Ara Balears in English - editorial

The many reasons why we cannot save grandparents' houses

Editorial ARA Balears — Sat, 02 May 2026 15:07:27 +0000

The question that a young woman asked herself after seeing her grandmother's house, in Son Espanyolet, being demolished to make way for a new construction in other hands is, in reality, a collective, country-wide question. “Why couldn't I save my grandmother's house?”, she wondered. Her lament could be that of thousands of people from other neighborhoods and from many towns and cities in the Islands. Why can more and more families not preserve the houses that have been part of their history?

Lives and rights at stake in the midst of a political battle

Editorial ARA Balears — Sat, 25 Apr 2026 15:21:52 +0000

The extraordinary regularization of immigrants has become a new front of political confrontation between the State government and various right-wing autonomous executives, including that of the Balearic Islands. The debate, legitimate in a democracy, is today a war of attrition that runs the risk of dehumanizing a reality that affects thousands of people. In the Islands, it is estimated that more than 30,000 people could benefit from this process. These are not abstract figures, they are lives that depend, to a large extent, on being able to escape administrative irregularity.

Airports without limits in islands that have already reached their peak

Editorial ARA Balears — Mon, 02 Feb 2026 08:22:17 +0000

The expansion works at Palma Airport are no secret. Aena can't hide them, because they are visible, noisy, and, for many passengers, increasingly burdensome. Anyone who has recently passed through Son Sant Joan Airport has seen how journeys are lengthening and how the comfort promised by the airport operator is being postponed to an uncertain future. Aena cannot hide the construction. What it does try to conceal is the objective that seems to lie behind these works. The airport company insists that the expansion is not motivated by a desire to accommodate more passengers. But the figures contradict this. A report by Aena itself, prepared less than five years ago, predicted that in the most extreme scenario, Son Sant Joan would reach 33 million passengers in 2026. Reality has accelerated the timeline: in 2025, a year earlier, Palma Airport had already significantly exceeded this figure. Denying that the expansion is due to an increase in capacity is, at the very least, implausible.

The new financing model is not designed for the Balearic Islands

Editorial ARA Balears — Fri, 09 Jan 2026 22:48:33 +0000

The best news for the citizens of the Balearic Islands regarding the new regional financing model proposed by the Spanish government is, above all, that a decisive step has been taken towards a review that is ten years overdue. Moreover, it comes about because President Pedro Sánchez had made a commitment to Catalonia in exchange for the corresponding parliamentary support. Therefore, it is evident when analyzing the first measures announced, pending the fine print—which will be essential—that the new framework was not designed with the Balearic Islands in mind. Although the government delegate in the Islands, as is his duty, is keen to emphasize that the region will receive an additional 412 million euros, which is certainly cause for celebration, this amount does not, by any means, resolve the enormous precariousness of the Islands' financing. This is especially true because the concept of population support is not incorporated. In the case of the Balearic Islands, this measure would have been key to breaking the terrible imbalance in services provided to the 18 million visitors who pass through the archipelago, something that has been historically ignored by the State. Now more than ever, we must ask ourselves if it is worth continuing to exploit the Islands' natural resources to boost tourism statistics. On the other hand, curiously, the fact that they have to accommodate students from other regions will be rewarded. This will go to Madrid and Catalonia. Meanwhile, the insularity criterion loses a tenth of a point in the new calculation, and therefore, not only is this reality, which clearly harms the competitiveness of businesses and the lives of residents, not taken into account, but its recognition is also reduced from the already meager 0.6% it had been established until now. Once again, the little weight that the Balearic Islands carry within the State as a whole has become evident, regardless of who governs in Madrid. Therefore, even if Marga Prohens' government has to raise its voice and protest, the resolution has been and will always be the same regardless of the political affiliation in power. And in this specific case, it's important to remember that the political impetus for this agreement stems from Sánchez's commitment to Catalonia, a region also historically disadvantaged by the balance between what it contributes to and receives from the State. In fact, the financing agreement between the Spanish government and ERC, signed last Thursday by Pedro Sánchez and Oriol Junqueras, and presented by the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, represents a step forward for Catalonia. A significant reform of the current and outdated model, which had clearly proven detrimental to the region. Reforming the system substantially wasn't easy. It has been done, and some taboos have begun to be broken, such as the one concerning ordinality. With the numbers and the details in hand, Catalonia is by no means lacking in solidarity. In any case, what is now being proposed, and is pending approval in Congress, is a significant change. It is a fairer system for Catalonia and, at the same time, beneficial for all the regional governments.

We do not underestimate neo-fascism

Editorial . — Fri, 19 Dec 2025 22:14:32 +0000

The neo-fascist groups operating in the Balearic Islands today are few. But they are young, they are radical, and they are increasingly visible on the streets and online. They are not known for widespread violence, but rather for a growing capacity to recruit, organize, and normalize discourses that until recently were marginal. Precisely for this reason, we cannot underestimate them. History has taught us that movements of this kind do not grow suddenly, but rather take root slowly, taking advantage of indifference, trivialization, or looking the other way.

Speculation at any price

Editorial ARA Balears — Fri, 31 Oct 2025 22:31:18 +0000

History repeats itself, and it usually features the same protagonists. When there's a housing shortage, the easiest answer is to open up new land, which is the solution the People's Party (PP) is now offering in the Balearic Islands. The recipe, in any case, is the same: develop rural land, rezone it all at once, without planning, and hand out astronomical profits to a few who have been waiting for years for the opportunity to line their pockets.

According to her friend, Maria Muntaner was like this: “Her ease with books at such a young age was surprising.”

Clàudia Darder — Sun, 26 Oct 2025 20:02:58 +0000

Between WhatsApp and Instagram notifications and Google Calendar alerts, it's painful to remember that, not so long ago, friends didn't send each other voice notes to communicate. In some corner of the houses we lived in, there was a small table with a device with buttons and a coiled cord: the telephone. The friendship of the protagonists in this story, like so many others, has accumulated countless hours of phone conversations; so many, in fact, that the parents of one or the other had to intervene in the two friends' calls because their respective families were unable to communicate. The friendship, which could have a song on one side... Lambada, from Kaoma, or You came running From Tennessee, it's the one by editor Maria Muntaner and Paula Fluxà, who today tells us about the daughter of Lleonard Muntaner (author, by the way, of the very tender photograph that accompanies this text).

The problem is inequality

Editorial ARA Balears — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 20:43:35 +0000

It's not a bad thing that some people are rich, especially if their fortune has been hard-earned, legally, or even inherited. None of these circumstances is a crime or an issue that should provoke rejection. The fact that some people have quite a bit or much more than others is not essentially negative. The point is that there are minimum standards that guarantee a decent life for everyone in society, that what is known as the social elevator works.

Netanyahu vs. the world

Editorial ARA Balears — Fri, 08 Aug 2025 21:18:10 +0000

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu continues his flight and has announced that he will launch a plan to occupy the Strip, starting with its main population, Gaza City, where an estimated one million people live. Netanyahu has encountered resistance from his own general staff, which believes the army currently does not have enough troops to sustain an operation of this nature over time and that, furthermore, it would put the lives of the hostages still in the hands of Hamas at risk.

It is necessary to take advantage of the conflict towards tourism to find a new model

Editorial ARA Balears — Mon, 21 Jul 2025 07:01:46 +0000

The hoteliers' campaign targeting foreign tourists is the response of the islands' main employers' association to the criticism and anti-tourism actions that have intensified in the Balearic Islands for just over a year. Business owners admit that tourism is not harmless, but they call for a thorough analysis of the reasons that have led society to increasingly express discontent with the current economic model.