Problems don't go on vacation, but politicians do
PalmaAmidst traffic jams, saturation, housing shortages, healthcare waiting lists, and the anticipation of a new record number of tourists, Parliament bid farewell to the political year on Tuesday with a squabble among deputies over holidays. Citizens' problems will not disappear and will await September, after three months without parliamentary activity, which does not mean that there isn't some absent-minded person who will work during this time. Even the vice-president of Vox of the Consell de Mallorca, Pedro Bestard, will be able to enjoy a quiet summer after the final decision that the PP and Vox have made on his case. Lest anyone forget, Bestard used three public vehicles exclusively, for both public and private matters, while his department (Environment) has about twenty unusable cars and officials suffer from the shortage.
One of the deputies who will enjoy the summer the most will be the popular Marga Duran, who shouted "Bieeeen!," in good Spanish, when the last plenary session ended without any extraordinary session on the horizon, because the PP and Vox voted against convening one to process the law limiting vehicles in Mallorca. Duran usually shows that she has a good voice in all the plenary sessions, but on this occasion her joy is remarkable. The socialist deputies took every opportunity to mention holidays, as if they were going to work in a mine all summer: "It would be good if they didn't go on holiday with their homework undone" (Ares Fernández); "they will go on holiday with the people stuck in traffic" (Ares Fernández); "they will close Parliament and go on holiday" (Carles Bona); "they will go on holiday and the rest of us will be left waiting on the phone [of the Health Service] (Irantzu Fernández); "to go on holiday, you first have to do your work" (Llorenç Pou); "do you want to go on holiday now?" (Mercedes Garrido, from the parliamentary table).
Josep Castells Josep Castells (Més per Menorca) had to step in to restore order, as there was the same excitement as during the last hour of class on the last day of school. “It’s a pathetic spectacle. We already know what citizens think of us, we just need to pretend we don’t want to work. If the problem is taking holidays, we should have asked for a month to process important matters,” he told his colleagues. In short, the limitation of car entry to Mallorca will have to wait until autumn. Anyway, this summer it was already inapplicable and we Mallorcans will once again enjoy the traditional flood of rental cars that add color to the roads with their stickers and make driving more fun with unexpected turns, braking because they are unsure which motorway exit to take, and their bewildered drivers clinging to the steering wheel with their heads very close to the glass.
As the last day of class passes, the work of the last plenary session of the course will not go down in history. No matter how much the opposition asks again and again about the same issues, the counselors of Marga Prohens' Government have developed an enviable gift for not answering, and even more so with José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Leire Díez, the mask case, and Begoña Gómez on the horizon. Sometimes they try to be funny, but only they laugh, as when the Minister of Agriculture, Joan Simonet, told the socialist deputy Malena Riudavets, who was asking about improper uses of agricultural land, “Teletubbie who lives in the land of Yupi.”
If we are to talk about the land of Yupi, the Minister of Tourism, Jaume Bauzà
, continues to make light of the effects of tourism containment; the Minister of Housing, José Luis Mateo, has not been able to avoid saying that he is working hard; and the Minister of Health, Manuela García, believes that public healthcare is going like silk. Let's hope she doesn't have any problems during the holidays, because if she goes to the emergency room at Son Espases, she might lose half the summer in a waiting room.
"I will not answer your questions"
Beyond the plenary session, José Luis Mateo appeared on Thursday to talk about the novelties of the Lloguer Segur program, which in almost two years has captured 92 of the 3,000 homes that the Government announced. There is one thing to be thanked for the minister, and that is that he announces his repetitions: “I will repeat”, “I will say again”, “I will insist”... This can catch the audience prepared. As a communication strategy, Mateo reiterated the same idea almost every two sentences of his speeches: “Affordable housing for the people here,” he said again and again, yes, with the same enthusiasm, as if he had not delivered 2,908 fewer homes than announced.
It is a shame that Mateo did not want to deviate from the arguments prepared by his cabinet, because the deputy of MÉS per Mallorca Ferran Rosa had to go home with a battery of unanswered questions: with the modifications, will the objectives be achievable or will they have to be reconsidered? What is the budget for housing rehabilitation? And for subsidizing rents? What budget has been allocated to advertising to date? How many properties will be captured by the end of the legislature? What have they done with the more than 13 million euros that were not spent in 2025 and will not be spent in 2026? How many homes from large holders will be integrated into the Lloguer Segur program? Have large holders been contacted? What has been their response? How will compliance with the Subsidies Law be ensured, how to guarantee non-discrimination by income? What are the criteria of real estate agents and property managers for selecting tenants? How will it be guaranteed that there is no conflict of interest in the case of agents? What supervision is carried out of the process? And not all the questions that Rosa asked are here.
But Mateo did not have the information at his disposal, beyond ensuring that a lot of work is being done to have “affordable housing for the people here”. “Today I will not answer your questions. The appearance was about novelties. If you want, formulate them in writing and the Ministry will answer you. If you don't like what I answer, I'm sorry for you,” he said at the close of his appearance.
