The vulture fund Blackstone and the 50 million of Ibiza aggravate the accusations of the PSIB and MÉS about Tirme

PalmaThe Council of Mallorca does not intend to back down and will maintain the new waste fee and the extraordinary payment of 41.4 million euros to Tirme despite the new questions raised by the opposition. The plenary session of the Council of Mallorca rejected this Thursday, with the votes of the PP and Vox, the motion with which the PSIB-PSOE demanded the withdrawal of the two files until the doubts raised by the control bodies regarding the concessionaire's accounts were clarified.

The debate has added two new shadows of suspicion over the management of waste in Mallorca. The PSIB has focused on Blackstone, the investment fund linked to Tirme through Urbaser and with a wide presence in the housing market; MÉS per Mallorca has provided a resolution that, according to the party, contradicts the main justification used by the Council to defend the announced reduction of the fee: the 50 million transferred by the Government can only be allocated to expenses related to the transport and treatment of waste from Ibiza.

El Pi had requested that the points of the socialist motion be voted on separately, but the proposal was submitted to a vote in its entirety. The rejection by the PP and Vox leaves the way clear for the island government to continue processing both the new fee and the extraordinary payment to the concessionaire.

From the waste fee to the real estate business

The socialist spokesperson, Catalina Cladera, has accused Galmés of having turned the Council into an indirect source of funding for Blackstone. The vulture fund is part of the business structure behind Tirme through Urbaser and, according to the PSIB, it controls more than a thousand rental homes in the Balearic Islands.

“Now we know that behind Tirme there is Blackstone, a vulture fund that makes money from housing and that also benefits from Galmés’s decisions,” Cladera denounced. The socialists maintain that the extraordinary payments to the concessionaire cannot be decoupled from the profits that the shareholders end up obtaining and have accused the island government of fueling one of the major international players in real estate speculation with public resources.

The PSIB estimates at 103 million euros the extraordinary contributions approved by the Council in favor of Tirme since the beginning of the term. Cladera has contrasted this amount with Mallorca’s shortcomings in housing, social services, and mobility, and has questioned the institution assuming new payments before clearing up doubts about the profitability of the concessionaire and the actual cost of the service.

“The management of Mallorca’s waste is under suspicion due to a possible overpayment that we now know benefits a vulture fund that speculates on housing,” stated the socialist spokesperson. She has demanded that the files be withdrawn, that an independent body review the accounts, and that the processing not be resumed until the rate can be calculated based on the actual costs.

A “devastating” report

The socialist offensive is based on the Council's Intervention report, which calls into question the system used to revise the fee that Tirme charges for waste treatment. The document warns that some increases could have exceeded the actual evolution of costs and questions, among other aspects, the application of the CPI to amortizations.

"We have known for a month about a devastating report that calls into question what Mallorcans pay to Tirme and Galmés has still not given any convincing explanation," criticized Cladera. She also recalled that the president of the Council announced a new audit, the scope and deadlines of which are not yet known.

The socialist spokesperson has assured that a complete review could allow for a reduction of the fee greater than the 10% announced by the island government. She also reproached the PP and Vox for having previously opposed transferring the files to the Office of the Auditor General so that their accuracy could be audited.

MÉS dismantles the 50 million argument

MÉS per Mallorca has added even more suspicions about the file. The eco-sovereignist group has provided the resolution by which the Government of the Balearic Islands granted 50 million euros to the Council this summer within the framework of the agreement to transport and treat waste from Ibiza in Mallorca.

According to the eco-sovereignists, the document makes it clear that these funds have an earmarked character: they can only be used to cover the costs derived from the transport and treatment of the waste from Ibiza, as well as the investments that the concessionaire must execute to assume its management. Therefore, they would not be freely available resources that the Council can generically allocate to lower the bill for the municipalities.

The documentation also establishes that the 50 million can be distributed over a maximum of ten years and that each contribution must be supported by the corresponding justifying documentation and by the reports from the Comptroller's Office.

The revelation questions one of the explanations that Galmés' government had offered to defend the rate reduction. The Council had linked the resources coming from the Government with the 10% reduction announced for 2026, but MÉS maintains that the purpose set in the resolution prevents using them as a general contribution to contain the bill.

The group has demanded that the island government explain how it will account for these 50 million, what part strictly corresponds to the waste from Ibiza, and on what basis it calculates the reduction promised to the municipalities.

The PP defends the payments

The island councillor for Finance, Llorenç Bosch, has rejected the opposition's accusations and insisted that the contributions to Tirme are neither subsidies nor discretionary transfers. He has defended that these are contractually foreseen payments to defray the service and prevent the entire cost from falling directly on the municipalities and the citizenry.

Bosch explained that the tariff is initially calculated based on estimates regarding waste volume, electricity and fuel prices, and the CPI, and that it is subsequently regularized with actual data. He also recalled that the model derives from the contract awarded in 1992 and from modifications approved later, some during left-wing governments.

The repeated accusations from the PP against Cladera have once again been a constant. They accuse her of now questioning a system that she did not substantially modify when she presided over the Council. Likewise, the conservatives also maintain that public contributions serve "to contain the tariff and reduce its impact on the municipalities".

For its part, Tirme, which does not usually enter into public controversies, also denied this week obtaining “stratospheric” profits. The company places the average profitability of the last six years at 6.08%, accounting for own and external resources, and at 2.95% during the entire concession. The company also claims that it has invested more than 620 million euros in the waste treatment facilities in Mallorca.

The explanations, however, have not convinced the opposition. And so, with the Intervention report on the table, the destination of the 50 million from Ibiza and Blackstone, located at the end of the corporate chain, the PP and Vox have chosen to keep the roadmap intact. The tariff and the 41.4 million will continue forward while the audit announced by President Galmés remains pending.