New Balearics President Francina Armengol buries her PP predecessor’s flags

PalmaSix weeks after being sworn in, the new socialist president of the Balearic Islands, Francina Armengol, and her progressive cabinet (backed by the PSIB1 in coalition with the green and nationalist party Més, and the odd parliamentary support from Podemos) have buried the flags that former president José Ramón Bauzá had waved during his four years in office and are now flying new ones.

President Bauzá’s term was marked by cuts in social spending, controversy in education and language policy, a lack of dialogue, subordination to Madrid and an economic policy that favoured hotel owners. Instead, Armengol and her government are focusing on social policies, looking to patch things up with sectors that had been brushed aside by the PP government (such as the education community), working on policies that won’t sit well with the powerful hotel sector, and have turned their political demands from Madrid into a leitmotiv of sorts. While the new government’s first decisions showcase this change, they are also a source of disappointment, especially following certain appointments which have been questioned internally.

EDUCATION and CATALAN

Trilingual schooling law, repealed; Catalan language, reinstated

President Armengol wanted to send a clear message to the education community --who played a key role in her victory on May 24-- through her government’s first few decisions. Only an hour after being sworn in, the new government revoked Bauzá’s controversial law on trilingual schooling in the Balearics --which undermined Catalan teaching-- and agreed to strike down the law of symbols, which banned displaying bows with the Catalan flag on school premises in support of the Catalan language. Armengol then began to make a number of legal changes so that a knowledge of Catalan would again be a prerequisite for civil servants working in the Balearics. She has also patched up relations with Catalonia in the field of language and culture, which the PP government had broken off. The doors of the government’s seat are now open to the education community, with whom Bauzá had never met, not even after the demonstrations that saw over 100,000 people march against his policies. These gestures, nevertheless, have not pleased everyone. The Assemblea de Docents (Teachers’ Assemby), one of the driving forces behind the teachers’ revolt in the Balearics, have expressed their disappointment because they feel that the government’s response to Madrid’s law of education standards (Lomce) is lukewarm.

SOCIAL POLICIES

Immigrants will be issued health cards again, social benefit is back

This year’s budget was passed by the PP and was half spent already, so the new government chose to make decisions that would not require any additional expenditure. One of the few exceptions made is a social issue: giving undocumented immigrants their health cards back, after the PP had left them without any medical cover. This decision, which mirrors what other regions where the left has taken over have done, affects 15,000 people in the Balearic Islands. Their main policy in terms of social services, the guaranteed minimum income, will have to wait until the next budget is passed. Armengol’s government has begun drawing up the bill that will make this €426 benefit pay possible, with no income families with children being the first beneficiaries. Nevertheless, the guidelines issued by the Treasury department to start drafting the 2016 budget acknowledge that the Balearics’ poor funding will prevent meeting all the social goals set for the next four years.

FUNDING

Demands for more funds while challenging Madrid

Demands for more funding has become a government priority since day 1. In much stronger terms than its predecessor, this government has emphasised the lack of resources channelled to the Balearics and has sided with other regions who are demanding a change of the current system, as well as greater deficit flexibility. At the same time, they are asking for bilateral talks with Madrid to discuss further funding tied to specific aspects of the islands, such as compensation for the disadvantages caused by insularity. The government is requesting a review of the Règim Especial Balear (“Special Balearic Regime”), a law that seeks to compensate the islands for not being part of mainland Spain. And it has threatened to take legal action, if Madrid does not agree to pay up the accumulated deficit for the investments laid out in the Balearics Devolution Charter and that have not been made: €1.3bn

Besides the matter of funding, several initiatives by the Spanish government --such as challenging the Balearic retail law in the Spanish Constitutional Court-- have highlighted a clash between both governments, unprecedented during Bauzá’s term.

TOURISM

Policy shift on hoteliers, making tourism employees a priority

The policy changes in the Balearic administration are not just about focusing on social initiatives rather than on economic policy, but also about a new approach to economic policy in general. While the previous administration prioritised employers, this one will focus on the employees’ working conditions, particularly in the tourism industry. A new scheme has just been brought in to fight employment fraud, whereby more employment inspectors will be hired so that 1,300 inspections can be conducted within six weeks, with a view to ending fraud in temporary and part-time contracts during the summer high season. Hoteliers are not happy with the eco tax, the tourist tax that the left wants to bring back. Theirs is the sector that benefitted the most from Bauzá’s laissez faire legislation, which the left also wants to amend. The progressive forces have also started a discussion on whether there should be limits to the saturation of tourists in the Balearics during the high season.

APPOINTMENTS

First disappointments and strains within the ruling coalition

Unlike the previous PP administration, which had an outright majority in parliament, the current coalition government includes the PSIB, Més, plus the occasional external support from Podemos. This scenario necessarily calls for greater debate, but when discrepancies arise, they become immediately apparent. And we have already seen some in these first six weeks, arising mainly from a number of appointments of government officials and advisors by the socialist party which have been rejected by their partner Podemos. They have criticised that the top official in the Health department is the socialist minister’s husband. An inexperienced twenty year-old advisor in the same department, whose main achievement was to run in the same ticket as the minister’s husband, has already been asked to step down. The expectations created by the parties on the left who had argued for appointments based strictly on merit are causing contradictions, as internal strains become obvious. For now they have been averted by agreeing to negotiate all future appointments and ensuring that they are based on merit, while avoiding nepotism.