As summer is about to begin, Menorca is once again knocking on the door of mobilization against tourist saturation. The Via Menorca platform, driven by the GOB and an enthusiastic group of young people, is the promoter of the first of the major demonstrations and protests – that of Saturday, June 13 – which are being announced throughout the Islands to demand effective and immediate measures in defense of housing and natural resources. The first public outcry has been in Menorca, where, says the GOB's territorial policy coordinator, Miquel Camps, "we still have time to avoid becoming a new Ibiza".

“Some kind of activism is being done, doing it from the territory and in our language”, says Menorcan Anna Ferrer, who in ‘Glosa a Menorca’ from her previous album Parenòstic (2024) already sang two years ago: “For an island that is a reserve / and is in danger of extinction [...] that there are fish that are already floating / in s’Albufera des Grau / its posidonia is dying / that preserves the coast / It talks to me about housing / and cries to me for the youth / that whoever doesn't have an inheritance / has it very very bad”. A contemporary glosa that cries for the local effects of global warming and the housing emergency. “It inspires me to sing about present-day Menorca, truly. And it’s no longer that green Menorca where there was almost no one. Menorca is already something else”, she confesses to ARABalears.

The territorial coordinator of GOB, Miquel Camps Taltavull (Maó, 1963), is warming up to launch from this Saturday, June 13 (7:30 PM), the new summer of mobilizations announced by Via Menorca. An army of ants "fed up with mass tourism" are already walking towards the Biosphere Square in Maó to demonstrate in defense of the right to housing and against those who "suck our water dry until the aquifers are left dry" and those who "condemn us to precarious jobs to barely live off tourism".

There is not enough water for everyone. Even more so in Maó, where the City Council has decided to bring forward the usual restrictions of these past summers. It is already prohibited in the city for companies and establishments to clean cars in the street and for individuals to clean boats and water gardens. Cruise ships can no longer refuel at the port either. Even so, a good part of the water served to the population continues to be non-potable and is mixed with water from other wells, even from outside the municipality, to guarantee at least the quantity, if not the quality, that is needed.

The new Ports Law, which plans to extend the private management of some marinas and sports ports in the Balearic Islands until the age of 75, has coincided with the abrupt end of the concession of the 270 moorings at Lago Resort in Cala en Bosc, Ciutadella, the only one that had been in force for 30 years without any economic consideration from the company to the Administration.

The rise of artificial intelligence as a tool for planning trips is not only changing how vacations are decided, but is also beginning to have a direct effect on which territories receive more tourist pressure. A study on tourist consumption trends points out that Sant Antoni de Portmany, in Ibiza, and Ciutadella in Menorca, are among the destinations recommended by AI agents to travelers, a fact that places the Balearic Islands within a new ecosystem of automated recommendations that may end up conditioning tourist flows even further.

A worker died this Friday after falling from the roof of an industrial building in the Alaior industrial estate, in Menorca, where he was carrying out repair work.

Citizen struggle has more strength than some believe. The Menorcans know this well, who in 1973, at the end of Francoism, were the first in the Balearic Islands to raise their voices against the destruction of the territory – four years later, in July 1977, in Mallorca, there would be the historic occupation of Dragonera; and in October, in Ibiza, 2,000 people demonstrated with the cry 'Save Ses Salines'. In 1969 Menorca was the last island to embrace mass tourism with the inauguration of Maó airport, which replaced the old aerodrome in Sant Lluís. The historian from Maó, Laura Piris Coll, explains the reasons for this late incorporation into the tourist boom: “Here there was an important structure of its own for footwear and jewelry. The livestock sector was also quite profitable. In addition, the owners were very interested in maintaining family estates for reasons of social prestige. On the other hand, the dictatorship had not invested anything in infrastructure on the island”.

Judicial blow to Ciutadella. The Contentious-Administrative Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice has annulled the political decision to clear cars from Plaça del Born, which the City Council carried out on July 1st, just after the motion of no confidence that returned the government to the left was consummated. In a forceful ruling, the court presided over by Judge Fernando Socias contradicts the first-instance decision and orders the City Council to restore the square to its previous state.

Three women were injured this Sunday morning in Ciutadella after several fragments of a decorative marés stone border detached from the facade of a building located in Plaça Nova.

The residential market in Menorca is increasingly out of reach for those who live there year-round. However, for the first time, proposals and measures are being put on the table that do not consist solely of ceding land to Ibavi for it to promote social housing. The island's Council is promoting the purchase of unoccupied private buildings, and experts and business people suggest that land be reserved for residents to separate this offer from the one that now dominates the market, aimed at attracting the attention of the wealthy.

The trace left by the continuous winter storms has not been erased in Menorca. The imprint is still present, months later, in various parts of the Menorcan coastline and, more seriously, with the season having already begun.

Until a few years ago, it was very common for Menorcan families to take the plane or boat to go to Palma or Barcelona to buy clothes. The large chains and franchises had not yet landed on the island and it was more economical to travel to buy clothes on the Peninsula or on the neighboring island than to buy them directly from small shops in Menorca.

The artistic legacy of the former Sa Nostra Social and Cultural Work is now in more hands than ever. Many of the creations made by artists from the Balearic Islands between the late 20th and early 21st centuries were stored after the Balearic savings bank ended its 130-year history. And now, 14 years after the closure of Sa Nostra's offices, some of the funds, transferred with the subsequent merger between CaixaBank and Bankia, are being raffled off in charity auctions.

The implosion of Vox has reached its peak in Madrid. But in the Balearic Islands, the "series" (as Santiago Abascal defined it) has already finished its seasons. Vox in Menorca is a desert: the party has lost all institutional representation on the island. For six months, the remaining cadres have been trying to rebuild, but they lack people. "We find it hard to find people who want to identify with Vox," admits the party coordinator, Pedro Marqués: "In Menorca, being from Podem is not a problem, but saying you are from Vox still commands respect." All this while the parliamentary group, which has lost three deputies, is diluted under the national leadership of the party. Only in Ibiza has Vox been saved from the fratricidal war. But the PP is so strong in this territory that the far-right is cornered there, as it is in Galicia.

The 41 moorings of the historic port of Sanitja, north of Mercadal, will be available for use again from this summer. This was announced this Thursday by the Minister of the Sea and Water Cycle, Juan Manuel Lafuente, at the end of the coordination meeting convened with Costas, the boaters, the City Council and the Consell de Menorca to find a solution.

Overcoming the traditional dependence on El Caserío that marked the sector until the beginning of the century, Menorca's countryside survives the blows of international politics, the concern caused by price increases due to the war in Iran, and the 22% cut in European CAP aid. The change in land ownership into the hands of foreign investors, such as businessman Víctor Madera, has prevented the premature abandonment of dozens of farms and has reinforced the sector's commitment to other types of agricultural exploitation that have given it new momentum.

The National Police has arrested a drug dealer in Maó for the death of a woman to whom he sold drugs. As reported by the force, the events occurred on April 9, when several patrols responded to a call from 091, indicating that a dead woman had been found in a dwelling in the municipality and that she might have suffered an adverse reaction to a narcotic substance.