisis is. The far-right deputy Patricia de las Heras had her minute of glory when she spoke of "la derechita cobarde", an expression that Vox members love to say. "Even if they try to humanize squatting, there is drugs, mafias, robberies, fights, unsanitary conditions, terrified neighbors, fires... They are not vulnerable, they are mafias," she said. It's strange, because only she, Sergio Rodríguez, María José Verdú, Manuela Cañadas, and Gabriel Le Senne perceive this monumental chaos in the cities and towns of the Balearic Islands. But, of course, they think the problem is everyone else's perception.
The Minister of Tourism, Jaume Bauzà, continues to talk about the magnificent containment that the Government is applying, so effective that the first months of the year have already broken tourist records. It seems that reservations also point to a historic summer (another year) due to the war in the Middle East and thanks to the August eclipse, which will leave no corner of the Islands without tourists looking at the sky with glasses. However, the PSIB has a good hand when talking about overtourism while the Spanish government of the PSOE is busy with the airport expansions of Palma and Ibiza. The English say "No news, good news." We will have to settle for saying "No news... Again."
