The express plan to establish a new medical school at Riskal University fails.

PalmThe urban planning modification decreed by the Catalan government to make possible the express opening of the private University of Medicine in Palma has been repealed days after its approval. Vox's lack of support for the regulation that allowed this tailor-made operation—the Strategic Projects Decree Law—means that there is currently no legal protection to modify the urban planning regulations that would have opened the new faculty.

It was in the Formentera Governing Council that the San Pablo CEU Foundation project achieved the reclassification of the land of the former Riskal building, where it intends to locate the campus. The Catalan government declared the project as strategic based on the now repealed Decree Law, a status that was supposed to allow it to streamline the urban planning procedures.

Only nine days had passed between the strategic project application and the final authorization of the urban planning modification, agreed by the Governing Council on September 25. The fast-track approach was made possible thanks to the decree law passed on September 5, which allowed for accelerated procedures for projects considered strategic. With this declaration, Palma City Council no longer has the capacity to oppose the urban planning modification necessary to change the land use—previously intended for leisure purposes—and allow for university teaching activities.

The Government points out that, although it only took nine days to declare the project a strategic project, CEU San Pablo had already been processing the educational aspects of its project for a long time. "The project was submitted at the time for processing the authorization of the associated center and was reviewed by the infrastructure service and received a favorable report, subject to verification once the works were completed," state sources from the Ministry of Education.

The project planned to teach medicine and other health science degrees starting in the 2026-2027 academic year. The decision has generated strong political controversy. The opposition (PSIB and MÁS) denounces this as an "elitist urban development project" and warns that the new center could exacerbate the area's mobility problems and service saturation. They also criticize the speed with which the changes were authorized without prior mobility studies.

Validation of the studies

The urban planning phase was already well underway yesterday, when the decree law was rejected. However, government sources point out that the educational aspect is also pending: The project still needs to go through essential academic procedures, such as the verification of the curricula by ANECA (Spanish Association of Educational Research and Training) and the establishment of internship agreements with hospitals.

The Ministry of Education states that "the current curricula still need to be modified to accommodate their delivery at the affiliated center, a favorable report must be obtained from the regional quality assurance agency (in this case, Madrid), and the technical infrastructure assessment must be passed, which must confirm and certify the infrastructure necessary to deliver these degrees," they explain.

But right now, before all of this, the developers will need to ensure they can locate the educational center in the former Riskal building, which the developer Foundation acquired a few months ago for €40 million. At that time, the Strategic Projects Decree-Law, which was the instrument used by the executive to expressly modify urban planning, did not yet exist. Now, this approach has been put on hold until a future redraft of the law can count on the support of Vox deputies, who on Tuesday submitted the text to paper with their vote against validation.