The former vice-president of the Parliament of Catalonia and one of the leading figures of the independence movement, Josep Costa, received a message at the end of April: “We’ve done it! The PP has voted for it! The King will sign this!”. It was from a previous life before politics. It was the technical secretary of the Consell de Formentera, Àngel Navarro, with whom he had worked as a lawyer at the island institution. Both drafted the reform of the Constitution which, years later, has ended up giving a senator to Formentera. It was a “regionalist and assertive” text, recalls Costa, born in Ibiza: “Along the way, many things have been destroyed, but some have survived”. For example, the toponym ‘Illes Balears’ in Catalan; and the fact that it states that the Constitution “restored” democracy in Spain, an implicit reference to the II Republic.

Starting from the next elections, Formentera will have its own senator. The constitutional reform that has allowed this since April 23rd has been the latest milestone for a territory that has fewer than 12,000 inhabitants but has a growing influence on the institutional system. “It is important because it provides the possibility of having a person who specifically looks out for this island during the processing of numerous laws made in Madrid,” explains political analyst Toni Fornés.

The plenary session of the Senate has definitively approved this Wednesday the reform of the Spanish Constitution promoted by the Balearic Parliament that modifies article 69.3 so that the island of Formentera has its own senator and is detached from the electoral tandem it currently forms with Ibiza.