<![CDATA[Ara Balears in English - omnibus law]]> 10 <![CDATA[The GOB warns the Government after the meeting: "If it continues to reduce environmental regulations, it will find us in front of it"]]>

The Government has tried this Monday to lower the tension surrounding El Trenc after last week's massive human chain. The Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Natural Environment, Joan Simonet, has met with the GOB and assured the environmental organization that "not a single square meter" of the Trenc-Salobrar de Campos Natural Park will be unprotected.

]]> <![CDATA[MORE accuses the PP of protecting vulture funds and promoting, even more, real estate speculation]]>

MÉS per Palma denounces that the Partit Popular government in Cort has decided to open the door to companies and investment funds being able to buy subsidized housing. This decision, in their opinion, turns protected housing into "a new business for large speculators and directly harms the citizens of Palma". As they detailed at a press conference, until now, this subsidized housing was reserved for families who needed a home to live in.

]]> <![CDATA[MÉS per Palma denounces that the Government will reduce sanctions for illegal tourist rental up to 80%]]>

MÉS per Palma has attacked this Monday the reform promoted by the PP and Vox Government through the Omnibus Law, which plans to reduce by up to 80% the sanctions imposed for illegal tourist rental if owners incorporate the homes into certain public rental programs.

]]> <![CDATA[10,000 people send a message to Prohens: "El Trenc is not to be touched"]]>

10,000 people, according to the count made by the organizing entities, gathered this Sunday at Trenc beach to demand that its protection be maintained and that the Government of the Balearic Islands refrain from making any downward modifications to the Natural Park, as civil society suspects, after a regulatory change that allows intervention in this protected space without going through Parliament.

]]> <![CDATA[The Trenc, the image of a society on guard]]>

Citizen mobilization in defense of Trenc is more than a protest for an emblematic natural space. It is the image of a society that is on guard. The slogan that is resonating again these days, ‘Neither before, nor now, nor ever. Trenc must not be touched’, is also a preventive warning against any indication that could put at risk a collective heritage that the people of Mallorca have had to defend time and again over the last few decades.

]]> <![CDATA[El Trenc is played over up to 74,000 square meters of the protected area]]>

Up to 74,000 square meters of the protected area of the Trenc-Salobrar de Campos Maritime-Terrestrial Natural Park, specifically the entire area around Les Covetes (see attached map), are in the spotlight and run the risk of becoming unprotected. This is a protection strip that the Pact established in 2023, five years after approving the Natural Park. The owners went to court, which has not yet resolved the case, and have pressured the Government to undo the measure. Some sources consulted by ARA Balears confirm that this area is the main reason why Marga Prohens' Executive has decided to simplify the path to retouch the Natural Park, without having to go through Parliament.

]]> <![CDATA[The omnibus law also lowers environmental controls on rural land and sanctions on quarries]]>

The Omnibus Law also lowers the requirements for building facilities in rural land. The norm, which modifies more than 50 laws, mainly environmental and territorial management, excludes complementary activities of the primary sector for the transformation and direct sale of products from the same agricultural holdings from the simplified environmental assessment procedure.

]]> <![CDATA[Destroy the Trenc (and all the rest)]]> That old saying that goes ‘the law is made, the loophole is made’ has acquired a new dimension with the Omnibus Law of the Government of Marga Prohens, which has been a loophole from the very beginning. At first, it was called the Law for the acceleration of strategic projects and was announced as a reduction of administrative obstacles for foreign investors, an idea that may seem reasonable if by “foreign investors” we mean minimally presentable companies, and not vulture funds and Central and South American mafias. The spectacle arrived with the presentation of amendments, with which the PP and Vox took the opportunity to stuff this law with the commitments that the PP had acquired with Vox, none of which had anything to do with the initial objective of the law and yes with the ideological obsessions of the extreme right. Thus, the new law ended up making room for things as strategic as the legalization of pigeon shooting at popular festivals, the reservation of places for military personnel in the Local Police, and the use of taser guns by municipal agents, among others. So far, we are talking about the kind of things that excite fans of Chuck Norris films. There are others that are more directly harmful to the common good and citizen coexistence, such as the toughening of conditions for minors under guardianship to receive an emancipation income, the relaxation of conservation controls for environmentally relevant spaces, and the elimination of the Catalan language requirement in various areas and cases of public education, among others.The following blunders have culminated in a huge mess: the deregulation of natural spaces, in general, and of the Trenc – Salobrar de Campos Natural Park, in particular. The amendments introduced to the Omnibus Law on this matter represent a blatant deregulation of the legal regime that has so far protected the Natural Park, and grants the Consell de Mallorca the power to modify it by simply approving a decree. Despite the PP wanting to deny it, and taking to social media accusing environmental organizations –Terraferida and GOB– of spreading lies and fakes, the reality is that this new legal framework grants ample room to fill Trenc with kiosks, constructions, parking lots, beach services (sunbeds, umbrellas, sailing and sports schools, jet skis, etc.) and all sorts of tourist uses. Beyond the Trenc Park, the Omnibus Law also deregulates other areas considered of environmental relevance such as the Cabrera National Park, the Dragonera Natural Park and the Serra de Tramuntana Natural Site.Ultimately, a final offensive to fill everything with cement and concrete, and also to fill some pockets with banknotes (few, and mostly foreign: the PP and Vox and their allied businessmen act as commission agents in this business). There is also, as we have said on occasion, a component of revenge: in the vicinity of Campos and Santanyí, within very specific families, the declaration of El Trenc as a natural park and the demolition order for the illegal apartments of Les Covetes, still sting. This is a story of the avarice and indignity of some who have thought themselves the elite of these islands, against the well-being of all society. It may be that many will agree with them out of ignorance, self-interest, or simple servile inertia. But there are also many of us who will not stand idly by to watch them destroy everything for the unhealthy hunger for money that they have not earned. Those of us who disagree will see each other several times this summer: the first, next Sunday, the 5th, at the human chain of El Trenc.

]]> <![CDATA[The Government denies having left Trenc unprotected with the Omnibus Law: "They are lying"]]>

The first vice-president and government spokesperson, Antoni Costa, denied this Friday at the Governing Council that the Omnibus Law has deregulated the Trenc Natural Park, as denounced by MÉS per Mallorca and the GOB. The legislative modification will allow any of the regulations governing the operation of the natural space to be modified by decree-law. "They are lying," denounced Costa, insisting that the Park's operation has been adapted to that of other protected territories.

]]> <![CDATA[Another aggression of the omnibus law to the territory: fewer restrictions for the seagulls on the coast]]>

The Omnibus Law was intended to be an instrument for regulating strategic business projects and will go down in history as one of the most deregulatory norms regarding territorial and environmental matters. Among its provisions, there is one that eliminates the restrictions that the Government (former PP councilor Gabriel Company) had promoted to limit the establishment of catering establishments in the maritime-terrestrial public domain.

]]> <![CDATA[They warn that the Balearic Islands are losing key control over water in the midst of the aquifer crisis]]>

The GOB and the Water Alliance have criticized the changes introduced by the omnibus law in urban planning and water management matters, considering that they weaken the environmental control mechanisms over urban growth at a particularly delicate moment for the water resources of the Balearic Islands.

]]> <![CDATA["What a Roman accent!": Le Senne (Vox) praises Lluís Apesteguia's Latin]]>

The spokesperson for MÉS per Mallorca, Lluís Apesteguia, boasted about his knowledge of Latin in this Tuesday's plenary session. Amidst the chaos of the Government's Omnibus Law approval, the eco-sovereigntist, who holds a degree in classical philology, was one of the few parliamentarians who enumerated the amendments, laid out in that language on the voting script, without pronunciation problems. A skill that impressed the President of the Parliament, Gabriel Le Senne (Vox), who admitted he struggled to keep up with the speed at which he enumerated each point. "Mr. Apesteguia, I do not have so much knowledge of Latin," he told him on one occasion, asking him to go slower. "What a Roman accent!" he finally conceded, when Apesteguia requested a separate vote for points "novovicies" (29) and "tertricies" (33).

]]> <![CDATA[From setbacks to Catalan to pigeon shooting: the Omnibus Law approved amidst parliamentary chaos]]>

The Parliament approved the Omnibus Law this Tuesday after an accident-prone process in Parliament that has put the left in a state of war and has even provoked complaints from the legal advisors. The norm began to be processed as a law for strategic projects but, in a plot twist, the PP modified its title to introduce about seventy of its own amendments on unrelated issues and, incidentally, to comply with the pacts with Vox pending officialization. The opposition in bloc has denounced the "chaos", but while MÉS per Mallorca and Més per Menorca have refused to participate, the PSIB has indeed agreed on some amendments with the PP on the taxi sector and the integration of the Tax Agency (ATIB). The legislative chaos continued until the last minute, when the deputies did not understand the voting blocks and the president of the Parliament, Gabriel Le Senne, had to take a recess to clarify things and, finally, a roll-call vote had to be resorted to.

]]> <![CDATA[MÉS per Mallorca and MÉS per Menorca will challenge the Omnibus Law in the Constitutional Court]]>

MÉS per Mallorca and Més per Menorca have confirmed this Tuesday that they will challenge the Omnibus Law before the Constitutional Court (TC) through an appeal for protection because they consider that it has been approved irregularly. The reason is that the norm includes amendments on issues that have nothing to do with the promotion of strategic projects, which was the initial object of the norm, to which even the name has ended up being modified through an amendment. The changes introduced mainly by the PP and Vox, although the PSIB has also agreed to several with the popular ones, affect about fifty laws. In parallel, MÉS per Mallorca will also present a second unconstitutionality appeal for the points they consider affect citizens' "rights".

]]> <![CDATA["The PP and Vox make a hidden modification to the Language Normalization Law"]]>

The PP insists that the amendments to the omnibus law to exempt teachers from the Catalan requirement in very hard-to-fill positions do not imply a modification of the Law of Linguistic Normalization. The popular party has defended throughout the legislature that, no matter how much Vox asks for it, they would not touch this text that regulates the use of the Catalan language in the public sphere. However, both the professor of Public and Constitutional Law at the University of the Balearic Islands (UIB) Sebastià Rubí, and the jurist and president of the Obra Cultural Balear (OCB), Antoni Llabrés, consider that the norm is indeed affected by these changes, which are voted on this Tuesday in Parliament. "It is a hidden modification of the Law of Linguistic Normalization," assures Rubí.

]]> <![CDATA[The PP, PSIB and Vox hasten the debate of the omnibus law in Parliament]]>

The Parliament's plenary session will debate and foreseeably approve next Tuesday the law for the acceleration of strategic projects, turned into an omnibus law because the PP, Vox, and the PSIB have introduced nearly 75 amendments affecting about fifty regulations. This majority is what has forced the debate to take place without delay, even though the legal advisors have just sent the commission's opinion, of 218 pages, to the parliamentary groups. MÉS per Mallorca and Més per Menorca have denounced that the norm is being introduced on the agenda "with a shoehorn".

]]> <![CDATA[National priority to speed up]]> The interview with Aina Vidal, here at ARA Balears, with the president of the Superior Court of Justice of the Balearic Islands is very interesting. Because then they speak ill of the people from Madrid, Magistrate Gómez, who was born in the capital of Spain, shows much more sensitivity for these punished islands than their very Mallorcan rulers, and perhaps that's why he does it discreetly, when asked what he thinks about the Prohens government's law that legalizes rustic housing that was previously illegal. Judge Gómez says: “When irregular situations, urban or otherwise, are regularized, there is always the risk of generating a sense of injustice among those who have complied with the rule from the beginning. It is a kind of amnesty, but I cannot comment further, because, after all, it depends on the will of the legislator.” He expresses himself gently so as not to be accused of losing impartiality, but it is well understood what he means. The legislator cannot be prevented from legislating, but that does not mean they do it well. In the case of the Government, it is not that they do not do it well: they are legislating an urban amnesty —a free-for-all to build everything— that is, evidently, unjust. Unjust, because it sacrifices the collective good of all for the private benefit of a few.To move this forward, the Prohens government has decided to pass a law they call ‘strategic projects acceleration law’, which is a way, both technocratic and caricatured, of declaring that they want to get on with it. It is an omnibus law, one of those that take the opportunity to introduce amendments to many other regulations that, in principle, have no relation to the matter being legislated. It is interesting that a People's Party government passes omnibus laws, because it is a practice that its leaders have strongly denounced when the Pedro Sánchez government has used them: at one point they even said that this showed that Spain was under the yoke of a dictatorship (communist, of course). Afterwards, it is true that they have modified their attitude regarding measures of this nature and have opted to negotiate with the Spanish government the option of breaking them down, so that they don't end up voting against the increase in pensions again and become the Unpopular Party —sorry for the pun.Now, with Prohens', the PP already has an autonomous government that is creating its own omnibus law, in order to accelerate the strategic project of concreting and asphalting Mallorca, Menorca, Ibiza, and Formentera entirely. The problem is that they need to negotiate its approval with the loyal fascist partners of Vox, who force them to negotiate in stages and start from scratch each time. Vox is like fraudulent credit cards, which keep charging interest on top of interest, so that the debt not only is never paid off, but increases. And, of course, to approve the second package of amendments, they have already put national priority on the table, a new concept that emerged from the Vox laboratories and has debuted in the government agreements of Aragon and Extremadura, and which means toughening measures and rhetoric against immigrants, which even fall into unconstitutionality. But hush, because the massive deregulation of the Balearic territory that our PP's strategic acceleration proposes is also unconstitutional. Who would have thought of parties and people who for so many years had presented themselves as constitutionalists — which, even if they didn't know it, meant they were scholars of constitutional law.

]]> <![CDATA[Vox's warning to the PP: it overturns all its amendments to the omnibus law]]>

The conflict between the PP and Vox has once again become evident in the Balearic Parliament. The far-right party has voted against all the amendments presented by the PP, some 80, to the strategic projects law, known as the òmnibus law, during the deliberation of the Committee on Finance and Budgets this Tuesday. The move leaves a package of key measures for the legislature in suspense and is seen as a clear warning from Vox to Marga Prohens' Government.The decision means that several prominent proposals will be blocked or will have to be debated again. Among these amendments are tax reductions to expand the thresholds for the Property Transfer Tax (ITP) bonus, to reduce the tax on Documented Legal Acts (AJD), as well as a 50% reduction in both ITP and AJD for the purchase of limited-price housing.

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