Just one day after the July 26th demonstration, GOB and Terraferida requested a meeting with the President of the Government, Marga Prohens, and the President of the Consell de Mallorca, Llorenç Galmés. Neither of the two leaders has shown any sign of life so far, nor have they expressed any intention of meeting with the activists, who are demanding that the outcry against the saturation of more than 70,000 people who took to the streets on July 26th be heard. "We have not received any response and it worries us," stated GOB representative Tonina Siquier, adding a warning: "We will not stop. We have just begun." Siquier emphasized that Prohens and Galmés are "the only two people who can take measures against overcrowding." "Prohens says she agrees with the demands and that the Pact did it wrong, as if current responsibilities did not apply to her," she added.

A month ago, the Moviment Jove de Sóller (Young Movement of Sóller) called for the August 8th protest against saturation in the municipality, which they consider one of Mallorca's hotspots in terms of touristification: a municipality where "all the effects of overcrowding are clearly observed," state members of the entity, in conversation with ARA Balears. "For us, it is impossible to imagine a future in Sóller," they lament, and emphasize that the measures implemented by the City Council, focused on mobility (more parking, some only for residents, and low-emission zones among others), do not solve the underlying problems caused by saturation. The main one, as in the rest of the Balearic Islands, is housing.

It's very hot. Suspended dust. Heat and humidity. Another plane crosses the sky, cloudy and heavy. Heat like from an exhaust pipe. The Tramuntana is not visible from afar. So hot that you can't go outside. The ring road at five in the afternoon. You can't even breathe. The highway, at the height of the airport, at any time. According to the forecast, tomorrow will be even hotter. Two girls are arrested; they say they had a banner at their home with the slogan 'SOS Residents'. Heat and anguish in the street: we don't know where to put ourselves. Gasoline is going up and yet everything burns: fire on earth and fire in the sky. Orange sunsets, beautiful as a bad omen, as a point of disaster. It's too hot: what if we take shelter from the fan? It's already the end of the month and we don't have money to spend either. Heat like a pressure cooker, as if about to suffocate us, as if about to make thunder.

Demonstrations are not only held in the street. They also contend with the aftermath, when a media and political narrative is imposed about what happened. And, after the police charges of 26-J, the narrative of tourist saturation has been sidelined in the media by another debate much more comfortable for Marga Prohens' Government. It is important not to lose focus, because the president is one of the main people responsible for responding to the problems that the tourism model generates in the daily lives of the citizens of the Balearic Islands. The day after one of the most massive protests ever seen in the Islands, Prohens has not felt the need to face the situation, nor to give explanations about the lack of management, nor to confront her unfulfilled promises. The president has spoken about the charges, has demanded explanations from the Spanish government delegate, Alfonso Rodríguez, and has remarked that she respects the right to demonstrate, as if that were not a given.

The delegate of the Spanish government in the Balearic Islands, Alfonso Rodríguez, has distanced himself from the police action at the demonstration against tourist saturation, which he described as "disproportionate" in relation to the risk of a protest marked by "exemplary civic behavior". "Police charges depend on the "in situ operation, they are not decided by this delegate. The use of violence did not adjust to the risk," he stated this Monday, after the organizers of the protest and MÉS per Mallorca called for his resignation.

The President of the Government, Marga Prohens, assured this Monday that the saturation in interurban public transport affects only 2% of TIB services. However, the Executive will launch a pilot test for prior reservation starting July 1st on line 203, which connects Port de Sóller, Deià, Valldemossa, and Palma, one of the routes that has generated the most complaints in recent months among residents of the Serra de Tramuntana.

The Hotel Business Federation of Mallorca (FEHM) expressed this Tuesday its respect for the demonstration called against the tourist saturation planned for July in Palma, but has harshly criticized the narrative of the protest, which it considers "uses tourism as a punching bag".

It can be listed in any order, but the fact is that housing, saturation, and mobility are the major structural problems that the citizens of the Balearic Islands have been dragging since the beginning of the last legislature, that of the Pact. Governments, headlines, announcements, and press conferences have passed, but the difficulties have shown their resilience and public policies have not even been able to diminish them.

The president of the Consell de Mallorca, Llorenç Galmés, has taken advantage of the island institution's general policy debate to make the umpteenth announcement about the island's tourist capacity ceiling. This time, Galmés has once again announced that he will reduce the number of places, just two months after the insular Minister of Tourism, Guillem Ginard, indicated that they would not be cut because it was not an urgent measure. However, after three years of contradictory announcements, the Consell has not made any decision on the capacity ceiling beyond saying that it will do one thing or another. Currently, the ceiling in Mallorca is 430,000 tourist places.

This summer, no concrete measures will be implemented to curb overcrowding and limit the arrival of tourists and cars to Menorca during peak season. Neither the updated Island Territorial Plan (PTI) nor the new tourism capacity ceiling, set at 107,917 beds in the preliminary carrying capacity study, have yet been approved. And this despite the fact that the influx of visitors continues to increase not only during the summer but also outside of peak season. In fact, 2025 was the first year in which the number of registered residents on the island never fell below 100,000, not even in December. Even so, the People's Party (PP) team, which governs the Menorca Island Council in minority with the external support of the councilor expelled from Vox, will still lack the necessary physical and legal mechanisms to restrict vehicle traffic. The PP's repeated announcements throughout its term have remained just that: words, not actions. It will likely be the last island to take measures to restrict access and limit congestion, although it is also the only one that, for the past three years, has had a legal tool to do so: the Biosphere Reserve Law, approved in 2023 by the Balearic Parliament. Nine months ago, last June, the Consell (Island Council) presented the study that was supposed to determine the number of excess vehicles on the road network. The conclusion surprised everyone, as it set the limit at 120,000 cars, while the maximum daily traffic recorded on Menorca's roads in 2024 was 122,170 vehicles, only 1.8% above this limit.

The Balearic Government and Palma City Council have reached a strategic agreement with the main cruise lines operating in Palma, whereby the maximum daily average of cruise passengers will be reduced from 8,500 to 7,500. This reduction, formalized through a new memorandum of understanding, will only affect the peak season months, from June to September, in 2027, 2028, and 2029. The agreement was signed this Friday morning by the President of the Balearic Government, Marga Prohens, the Mayor of Palma, and representatives from the cruise lines. The new agreement maintains the one signed by the government of Francina Armengol in 2022, which set a maximum of three cruise ships in the port of Palma, one of which may have a capacity exceeding 5,000 passengers.

"There's not room for everyone here" has been the political mantra of the week. The Prime Minister, Marga ProhensThis was proclaimed on Tuesday in the plenary session of the Balearic Parliament, with the approval of the right-wing and far-right parties. There is no room for migrants—especially if they are Muslim—nor for democratic memory, but there is plenty of space for the more than 19 million tourists—an Olympic record for 2025—hundreds of thousands of cars, and vacation rental properties. There is so much space that the Council of Mallorca declared on Thursday that it is no longer necessary to reduce the cap on tourist accommodation on the island, while the Balearic Government proclaims the miracle of containment and deseasonalization without having implemented a single measure. Are more tourists arriving than ever before? We should be happy, because the summer season isn't spiraling out of control and business is booming in the months that weren't previously full of visitors. It's well known that an empty month is not economically productive. Since there's room for so many visitors, we won't raise the ecotax either, because we mustn't upset the hotel owners. And yet Prohens has announced it a couple of times. In its defense, it can be said that the cart of announcements is full of initiatives, from this and other legislatures, whose trace can only be found in the newspaper archives.

Without access to the list of 540 proposals currently being considered by the Pact for Sustainability. This is the situation the PSIB (Socialist Party of the Balearic Islands) found itself in after requesting information from the Government through a written question to the Parliament. The Ministry of Labor, Public Administration, and Social Dialogue, headed by Catalina Cabrer (pictured accompanying this text), informed Socialist MP Llorenç Pou that he would not receive the initiatives submitted in this process, which the Executive has always emphasized as participatory. One of the arguments the Government uses to deny the information is that the PSIB "has been invited at all times" to participate in the Pact, of which it is not a member, and also justifies blocking the proposals based on data protection law. However, Pou only requested access to the proposals themselves, not authorship – which he did request in a previous question, for which he also received no response from the Government. The website for the Pact for Sustainability also provides no information on the initiatives – this page hasn't been updated for months – and, according to ARA Baleares, the entities that are part of the Pact for Sustainability also have no concrete proposals. The only explanation the Government has given is that, out of 540, 102 had already been addressed, without further details.

The Balearic PP has praised the tourism containment and deseasonalization strategy, which has achieved "a change in trend" regarding tourist arrivals to the Islands. PP deputy María Salomé Cabrera highlighted that tourist arrivals increased by 0.7% in peak season, while in the mid and low seasons they increased by 7.1%. However, Cabrera failed to mention that the Islands have once again shattered the visitor record in 2025, with almost 19 million tourists – the total for 2024 was reached in November. "The policies promoted by the PP government, with zero growth in hotel capacity and the positioning of the Islands as a cultural tourism destination, are succeeding in containing the influx during the summer months, redirecting peak periods towards the mid and low season months, and lengthening and deseasonalizing the season," Cabrera emphasized. "Faced with those who spoke of degrowth but authorized 115,000 new tourist accommodation places and allowed the illegal supply to grow unchecked, the Government has changed the course of tourism to our islands towards restraint, reducing seasonality, and a more sustainable tourism model that respects residents," he added.

The Formentera Council has presented to the Council of Entities a multi-year proposal for the continuity and evolution of Formentera.eco, the initiative of the smaller Pitiusa island to regulate vehicle access during the summer. The proposal aims to gradually reduce the entry of the most polluting vehicles, distribute visitor quotas according to environmental criteria, and maintain the quota of rental vehicles, which have already decreased by 16% from 2019 to 2023This proposal is based on the technical reports submitted to evaluate the operation of the island's ecological initiative, which reveals that more than 74% of the vehicles circulating in Formentera this summer belonged to tourists. The reports confirm the effectiveness of the measures implemented through the Formentera.eco program and should serve as the basis for defining the multi-year proposal to regulate the entry and circulation of vehicles on the island for the period 2026-2029, Castelló explained. The Minister of Mobility and the Environment, Verónica Castelló, explained that they are also considering creating a specific quota for non-resident workers and consolidating a more efficient, organized, and sustainable mobility model, moving towards a seasonal Low Emission Zone (LEZ) and promoting the use of public transport and bicycles.

The City Council has announced the same measure twice in a year and a half: the mayor of Palma, Jaime Martínez, appeared before the media on Tuesday to announce that Cort will prohibit new tourist rental homes, exactly the same initiative that he said would be implemented in the short term. May 29, 2024. Thus, the only effective measure Martínez has implemented regarding tourist rentals in a year and a half has been to call another press conference to repeat the same announcement.

The effective population of the Balearic Islands averaged 1.96 million people in July, 56% above the number of residents. This figure means there was one tourist for every two inhabitants registered on the islands. This is evident from data from the Human Pressure Indicator of the Balearic Institute of Statistics (Ibestat), which establishes that the maximum actual population (residents and tourists) was reached on July 30th, with more than two million people, 0.6% less than in 2024. On the other hand, the minimum recorded was 1.2% in 2024, reported the EFE news agency.

Residents of Sóller have launched the 'Salvem Sóller' initiative through Change.org to denounce the proliferation of new parking lots in the municipality. In the campaign, they warn that five parking lots have already been built—with another three in the pipeline—without a clear mobility strategy and with a strong environmental and landscape impact.

The Civil Society Forum has demanded that the Government implement "a real change" in the tourism model in the Balearic Islands and abandon "cosmetic" and ineffective measures. The platform appeared at a press conference this Tuesday, after the figures from the 2024 Residents' Perception Survey on Tourism by the Government's Tourism Strategy Agency (AETIB) were released. This study shows that 78% of Balearic citizens believe there are too many tourists at certain times of the year and that 62.3% denounce that tourism has a significant impact on the degradation of the islands' natural resources. Furthermore, it criticized the Government for exploiting citizens' discontent to promote tourism, real estate speculation, and construction. "It's perverse. They're using time and discontent for political gain. The initiatives they're implementing are to buy time to reorganize the business," criticized GOB spokesperson Margalida Ramis.

75% of residents of the Balearic Islands believe there are too many tourists arriving, and 77% warn that this pressure is driving up housing prices. The survey conducted by the Tourism Strategy Agency (AETIB) among 2,008 residents of the four islands in October 2024 also shows a clear rejection of tourist rentals: almost 62% are against it, a percentage that rises to 70% among the middle- and low-income population.