Starting this week, we'll begin to see where the relationship between the PP and Vox might be headed, and therefore, we'll have a rough idea of ​​how it will impact Balearic politics right after next year's elections.

Two US Navy helicopters made a stopover this Friday at the Son Sant Joan air base in Palma, after arriving from Marseille. They are two MH-60R Seahawk helicopters – serial numbers 168158 and 168167 – belonging to HSM-79 squadron, a unit usually deployed at the Rota naval base in Cádiz. The aircraft, which specialize in naval missions such as anti-submarine warfare and maritime surveillance, remained in Mallorca for several hours before resuming their flight to the Spanish mainland, with their final destination being Almería. The stop was reportedly due to technical issues during the flight, after a descent was detected while they were flying towards Palma from southern France.

The Balearic Islands continue to lead the ranking of Spanish municipalities with the highest housing prices. Santa Eulalia, in Ibiza, San Antonio de Portmany, and San José de Sa Atalaya top the list along with San Sebastián, exceeding €7,000 per square meter. In the case of Santa Eulalia, prices reach almost €8,500/m², according to Fotocasa data. Beyond these five locations, other municipalities in the archipelago complete the top 10 most expensive towns in Spain, with prices very close to this threshold and varying trends. In Andratx, housing prices stand at €6,982/m² after registering a year-on-year increase of 22%. Also nearby is Campos, with €6,791/m² and the largest annual increase in the ranking, at 33%, followed by Calvià with €6,747/m². These figures highlight the pressure on the real estate market in the Canary Islands, which remains one of the most expensive areas in Spain.

Housing prices in Spain have increased by more than 40% in the last ten years, exceeding €2,000 per square meter. The largest increase has been recorded in the Balearic Islands, where the price has almost doubled, according to data from the Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda. In the second quarter of 2015, the average price was €1,476/m². In the same period of 2015, it reached €2,093, an increase of €616. Approaching all-time highs

Over the last decade, prices have steadily increased. Between 2016 and 2018, the price per square meter exceeded €1,500; between 2019 and 2021, it remained above €1,600; and since 2022, it has surpassed €1,700. By 2024, it was approaching €1,900, and this year, for the first time since 2008—at the height of the real estate bubble—it has exceeded the €2,000 mark, reaching €2,093/m². Current prices are virtually identical to the historical highs of this statistical series, which began in 1995, recorded between January and March 2008 at €2,101/m².

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It wasn't in Madrid, where everything always seems to happen—even today, if we go by the news on the major networks. Nor in Barcelona or Bilbao, which were then apparently much more connected to technical advances and the European sphere. The first automobile registered throughout Spain was the PM-1, in Mallorca. That was in October 1900, 125 years ago.

]]> We've always been fascinated by events in the United States. Whoever is the US president and how this might affect global politics, the economy, and culture has always been a crucial issue, especially in post-war Europe, although American dominance became more entrenched with the collapse of the USSR and the so-called victory of the Cold War, when the system of free-market capitalism, hand in hand, ruled. With globalization, what became globalized above all was the United States' influence on the rest of the globe, so knowing the latest political mania of the president living in the White House was as obligatory as paying local taxes.

]]> These days, while the smoke from the massive wildfires ravaging different parts of Spain worries us, we've also seen the fires affecting the Albufera region once again. This, after a few weeks in which a permanent heat wave seemed to suffocate us and in which the island teems with people and unrest. The fires become a metaphor for the present we are living in. Everything is burning; it's not in vain that we've been playing with gasoline for so long, ignoring the increasingly explicit, violent, evident, and immediate consequences of the disaster we have caused, with irreversible ecological imbalances and growing social inequalities at all levels, both locally and globally.

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