Promoted by Celestí Alomar, Minister of Tourism of the first Pacte de Progrés (1999-2003), a tax on tourist stays, immediately known as the ‘ecotax’, was approved on April 10, 2001, twenty-five years ago. It levied, approximately one euro per night, the stay of tourists. With the revenue, some negative externalities of mass tourism in the Balearic Islands were to be corrected. It did not come into effect until May 2002 due to an appeal to the Constitutional Court, filed by the Aznar government. When the People's Party won the following elections in 2003, it repealed the tax, considering it a brake on tourist competitiveness. Those who defended the repeal of the tax said that it could not be classified as ecological or environmental, and that it was not even a tax, arguing: “It was nothing more than a symbol of a policy of negative messages towards what tourism represented”. And they related the application of the ecotax to the decrease in tourist arrivals and the problems the hotel sector had experienced. The Government of Jaume Matas wanted to replace it with so-called green cards or ‘sustainable’ foundations that only collected a pittance.

In Mallorca, during the Civil War, one of the main targets of the insurgents was the wealthy class that had supported the Second Republic. The symbol of that repression was the mayor of Palma, Emili Darder, a doctor by training, who in 1934 had helped found the Balearic Republican Left (ERB) to counterbalance the local political bosses. On February 24, 1937, after a sham court-martial, Darder was executed by firing squad. He shared that fate with two party members: the businessman Antoni Maria Ques from Alcúdia and the former mayor of Inca, Antoni Mateu, and the Palma socialist Alexandre Jaume. Eight more ERB mayors were also murdered: Joan Mas Verd I harvest (Montuïri), Clemente Garau Juan (Porreres), Pere Llull Fullana (Algaida), Pere Josep Cànaves Sales (Pollença), Pau Crespí Villalonga (Mancor del Valle), Pedro Vallespir Amengual (Costitx), Joan Alemán Villalonga (Búger) and Joan Guasch.

They never saw a mother without her daughter, because until she was three years old, she clung to her "like a footstep": "She didn't want to go with anyone, she was always on me, hanging onto my hair, wherever we went. I was finished!" So says Catalina Rubí, from Manacor, mother of Amanda Fernández Rubí, general secretary of the Socialists of Mallorca. The mother speaks quickly, stringing together images as she reminisces, and between anecdotes and memories, she sighs and says: "Oh! Mothers, let's do what we can." And almost without meaning to, Rubí's voice is the voice of all mothers.

The Popular Party councilor on the Ciutadella City Council, Nicolás Blanco, has resigned for professional reasons. He will soon begin his new role as a local police officer in Mahón. He will formalize his farewell as a politician at the next municipal plenary session. "They have shown me during these two years," during which he has alternated between government and opposition duties.