Ronald McDonald and the people from here

PalmaThe last general policy debate of the legislature has ended with the President of the Government, Marga Prohens, highlighting the importance of the little things, with a list that included the Ronald McDonald family room at Son Espases. No one will deny the importance of treatment for butterfly skin, of pediatric palliative care, of treatment with the pediatric exoskeleton, of the ambulance of dreams to fulfill the last wishes of people before they die, nor of the reintegration of long-term unemployed people into the labor market. They are very important.

But the legislature will end with the most serious structural problems of the Balearic Islands, the housing emergency and tourism saturation and their derivatives, in an extreme situation. Prohens inherited islands that were already suffering from these difficulties and, as she has assured during the debate, it is true that they cannot be solved in three years. The point is that she has not stopped these problems, but rather they have worsened under her Government. This is what the opposition reproached her for: housing more expensive than ever (the rental price has gone from approximately 800 euros to approximately 1,500 on average) and islands more saturated than ever that, if they do not reach 20 million tourists this year, they will come very close. Faced with this, the little things are a tiny consolation.

Prohens referred 19 times to the act of "defending the Balearic Islands" and mentioned "the people from here" on 17 occasions during her opening speech on Tuesday. The strategy is not original at all. The parties' arguments are repeated over and over again, with the intention that they become embedded in the citizens' neural tissue. The reproaches made by the opposition could be summarized in one question: who are the people from here? Who, for example, is helped by the tax cuts that the Government applies to the purchase of a home? Both Lluís Apesteguia (MÉS per Mallorca) and Josep Castells (Més per Menorca) have reminded her that it is not precisely the bulk of the people from here who can assume an average price of 400,000 euros, but rather that the tax cuts go to those who already have enough financial resources to face an expense of this magnitude.

In the midst of all this, while housing was being debated, the encampment at Plaça d'Espanya continued, a protest that Prohens has belittled just as the teacher of criminalizing demonstrations, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, would do. "We cannot camp at Plaça d'Espanya because the people of this land have to work every morning!", she exclaimed with all the vehemence she could muster. The deduction can be made by a primary school student: is Prohens saying that the people protesting in Palma are not people of this land and do not work?

A malignant being called left

The summary of Prohens' proposals for the major problems of the Islands is easy to make: a housing plan for the next legislature after the current one hasn't been of much use and recovering the ITS funds to build housing (since it was the Pact's thing, she eliminated it), and no measures against tourist saturation. As things stand, the president has given herself over to reproaching the left, accompanied by her Vox squire, Manuela Cañadas, much friendlier than on other occasions now that the romance between Santiago Abascal and Alberto Núñez Feijóo has become public and notorious. "The left has a very big problem with middle incomes. They have two goals: to impoverish them and to attack them. That is why they attack those who have a house, those who work, effort," the president said without batting an eye, while the left wondered where the middle incomes of the Balearics are. In the camper vans of Son Hugo? In the tents of Ibiza? In the room of a shared flat? Then came Prohens' finishing touch, also following in Ayuso's wake: "They are the disciples of Latin American dictatorships". Too good.

As things stand, Iago Negueruela (PSIB) reproached the president for one of those things that politicians love to say, that she is opposing the opposition. The conclusion came on a silver platter: starting in 2027 she will occupy her natural place as leader of the opposition because the socialists will take the Government from her. One only needs to wish for world peace and we can sleep soundly, because starting next year the world will be a better place if the socialists say so.

Sebastià Sagreras (PP) deserves a separate mention. Firstly, it must be said that this chronicler's ears have bled every time he has said "desahucis" (evictions), in a language that pretended to be Catalan (a reminder for Sagreras: it is called desnonaments, desnonaments, desnonaments). Sagreras has the gift of speaking an invented hybrid language, a mix of Spanish and Catalan, but everything has a limit. A call must be made for him to return to linguistic standards in formal settings, such as the Parliament. Secondly, the popular deputy dedicated almost his entire intervention in the general policy debate of the Balearic Islands to talking about Pedro Sánchez. A very regional theme, according to them, because what the Spanish president does affects the Balearic Islands. According to this argument, he could also have talked about Donald Trump because he causes gasoline prices to rise, for example. Oh, no. Because Trump is an anti-communist colleague.