The GOB warns that the Santa Maria arrests "further inflame spirits" before the 26-J demonstration

PalmaThe arrests of two activists accused of making graffiti against five real estate agencies in Santa Maria have heightened tensions ahead of the anti-tourist overcrowding demonstration called for this Sunday, July 26, in Palma. The GOB considers the action against the two women to have been "disproportionate" and warns that the case "further inflames tempers," while making it clear that the graffiti should not have been done.

The vice-president of the environmental organization, Antònia Siquier, denounced the "criminalization" of the activists this Thursday and linked the unease surrounding the case to the difficulties young people face in accessing housing in a context of tourist overcrowding.

The statements were made during the presentation of the banner that will lead Sunday's demonstration, called under the slogan 'Mallorca, at the limit'. The GOB has recovered an image from the 2000s that already denounced the island's collapse. The entity's president, Joan Moranta, and Terraferida representative Tona Fuster participated in the event.

The GOB hopes the demonstration will be a success in terms of participation and that the message expressed by citizens will reach the institutions with decision-making capacity, especially the Government and the island councils. The organizations also emphasized that local councils can adopt measures to combat tourist overcrowding.

Moranta attributed Mallorca's current situation to the lack of will from rulers to limit economic growth, speculation, construction, and the arrival of tourists, flights, cruises, and cars, Efe reports. "We are seeing how the airport, ports, and roads are at maximum capacity while people are at their limit," he stated.

The president of the GOB also criticized the transfer of waste from Ibiza to Mallorca because, as he pointed out, on the Pitiusa island "they no longer know what to do with their garbage".

The water tariff for hotels

The Menys Turisme, Més Vida platform has added another reason to participate in the mobilization this Thursday: the billing system for the water consumed by Palma's hotels. Its spokesperson, Pere Joan Femenia, has denounced that hotel companies benefit from a ""billing trap" that favors them compared to private consumers.

Femenia has argued that the existence of "unfair tariff systems" in water consumption directly affects the residents of Mallorca. As an example, he stated that a hotel in Palma consuming 2,600 cubic meters of water would have to pay a bimonthly bill of 15,000 euros if the same system as a neighborhood community were applied, but the current tariff allows it to be reduced to only 1,600 euros. According to the spokesperson, this is because hotel consumption is paid at 60 cents, the lowest tariff, and does not reach the most expensive tiers that would apply to a community of owners.

Femenia has pointed out that Palma has about 30,000 hotel rooms and nearly 60,000 beds, which would equate to a bimonthly consumption of 300,000 tons of water billed at this rate. This would represent, according to his calculations, a maximum approximate amount of 180,000 euros. He also stated that studies from the University of the Balearic Islands place the proportion of Mallorca's total water consumption attributable to tourism at 25%.

CCOO calls for massive participation

CCOO has also encouraged citizens to participate massively in Sunday's demonstration. The general secretary of the union in the Balearic Islands, José Luis García, has considered the mobilization to be "very important" because it places at the center of the debate the need to transform an economic model based on precariousness.

García has denounced that this model worsens working and living conditions, hinders access to housing, and does not redistribute the wealth it generates. "Workers are the main ones affected by an economic model" that continues to grow in visitor numbers while many families cannot access a home, he concluded.