Menorca, known as the island of wind, has failed to capitalize on its wind power potential in the last year. For the first time in a quarter of a century, production of this type of renewable energy has been virtually nil, while the installation of solar farms across the island continues to grow. The data recently updated by the Menorca Socio-Environmental Observatory (Obsam) makes this clear. Renewable energy generation has seen a significant increase since 2023, following the commissioning of the Son Salomó solar park in Ciutadella and the recent connection of the Agrisolar plant in Mercadal, but it still falls short of the targets set by the Menorca 2030 Strategy. Last year, renewables contributed 8% of the energy connected to the grid, when they should already account for 54%, reaching 85% by 2030. Nevertheless, the percentage is trending upwards, with the largest park on the island (Menorca Solar, 87 MW) under construction, while dependence on the Maó thermal power plant is decreasing.

The Menorcan councilor Gonella has managed to unite everyone in opposition to his new language regulations. Only the organization he headed before entering politics, Sa Fundació, has expressed support. Conversely, the regulations, which introduce Spanish and prioritize Menorcan over Catalan in Menorca's highest institution, have prompted a flood of objections from organizations, political parties, and citizens alike, all responding to the public call to get involved in defending the unity of the language.

The amendment to the Menorca Island Council's Language Use Regulations, promoted by the PP government with the support of the former Vox councilor, has sparked a major political and social controversy on the island. Several left-wing groups have filed objections to the text, which they consider a step backward in the defense of the Catalan language and a decision that reopens a debate that Menorca thought was settled.

Internal resistance to the new right-wing policies is growing in the Menorca Island Council. Virtually since the beginning of its term, the PP's governing actions have been questioned—with good reason—by the institution's own staff, leading Adolfo Vilafranca's team to seek the necessary support outside the council, support it is not receiving internally.

The Menorca Council has chosen the ultraliberal economist and former Ciudadanos deputy Marcos de Quinto to be the speaker at the Menorca National Day celebrations on January 17th. De Quinto has no connection to the island beyond this appointment: he has never lived there, has not been involved in any cultural, economic, or social activities, and is not a voice with any real presence in Menorca. Más por Menorca has criticized this choice and rejected the decision of the PP-led government, as well as the politicization of the event, which should be institutional, not ideological. "We consider it a provocation to choose a figure foreign to Menorca and contrary to the values that the Menorcan National Day represents. Once again, the PP is using an event that should be about coming together, consensus, and collective demands to impose a specific ideological vision, emptying it of its original meaning," lamented the Menorcan eco-sovereignists, who reminded the PP of the Joan Huguet Island Council.

The Balearic Cultural Association (OCB) has filed objections against the Regulations on Linguistic Uses of the Menorca Island Council and is demanding the revocation of its initial approval or, alternatively, the immediate suspension of its processing. According to the organization, the text violates the legal framework in force in the Balearic Islands and presents "numerous procedural deficiencies." Among the main shortcomings, the OCB denounces the absence of mandatory reports from the Balearic Islands Legal Advisory Council and the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB), as well as the need to obtain the opinion of the Social Council for the Catalan Language. The organization maintains that, in accordance with the Law of Island Councils, the Regulations should necessarily be submitted to the Legal Advisory Council for a report.

The right wing has camped out at the headquarters in Maó's Biosphere Square and turned Menorca's main institution upside down. The far-right wing of the PP and the councilor expelled from Vox joined forces to achieve an arithmetic majority in the Consell and impose their policies. From the territorial model to the road model and, now, also to the identity model.

The Menorca Island Council has taken a shortcut in its language policy, disregarding both its internal advisory service (SAL) and the leading academic body (the Menorcan Institute of Studies). The PP government and independent councilor Maite de Medrano, expelled from Vox, used their combined majority to fulfill the first agreement of their pact and introduce Spanish and "the distinctive forms of Menorcan" into the institution's Regulations on Linguistic Use. The plenary session approved this Monday, despite staunch opposition, a measure that fundamentally modifies 18 of the 27 articles of the regulations that had been in force since 2016. The proposal, which equates Spanish with Catalan in many administrative cases and prioritizes Menorcan, has not been implemented until a year later, as a consequence of the pact with the former Vox councilor that allowed the PP to pass the budget for next year. Joan Pons, who before entering politics directed Sa Fundació and promoted the use of island dialects over standard Catalan, has even eliminated the monitoring committee, composed of technicians and unions, which until now oversaw the application of the regulations, transferring control to himself. This measure, which even the department's own legal advisor has not validated in her required report, has nevertheless been included in the regulations. Among other changes, the new regulations propose the possibility of partially outsourcing the institution's language service or using Spanish for signage "when the sociolinguistic context so advises," and stipulate that all regulations and resolutions, as well as the tender specifications and the website itself, must be published simultaneously in Catalan and Spanish.

Maite de Medrano, the climate change denier and anti-Catalan Countries councilor for the current Vox party, has sold her defecting but decisive vote to the People's Party (PP) to allow the Menorca Council's budget for next year to be approved again, despite being in the minority. Stripped of her fixed salary from the institution since her party expelled her in May for aligning itself with the dissenting faction, the architect, who boasted of being Vox's 505th member at the national level, has pledged her allegiance to the PP to implement some of the initiatives she says she has been proposing for two years. She now feels "free" to negotiate without being beholden to anyone and knows she holds the key to governability. So, without needing to present amendments or debate it in plenary session, the maverick councilor has guaranteed the budget's approval in exchange for the Popular Party's commitment to promote the use of Castilian Spanish, eliminate websites with the '.cat' domain, and schedule a Hispanic Heritage Week each year to promote Spanish nationalism around October 12th. She also pledges to strengthen the Menorcan language, which, she makes perfectly clear, "is not a historical, cultural, or political appendage of Catalan. The Catalan Countries do not exist. We are simply Menorcans, Balearic Islanders, and Spaniards." Quite a success for a councilor who, in 37 months in office, has barely presented four proposed agreements and who, moreover, was already expelled from the coalition government with the Popular Party with which she began her term. The president dismissed her in October 2023 after she had a falling out with her island director and was accused of harassment. But Adolfo Vilafranca is making a virtue of necessity and, after pretending he could negotiate a stability agreement with the left, has gone straight for De Medrano's support. At stake is the absolute majority, which the polls still deny him and which he needs at the end of each year to pass the budget. This same majority is also essential to promote significant changes to Menorca's model, such as the reform of the Island Territorial Plan (PTI), which is expected to be imminent. In this way, he broadens his support and opens himself up to an ideological sector closer to Vox, the same sector with which current councilor Joan Pons Torres aligned himself, who in 2023 declined to run on lists with other far-right parties in order to join the PP. A strategy that, according to some sources, the conservative party will follow in the 2027 elections.

Menorca has 118.59 hectares dedicated to vegetable (51.59) and fruit (67) production, a clear indication of the diversification taking place in the countryside today, a far cry from the livestock, milk, and cheese production model that has historically dominated the island's economy. Specifically, statistics provided by the Menorca Island Council show 41 hectares dedicated to vegetables; 42 to stone fruit; 27 to nuts; and the remainder to potatoes and citrus fruits. According to the Balearic Government's Institute for Agri-Food and Fisheries Research and Training (IRFAP), approximately 840 tons of vegetables and fruit are produced throughout Menorca. Notable production includes 139 tons of potatoes, 119 tons of melons, 92 tons of tomatoes (of all varieties), 72 tons of watermelons, 67 tons of stone fruit, and 58 tons of artichokes. Some producers sell their produce through agricultural cooperatives, and there are also 32 fruit growers, 40 vegetable growers, and 11 legume growers who are promoted through Agroxerxa, the marketing support tool for products from farmers in Consell, funded by the farmers of Menorca. This is the case, for example, of Son Magnà, a family orchard in Alaior run by Llorenç Caules, who, for the past 30 years, has been the third generation of his family to tend the fruit trees on the property. Another example is Josep Lluís Gonyalons, who maintains the family farm in Algendaret Vell, where he produces organic fruit and vegetables. It is one of the 17 orchards linked to Agroxerxa that produce aromatic plants, an increasingly popular alternative in the agricultural sector.

The Menorca Island Council government does not intend to heed UNESCO's advice. Despite the pronouncement from the leading international body for heritage preservation, which recommends abandoning the Rafal Rubí viaduct and reaching a consensus on an at-grade road solution for this crossing of the main road between Mahón and Alaior, the team led by Adolfo Vilafranca announced this Friday that it will proceed with the project. The Councilors for Culture and Heritage, Joan Pons Torres, and for Mobility, Juan Manuel Delgado, appeared together to denounce the "political maneuver" by the Ministry of Culture and to make it clear that "we will not back down," since, "for us, the safety of the people of Menorca comes first." Both councilors accused the Ministry of "wanting to endanger Talayotic Menorca with the aim of harming the Island Council's governing team." Pons Torres emphasized that this is a "very serious act of disloyalty towards Menorca, towards all Menorcans, and above all, towards the Consell's staff." Specifically, the Popular Party criticizes the Ministry for sending external reports to UNESCO that lack the endorsement of the Consell Insular's technical staff and whose sole purpose is to obtain a negative report and harm the road improvement project in the Rafal Rubí section, promoted by the Popular Party government. Joan Pons, who is also the spokesperson for the governing team, criticized the lack of transparency and opacity that, in his view, the Ministry practices, since it has never informed the Council of all the documentation submitted to ICOMOS and UNESCO. The Popular Party councilor warned that "it would be very serious" if the reports favorable to the viaduct, issued by the institution's Highways Department technicians, had not also been sent to Paris. He also contradicted the Ministry, stating in its report that the support for the project from the Scientific Council of the Menorca Talayotic Agency was unclear, when—he commented—an absolute majority of its members voted in favor of the heritage impact assessment. Even so, some experts, such as the candidacy coordinator himself, Cipriano Marín, have resigned in recent months in disagreement with the island government. Eight years of paralysis

Likewise, the councilors suspect that the legal report concluding that the Rafal Rubí bridge cannot be demolished has not been submitted to UNESCO either. They argue that if a serious accident occurs and the viaduct is not yet finished, claims for damages could be made against the engineers and politicians involved. Therefore, they insisted, "the bridge will be finished. After eight years of paralysis, we will complete the main road renovation, acting with the utmost protection of the landscape and heritage." The UNESCO report, however, is clear. It warns that the current proposal will negatively impact the landscape of the navetas (prehistoric stone structures) and affect the integrity and authenticity of the landscape declared as having Outstanding Universal Value. The report even mentions other sections of the road with less traffic where far less impactful solutions have been implemented than the one planned for Rafal Rubí.

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The Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, sent a letter this Thursday to the Menorca Island Council (Consell de Menorca) requesting that it seek an alternative to the proposed overpass on the road near the Talayotic navetas of Rafal Rubí, as recommended by UNESCO. The letter, addressed to the President of the Menorca Council, Adolfo Vilafranca, and the Balearic Minister of Tourism, Culture, and Sports, Jaume Bauzá, notes that the project "is currently suspended by a ruling of the Central Administrative Court of Contractual Appeals, pending a decision from international bodies, whose report, now received, does not grant the requested approval." On October 20, the Ministry received a letter from the UNESCO World Heritage Centre, which included the ICOMOS International report on the status of Talayotic Menorca. This report has already been sent to the Menorca Council, as detailed by the Ministry of Culture in a statement. This report recommends halting the construction project for the overpass on the road near the Talayotic navetas of Rafael Rubí and seeking a consensus solution that does not affect this site, considered a World Heritage Site. The Minister of Culture urges adherence to the recommendations of the international organization and proposes a technical meeting to address how to ensure that any actions concerning Talayotic Menorca are carried out in accordance with international commitments to protect this site.

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Public entities attached to the Ministry of Education, Youth, Culture and Sports of the Consell de Menorca will no longer be able to publish on social media using non-normative "salty" articles. The association Fem-ho en Català, formed last year by former language volunteers in Menorca from the Platform for the Language, is on the verge of legally forcing the Ministry headed by the former director of the Joan Pons Torres Foundation to stop using the "salty" article in its social media posts.

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At least four migrant minors arrived by plane in recent weeks in Menorca and Ibiza, most likely abandoned by their parents, according to reports from the island councils to the National Police. According to the sources consulted, this approach could be considered a new entry route for the migration phenomenon in the islands.

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The People's Party (PP) is backing down in Menorca in the face of overwhelming reports against it by the Consell's technical staff and softening the modification of the Island Territorial Plan so as not to overturn the island's model. The new proposal, presented this Friday morning by the president, Adolfo Vilafanca, and the regional minister for Territorial Planning, Núria Torrent, is a complete about-face. The proposal, which they had previously reported to the corporation's secretary and the regional architect, and which had also been submitted to several agencies, is a complete about-face.

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The Minister of Social Welfare of the Menorca Council, Carmen Reynés, reported this Wednesday that two of the three minors who were rescued last Saturday in a small boat 35 miles off the island's coast "can't even walk." "They arrived in a very delicate physical condition and extremely weak. All were discharged from the hospital, but tonight one of the minors was readmitted. Regarding their psychological state, it can be said to be somewhat worrying," said the island official.

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The coordinator of the file for the declaration of Talayotic Menorca as a World Heritage Site, Cipriano Marín, presented his resignation on Wednesday from continuing to be a member of the Scientific Council, according to sources from the entity.

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The political crisis sparked by the Menorca Council's decision to defy UNESCO and the Ministry of Culture and push ahead with the construction of the Rafal Rubí viaduct, which the world's leading body for heritage protection was calling for its demolition, has now claimed its first victim.

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"The Menorca Council will not throw the Rafal Rubí Bridge under the bridge." This was the statement made on Thursday by President Adolfo Vilafranca, who expressed his conviction that "UNESCO will make a decision based on technical criteria and without political interference," such as that exerted by the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun.

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The State has put its foot down in the Menorca Council and, through a letter signed by the Minister of Culture himself, Ernest Urtasun, asks the president of the island institution, Adolfo Vilafranca, to halt the project with which he intends to resume construction work on the Rafal Rubí viaduct and thus "not jeopardize" the island's declaration of heritage.

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