Smile, You’re On Camera

Video and the internet have enabled us to become virtual tourists. Though I worry that there are strange people who spend hours staring at a barely changing image of a promenade or sea front in Mallorca through the medium of a shaky webcam, to be able to drop in and take a quick view of what a place is like at any time does have some attraction.

One problem with webcams, other than the fact that the images are often not very good or the camera isn’t working, is that many of them aren’t registered. Mallorca is not a heavily surveillance society. It adheres to Spanish regulations governing data protection and privacy, but it is these regulations that webcams can flout.

Security cameras for property are meant to avoid showing the “public way”. In other words, they have to be trained on entrances, access points and so on and not, potentially, on members of the public who might be passing by. Regardless of whether the public way is being shown or not, the right authorisation and controls are needed, which come from the police and the data protection agency.

There has been an increase in public way surveillance, however, and this is as a result of the police requiring systems to watch for potential delinquency. Though this increase has caused some disquiet, the use of cameras is nevertheless authorised. Webcams often are not.

Webcams have cropped up in an unexpected context. The ongoing court investigations surrounding alleged corruption and other misdemeanours at the tourism ministry have now focussed on webcams that were put up following the ETA bombs in 2009.

It was not unreasonable for the regional government to think that ETA might just place a bomb or two on tourist beaches. The terrorist organisation had done so in the past. It was this concern that was the backdrop to the tourism ministry setting about putting up surveillance webcams on hotel sites that were trained onto the beaches.

On the face of it, this may sound like it was a sensible precaution. Sensible or not, little that was occurring at the tourism ministry or at its strategy institute, Inestur, during Miguel Nadal’s period as minister is escaping the scrutiny of the investigators.

But then, how sensible as a precaution was it? The number of webcams amounted to five in total. One of them was put up at the Nuevas Palmeras hotel, part of the Sunwing Resort, in Alcúdia. Anyone with even a vague idea of the geography of Alcúdia’s coastline will know that the beach stretches for several kilometres. The other four were in four different resorts. As surveillance measures go, they were of limited or even no use.

Apart from the fact that investigators might want to know if there was any government cash going somewhere it shouldn’t have, they also want to know whether permission was actually sought or indeed granted for the cameras to be put up. Furthermore, they want to know whether these cameras are still there, whether they are working, who exactly is looking at or controlling the images captured and whether these images have been or are being stored.

Here’s a question for you. If you are a sunbather on a beach in Mallorca, do you want a camera to be watching you? I suspect you don’t. And this goes to the heart of the privacy laws. The investigators are quite right to be taking a wider interest in the webcam affair than just any possible financial wrongdoing.

A mystery of this case is the line of authorisation. No mention is being made of the security forces. It was Miguel Nadal, the tourism minister remember, who appeared to order the cameras’ installation; for the regional government, either through the tourism ministry or another agency, to undertake the sort of surveillance which appears to have occurred (may still be), it has to refer the matter to the delegation for the Balearics at central government.

It’s all about checks and balances. Privacy and data protection are taken seriously in Spain. The contrast is sometimes made between the liberal application of privacy laws in Britain with the greater rigour in Spain and in Germany. The contrast owes much to contrasting political regimes of the last century.

It may all seem pretty innocent, sticking up a webcam and showing views of a beach or a promenade or whatever. But there are meant to be rules.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Window-Dressing: The Balearic Government’s adjustment measures

The local “austerity” and “adjustment” measures are taking shape. The regional government will raise income tax for high earners, but it is opposing the central government’s move to prevent town halls getting into greater debt. Ministries at regional level are to be further rationalised, this time as a means of saving money as opposed to being a political expedient (as was the case with the combining of transport and environment). These measures come on top of the increase in IVA (VAT) which is due to kick in from 1 July. The opposition Partido Popular is, as you might expect, against the income tax rise and the ministry rationalisation. So much for any consensus for getting Mallorca and the Balearic out of their current mess.

Changes at government level, scrapping specific ministries for agriculture and work, can be seen as either window-dressing or sensible. The office of the president will assume responsibility for agriculture, and work will be combined with tourism, a justification for the latter being that as tourism is the main generator of employment then it makes sense to bring them together. Up to a point, the government has a point. But does getting away with a couple of ministers really amount to much? There will still, presumably, be civil servants to support the combined ministries. That President Antich is holding out for the town halls to still be able to mount up debt just adds to what I would say is in fact window-dressing. If there is to be rationalisation at governmental level – at all governmental levels – then it needs to be more savage. The question would be, what?

I am, as you might be aware, unconvinced as to the necessity for the Council of Mallorca, but this would be most unlikely to be either rationalised dramatically or scrapped altogether. There have been suggestions that local municipalities should be merged. This might reduce all the duplication, but it would be politically (and socially) impossible. The towns are historical entities, and the notion of local representation is long; even during Franco’s time it remained. Putting towns together would only create the potential for alienation which already exists, as in, for example, Puerto Pollensa. It is the functions at town hall level that need addressing, not the number of town halls.

The regional government is also looking at the role and the funding of some of its agencies or “companies”, as they are called. One such is Inestur, the tourism strategy institute at the heart of the massive corruption scandal that led to Unió Mallorquina ministers being booted out of the coalition. There are other such companies. But what do they do? In Inestur’s case, it serves different roles – one is promotion of aspects of tourism to tourists. Why? There are other agencies doing the same thing, such as IBATUR, which is the tourism board, and not to be confused with the essentially private Fomento del Turismo (otherwise known as the tourism board). Confusing, huh? Confusing and seemingly duplicating. Inestur also acts in a research capacity, which is rather more acceptable a purpose. However, when you consider what it provides, e.g. library facilities, archives, etc., you do have to wonder why this can’t be rolled into efforts at the university’s tourism department, which provides a similar function.

Yesterday, I sent an email to Inestur. Why? To tell them that I have a project in mind that would be aimed at tourism promotion of Mallorca overseas and to ask if it would be possible to make an appointment so that I could come and explain it in greater detail and to discuss possible assistance or collaboration. They may well have read the word “ayuda” (meaning help or assistance) and thought “money”. That wasn’t what I had in mind (well not necessarily). And the project is not another tourism website; it’s something completely different and unique, not aimed at tourists as such. Whatever. I have had no response. Maybe they will respond, but I’m not holding my breath.

But rather as tourism promotion as a whole is, or should be, a collaboration between public and private sectors – as evidenced by the very existence of the Fomento – so I’m raising the possibility of just such a collaboration. Greater involvement by the private sector is just one way that the government can trim its costs. But more fundamental is the need for a root-and-branch study of the system of public administration in Mallorca. Chopping a couple of ministries does not amount to this; it is window-dressing.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

We Got Nothing To Be Guilty Of – Mallorca’s tourism corruption

Events surrounding Operación Voltor (Operation Vulture) and the corruption allegations related to Inestur and the tourism ministry have moved on apace. The prosecutors are talking in terms of six years imprisonment for Miquel Nadal, ex-tourism minister, and eleven for the Miquel Flaquer, recent leader of the Unió Mallorquina. One needs to be careful. Though charged, along with others, there have been no trials as such. These announcements are often made as to prison terms, but they are rather unseemly. Guilt does tend to be presumed, perhaps with very good reason, but the pre-match (so to speak) publicity given to stints inside does rather stick in the throat.

Nevertheless, what is emerging is evidence of what the prosecution alleges was a “network of assistance to businesspeople close to the UM” that operated via the tourism ministry with the additional aid of the former leader Flaquer. A key example concerns the awarding of a contract for a voice recognition system worth over a million euros to a technology firm. The police argue that the value was way above what was required, the suspicion being that the money trail ended up in the coffers of the party itself. What all this implies is that the ministry, and therefore also Inestur, were being exploited for gain and being run as some private fiefdom to finance, if not necessarily individuals, but then the UM party – a line of argument denied, as you might expect. Individuals or party, it doesn’t really matter, as it all involves the diversion of public money. It seems extraordinary, assuming one accepts the police’s version, that a ministry can be so run without apparently any checks, until the belated ones of the prosecutors. Moreover, it suggests a vein of collusion coursing through the ministry with drips attached to various individuals all tagged with the name UM.

At present, the investigation seems to centre on the period when Miquel Nadal was minister. His predecessor, Francesc Buils, has not been detained but he is expected to be called to answer questions. No charges have been made against him, but a question which arises is whether the UM, in return for its coalition place, was granted the tourism ministry and then targeted it as a means to a rather different end than that of merely promoting and managing the islands’ tourism industry. Inevitably, the scandal has been used to question the viability of coalition governments in the Balearics (well, by “The Bulletin” anyway). This is plainly not the issue. Coalitions do not beget corruption. The logic of the “viability” argument is that they do, and it is wrong-headed. The issue is corruption – period – and the wider societal malaise that cultivates it. This, and the sheer inadequacy of control mechanisms. I would reiterate a point made more than once on this blog, that to reassure a rightly alarmed electorate, a system of pre-emptive vetting of contract awards is needed, rather than the retrospective actions of the police and prosecutors.

Anyway, back to day-to-day running of government, and there is now a new tourism minister. President Antich has chosen not to assume command, though he has put sport under his direct control, and has moved to tourism the employment minister Joana Barceló, president of the Council of Menorca from 1999 to 2008 and a member of the PSIB-PSOE, i.e. the Balearics wing of the socialist party. Antich is also rebuffing attempts by the Partido Popular to bring a vote of no confidence.

Nothing Has Been Proved – Unió Mallorquina’s disgrace

“Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession. I have come to realise that it bears a very close resemblance to the first.” – Ronald Reagan.

The police have arrested another member of the Unió Mallorquina, the former leader Miquel Flaquer. There are that many former leaders of recent vintage that is hard to keep track. Two of them are now detained, one other makes appearances before courts and keeps her counsel, as befits the former leader of the Council of Mallorca.

Perhaps we should remind ourselves as to the roll-call that is the rogues’ gallery of the UM, lining up for a police mug-shot either now or possibly in the future: Maria Antonia Munar, speaker of parliament and ex-leader of the party; Miquel Nadal, former tourism minister and ex-leader of the party; Miquel Flaquer, ex-leader of the party; Miquel Grimalt, now ex-environment minister; Antoni Oliver, ex-director general of the Inestur tourism institute and now also an ex-director general of environmental quality; Joan Sastre, relieved of his position as head of tourism promotion. To this little lot can be added those now without a job as a consequence of the dismissal of the UM from the coalition – the minister for sport, the minister for tourism, other leading figures at Inestur and at Ibatur, the tourism promotion wing of government. And there are quite a few more.

Look at those above and a pattern emerges; well more than one. A number of Micks who’ve been nicked or who may be, and a number of politicians centred on one ministry – tourism. The easy assumption, and one that the police and prosecutors are making or for which they have hard evidence, is that there was something distinctly rotten in the state of the tourism ministry of the sub-state that is the Balearics. The tourism ministry, the domain, the bailiwick of the UM. The conspiracy theorists are now hard at work. Tourism equals UM equals irritant party equals something that needs obliterating. It may make sense to those of a conspiratorial inclination, but it doesn’t make sense. You wouldn’t conspire against a ministry that happens to oversee the most important industry on the islands, just because it’s under the control of an annoying, third-force party, would you? No. It makes no sense. Forget it.

I say forget it, but then … . It is true that a party like the UM does rather muddy the waters where the major parties are concerned. It may not itself be a major party but it is not insignificant. Clearly not, given the current furore. Moreover, it is a party that is well-represented at mayoral level across the island. It is also a party that represents nationalist interests. Nationalist versus national. UM versus the PSOE and the PP. This is how some are depicting this latest scandal. The wilder and plain bonkers conspiracy theorists may want to dress this all up as some collusion against the UM, but one can – legitimately I believe – wonder as to the corruption accusations levelled at senior UM members. It’s like match-fixing in football. It can’t really work unless the whole team, or several players, are in agreement. Are we really to believe that so many have been engaged in a collusion of their own? It would seem we have to, because this is what is entailed. If so, then this – the UM – is a party that cannot be trusted and that deserves to be blasted into the far reaches of the political universe. But then, that is what some might want.

Another conclusion is that elements within the party appear to have been acting like some sort of self-interested masonic lodge. Funny handshakes and looking after their own. While politicians of other parties are clearly not immune to the temptations afforded by Mallorcan and Balearic politics, the UM, one could argue, is more tight-knit, more indicative of the ties within the islands’ society, more prone to looking after its own and to touting its services in return for feathering its nest with ill-gotten, misappropriated gains. Reagan may have had a point. There again, nothing has yet been proved. And there is that nagging feeling that … .

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

De-Sastre – Corruption at the tourism institute

The corruption scandal that has engulfed the Inestur tourism institute threatens to swallow more than just a few named politicians; it could take with it the Unió Mallorquina (UM) party and indeed the regional government. Following the arrests of the director general of Inestur and of Joan Sastre, the head of tourism promotion in the government, the police have now detained our old friend Miquel Nadal – ex-tourism minister – in connection with the Inestur action, known as Operation Vulture (Operación Voltor). The vultures are circling, spying the carrion that is the UM and the government.

President Antich has been backed into a corner not of his making. He may have been criticised for not doing so before, but now he has sacked all the UM ministers in his government, while the heads of the Council of Mallorca and Palma town hall have done likewise where UM councillors are concerned. One of these – Nadal, forced to quit as minister because of the Son Oms corruption case – had the temerity to stay on as a Palma councillor. He isn’t any longer. The UM has been left utterly humiliated and discredited. Many of its leading lights are either under arrest or under suspicion. How it can continue as a viable party must be open to some doubt – certainly in the short term.

Antich intends to continue to govern, but in minority, with only the left-wing Bloc as a coalition ally. The UM has been booted out. Whether Antich can limp on is also open to some question, but he wants to avoid what may become inevitable – an early election.

There are innumerable practical issues that face Antich, only one of them being his ability to govern. Foremost is what the hell he can do with the tourism ministry. At a time when all hands are needed to man the pumps of the islands’ tourism promotion, he is left with no head of tourism promotion (Sastre) and no minister for tourism. Spare a thought for poor old Miquel Ferrer. No sooner had he got his feet under the desk at the ministry, than he’s been told to pack up his stuff and clear off. And he’s meant to be one of the good guys. Another minister, Enviro Man Grimalt, implicated in a previous and ongoing case, has also been shown the door.

The president is due to announce a reduction in ministries. He has got a whole mess on his plate and a whole mess of things he needs to do, but now – surely – he will grab the tourism brief himself. What he, and the rump government, cannot afford is to allow even more uncertainty where the industry is concerned.

Antich is now getting a kicking. Though his own party, the PSOE, is not caught up in the scandals, it is the ruling the party, and Antich – so it is argued – should have acted earlier to oust the UM. Perhaps so, but he had his majority to consider. What he has attempted to do is to continue with the status quo of the coalition, whilst at the same time being undemined by the rotten status of his key coalition partners. There will doubtless be calls for an election, but where ultimately does that get anyone if the problem is less one of politics but more one of a thoroughly nasty streak of greed, power, nepotism and favours that runs through the Mallorcan culture? It is Mallorcan society that stands accused as much as its political system. Inestur, Son Oms, these have been spectacular scandals even by the corrupt-ridden standards (sic) of Mallorcan life, but who is to say they won’t be repeated? It’s not as if they are new. What is, is the sheer scale.

The tourism industry outside of Mallorca is said to be concerned. Concerned? You bet it is. Or should be. Aghast, perplexed, horrified. Only some days ago at the Fitur exhibition in Madrid, tour operators and others would have been glad-handing Joan Sastre. They have every right to wonder what the hell is going on. The comings and goings at the tourism ministry and the extraordinary nature of the scandals and of the people involved are farcical. Or they would be were they not so tragic. For this reason, as much as for practical purposes, Antich should take over. He may have lost credibility with some, but who on earth else is there to represent the islands at such a crucial time for the local tourism industry?

The UM’s latest leader, Josep Melià, is blaming Antich for breaking the pact and for acting unilaterally. What other choice did he have? It is the UM that has brought the situation about, or at least several of its leading members have. But there will still be hints that this is all somehow a conspiracy, one aimed at blasting the UM into political oblivion. It doesn’t seem to need any help in this, yet there is one thing that occurs, and it is this. When Nadal was forced to quit as tourism minister, there were various possible successors, one of them was Sastre. A UM representative, a member of the government, the holder of a position in the tourism ministry, he had, it seemed, all the right credentials to take over from Nadal, given that the UM held the ministry as part of the coalition agreement. Instead, Ferrer was appointed, for no better reason than he had been mayor of a town that is an important tourist resort. Yet, he had never operated at the level he was then propelled into. Sastre on the other hand had and was doing so. Why, therefore, was Sastre overlooked? Did someone know something?

* Note on the title: De-Sastre. The word for disaster in Spanish is “desastre”.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Inestur corruption case – arrests

A director general in the current regional government, Antoni Oliver, has been dismissed from the government and arrested by police investigating the allegations of corruption surrounding Inestur. He was previously the managing director of the tourism institute. The director general of tourism promotion at the government, Joan Sastre, has also been detained, as have two businesspeople in Pollensa – owners of Viajes Pollença Balear. Oliver and Sastre are members of which party? Yep, the Unió Mallorquina. Here we go again.

Just Another Day – tourism scene and corruption

Here’s a potentially useful addition to the coverage in “The Bulletin” – a regular thing on tourism. You might wonder why there hasn’t been such a column before. If you haven’t wondered, I most certainly have. Amidst the pages of questionable relevance and of British and international politics, there are few that actually deal with issues of direct relevance to Mallorca. Tourism is not exactly irrelevant. But now there is a column, of sorts. It is in the form of an interview with the paper’s tame tour operator chappie, the guy from the Co-Op-Monarch-Cosmos group. The first one is not uninteresting, albeit that it says much that is fairly obvious or known.

The same chap was recently reported in the paper as saying that bookings to Mallorca were down by some 15%. At the time (25 January: I’m Anti, Fly Me), I questioned whether this would continue to prove to be the case, and continue to prove it has not – the current fall is around half that figure, while – in all likelihood – there will ultimately prove to be no fall and possibly even a slight increase. It isn’t really tourist industry rocket science to suggest that there will be later bookings that contribute to a reasonable, if not spectacular, tourism season. The Turkish situation is an interesting aspect that will play a part in this. There is under-supply in Turkey and, just as importantly, prices have gone up there. I read on a forum someone saying that prices were “outrageous”; that person was looking for a villa in Mallorca as an alternative. Something that may have escaped many of the doom-mongers is the enduring strength of the Mallorca brand and product, despite the tourism authorities’ best attempts at trying to undermine it or to not promote it adequately. One thing the tour operators know is that they can get that supply, which they cannot necessarily obtain elsewhere.

To have a regular feature is a good enough idea; to give some facts is a good enough idea. To have an industry insider supplying the information is also a good enough idea, but it is only one insider and one who represents a specific company. Inevitably, there might be a bit of a “take” on matters that are – how should one say it – skewed towards that company. But don’t let me get too critical. It is a useful addition, but even more so would be a real feature or column, one that takes the insider information and forms a discussion, one that might be – dare I say it – rather more journalistic. Heaven knows, there is enough cracking off in the island’s tourism industry to fill a paper, let alone just one page. And, slightly tangential but still within the industry orbit, comes the oh-no-not-more-of-it moment. Corruption. This time it is Inestur. Which is? The Balearics institute for tourism strategy, an institute within the ambit of the regional government’s ministry of tourism. An investigation is now under way into this institute. The facts are not yet clear, nor is it clear if any alleged corruption refers to the current ministry administration – under the Unió Mallorquina party – or the previous one of the Partido Popular. It hardly seems to matter any longer. Just another day in Mallorca. Another day, another corruption allegation. And this time, tourism’s in the front line. Regular feature. Yep. The daily scandal feature.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.