The BAFMAs: Awards for Mallorcan achievement

Yes, it’s that time of the year. Time for the BAFMAs, the Blog Awards For Mallorcan Achievement. In no particular order, the following are variously well-known and less well-known or were well-publicised and less well-publicised …

Politician Of The Year (Shared): Miquel Ensenyat and Carme Garcia
Ensenyat, the PSM Mallorcan socialist mayor of Esporles, stood as candidate for the PSM at the national elections. There was little remarkable about this, except that Ensenyat is an openly gay politician in a land where the Church can issue warnings of the danger of voting for politicians who support gay marriage.

Garcia, the “turncoat” of Alcúdia, was also a PSM politician. “Was” being the operative word. She sided with the Partido Popular after the regional elections, despite the wide gulf in political ideology, leading to her being expelled from the party and to her suffering recriminations led by the previous coalition of PSOE and the Convergència. Though her ex-party and the opposition had a legitimate point and though Garcia secured for herself a role as second-in-command to the new lady mayor, her decision could also be seen as a blow for the chumminess of the previous male-dominated coalition which did not have the moral authority to expect her to support it in denying the PP, which had gained eight out of nine seats required for a majority, the right to govern Alcúdia.

Celebrity Of The Year: Tom Hanks
They sought him here, they sought him there. Through their long lenses, they sought Tom everywhere. There he was, at long distance, speaking into an iPhone, or rather there was the back of Tom’s head speaking into an iPhone. There he also was just hanging around and doing very little, assuming you could make out it was Tom behind the security and beneath his headgear.

Business Of The Year: Lidl
Disproving the notion that Mallorca is not open to foreign companies, Lidl, exploiting a relaxation in commercial developments, expanded across Mallorca, bringing jobs as well as competition to the supermarket sector.

Event Of The Year: The Inca bullfight
If campaigners sought more encouragement in banning bullfighting in Mallorca, they got it during the Inca bullfight. The promoter caused outrage by taking to the ring to kill the bull after the bull had effectively excluded itself from the fight when it broke a horn. Rules don’t apparently permit non-combatants to enter the ring. The gruesome video of the killing of the bull went viral and the video also highlighted and criticised the fact that minors had been allowed into the arena.

Beach Of The Year: Playa de Muro
The extension of Puerto Alcúdia’s beach (which was voted Mallorca’s best beach on “Trip Advisor”), the beach in Playa de Muro was the target of efforts by the town hall to improve it even further. These included instituting a fine for urinating on the beach, which drew a response from some who wanted to know where else they were supposed to go to the toilet, and a similar fine for a similar act in the sea. It wasn’t entirely clear how Muro town hall proposed policing the latter, but with concerns about rising sea levels, the consequence of climate change, a ban on using the sea was probably a wise precaution.

Website Of The Year: Mallorca Daily Photo Blog
Just going to show that wit, informativeness, striking photography and personal dedication count for far more than huge budgets chucked at websites in promoting Mallorca. It deserves an award very much more prestigious than a BAFMA.

Musician Of The Year: Arnau Reynés
While more celebrated musicians took to stages in Mallorca this year, Reynés, the professor of music from the Universitat de les Illes Balears, who has performed in some of Europe’s finest cathedrals, brought a tradition of music in Mallorca that is often overlooked to the small church in Playa de Muro and gave a summer recital, as did other leading Mallorcan organists.

Historian Of The Year: Gabriel Verd Martorell
Thirty-five years is a long time for any one historian to have sought to have proved a point, but Verd was still at it, striving, once and for all, to establish that Christopher Columbus was born in Felanitx. In a “solemn” declaration in the town, he claimed that Columbus was the illegitimate nephew of King Ferdinand and that to have had the title of governor general bestowed on him, which he did, he had to have had royal blood. You can’t blame a historian for persistence.

So, these are the BAFMAs. No science behind them, no text voting, purely my own choice. But if you have your own nominations or suggestions, please feel free … .

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Mallorca’s Political Formula One (27 November)

While sport for all may be being brought into question because of the lack of financing of Mallorca’s sports facilities, sport for an elite poses its own question: is Mallorca really going to get a Formula One circuit?

Long in the suggestion, the regional government is, as it said it would, giving the proposal a serious once-over. The seriousness of this once-over has to do with the financing of a circuit, the government hoping that, were it a real goer, the money would be mainly or totally private.

When the idea for the circuit was doing the rounds last year, the cost of the project was put at some 90 million euros. A plan has in fact been drawn up, one that would pretty much completely re-develop the Rennarena in Llucmajor, which currently is totally inadequate for F1.

The plan would, for example, require a lengthening of the circuit by almost three kilometres plus creating grandstands capable of holding way more than the existing 1500 spectators. As with any plan for a building project, there are the inevitable procedures. The government says it will look at how this bureaucracy can be tackled, which probably means ignoring any planning issues. Already, one can hear the sound of GOB and other environmental protectors revving up their engines (with bio-fuel) in the protest pit lanes.

But talk of finance and procedures are only partially relevant. The chances of Mallorca’s F1 circuit ever even getting onto the starting-grid of potential grand prix, let alone being shown the green lights, have to be slim.

Bernie Ecclestone has been courted and Bernie has made some encouraging remarks, but then Bernie says all sorts of things. One of them is that he is against there being more than one grand prix per country. This hasn’t stopped Spain from currently having two – the Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona and the European Grand Prix around Valencia’s street circuit – but Rome has pretty much given up on staging a street race from 2013 since a letter from Ecclestone in an Italian newspaper said that “no one” wanted two races per country (Italy already has Monza).

It also hasn’t stopped the USA being awarded two grand prix from 2013 – the revived US Grand Prix in Austin, Texas and a so-called Grand Prix of America in New Jersey. However, and despite F1 not being particularly popular in the USA, Ecclestone is largely motivated by commercial opportunities and by a desire to develop F1 geographically.

With these motivations in mind, where does a grand prix in Mallorca fit in? What is being hoped for in Mallorca is that it would replace Valencia as the location for the European Grand Prix. Valencia’s contract lasts until the 2013 race, though it has been rumoured it might be dropped after next year. So there may well be some substance to the Mallorcan hope. But it is one based on an assumption that there will still be a European Grand Prix. Rome probably saw this as its chance, but, and notwithstanding the American contradiction, Ecclestone is opposed to another race in Italy and may well see the end of Valencia as a reason to scrap the European Grand Prix.

There is significant competition from across the globe for circuits to be included in the F1 calendar, some of it from other countries in Europe. Croatia, for example, has its eyes on a grand prix. This competition merely adds to F1’s commercial and global ambitions in raising serious doubts as to whether Mallorca is a realistic option.

Given all this, therefore, should the government really be giving the proposal a serious once-over? The investment, were it to be private, wouldn’t be an issue, although the environmental objections are bound to be. But why would there be investment without any guarantee of success in securing a grand prix? It might be that, were the circuit designed appropriately or flexibly enough, it could also stage MotoGP, which is Spanish-dominated in terms of who runs it and the number of races – four in Spain for next year’s calendar. MotoGP isn’t F1, however; either its cachet or its cash.

The proposal isn’t particularly realistic, and one has the impression that its discussion both before the regional elections and now has been for political consumption. Former president Matas wanted a grand prix as well; one to be held on a Palma street circuit. That was an absurdity. Llucmajor isn’t, but the stewards flags should nevertheless be being waved furiously and warning that all the talk may just be PR and a raising of expectations that cannot be fulfilled.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Secret Technocrats (20 November)

These are good times to be a technocrat. It is the one job that currently offers good employment prospects, and not any old employment. Not that a technocrat is technically a job. You don’t apply for a position as a technocrat, you become one because someone says you are and because you have whatever the technical ability required at the time might be.

There is something alarming about all the technocrats who, like meerkats looking out for impending economic catastrophe, have been poking their heads up from under university desks and elsewhere. The new European government of Frankfurt has appointed them. In Italy, they have become the Full Monti, a whole puppet government of their own, Angela’s economic angels; Merkel and the Meerkats.

What is alarming is that the mere mention of technocrat has come to be accompanied by a contemptuous spit, the title uttered in the same breath as the names of European leaders most of us would rather forget.

Technocrats are not politicians, but they have fulfilled political functions and have also filled political positions. But strictly speaking, a technocrat has no interest in politics; all that concerns him are the number­-crunching of economics or the plans of production and productivity. Technocrats are of an age that we thought had long gone. They are the political incarnation of the one-­time mass producers; Henry Fords, and each one uniformly the same shade of black.

They are of the old scientific management era before the softer and more humane principles of management kicked in. They are from a dark age and are something of the dark. Stalin did not devise economic and production plans, nor did Hitler and nor did Franco. Technocrats did.

Though not ostensibly political, the technocrats of Europe’s dictatorships would never have got where they did without being as one with the prevailing political philosophy. Technocrats bend to the rules of politics, those set by others, such as the Frankfurt Group, while apparently seeming to make the rules.

As Mariano Rajoy contemplates the trophy that is his, might he just have a concern that he might find himself surplus to requirements? It’s not impossible. There is a difference, though. Greece had a lame­-duck premier and Italy had Berlusconi. Rajoy is neither.

There is also a hint that he might just pre­-empt any technocratically­-driven putsch. Gone largely uncommented upon prior to the election was his statement that he was considering bringing “independent” figures into his government. In itself, this is not unusual. Blair had independents. One of them, a former journo, more or less ran the Labour government. Alastair Campbell wasn’t a technocrat, though, unlike Sir Alan Walters, Thatcher’s own mini­-Milton Friedman. Neither, however, was formally a member of the government.

Independent has become a more acceptable description than technocrat, but technocrats, in a contemporary guise, is what many independents brought into assist governments are. Which brings us to Rajoy, his independents and whoever they might be.

Spain’s economy after the Civil War and before Franco’s death can be divided into two periods: the catastrophic era of post­-war autarky; and the boom from the start of the sixties, inspired in part by the Stabilisation Plan of 1959 and by technocrats who were brought into to oversee the modernisation of the Spanish economy.

The technocrats took much credit for Spain’s transformation, though it has been widely argued that they just got lucky and cashed in on a period of rapid growth in Europe as a whole.

Whether or not the technocrats really were that instrumental in Spain’s subsequent success, they were always sure of Franco’s support, and that is because the technocrats shared a common background: Opus Dei.

The Opus comprised an elite from business and industry and one with the same rigid Catholicism that Franco adhered to. But it is the shadowy nature of Opus Dei, questions as to what influence it may have, its technocratic past and also its potential political links that make Rajoy’s mention of “independents” intriguing at best.

The Partido Popular, transformed as it has been from its unsuccessful origins as a party created by Franco’s former tourism minister (albeit with a different name), has nevertheless failed to totally shake off these origins and all the baggage that goes with them, which includes Opus Dei.

As Rajoy is considering introducing independents to his government and as there are lingering suspicions as to what and who lurks within the recesses of the Partido Popular, he needs to be clear as to who it is he plans to appoint. And as importantly, what associations they might have.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Reflections Of … (19 November)

“The way life used to be.” Ah, those were the days. Diana Ross and the Supremes and all that 1960s malarkey. Happy times. Not that back in the ’60s they had to worry too much in Mallorca or Spain about having a day off for reflection prior to an election. Old Franco knew a thing or two. In addition to being a dictator, he reckoned the Spanish population was either too thick or too apathetic to bother with things like democracy and voting.

If they were apathetic then, they still are today, if predictions as to abstentions in tomorrow’s elections are anything to go by. But, I should hush my mouth. I’m not meant to talk about the elections today, as today is the day of reflection. Well, sort of. What is really means is that campaigning cannot take place, but there are certain limits also as to what can be said journalistically. Theoretically, no one is meant to pronounce on the day of reflection one way or the other or to be seen to be somehow influencing voting.

I don’t for one moment imagine that anyone would be the slightest bit influenced by what I might or might not say on this blog when it comes to the elections, and that’s for the simple reason that I imagine no one who reads it is in fact entitled to vote. But, as one is meant to remain silent on such matters, I shall do, which is why an article that I had written for today will be held over until tomorrow – it has to do with technocrats, but with a particularly Spanish angle; I’m sure you can’t wait.

The day of reflection is reasonably well adhered to. Spanish TV was following yesterday’s campaigning until the very last moment, just before midnight, and then promptly put on a ridiculous Jean-Claude Van Damme film; time for bed. The press today does report the campaigning but stops short of editorialising.

I know that had I editorialised and sent something off for today’s “Bulletin”, it wouldn’t have been included. Fair enough. But I wonder why, therefore, there is a different column in which there are references to the election. I won’t, for fear of the day of reflection police coming down on me, repeat what was said, but I fancy – know for sure – that had I written such things for today’s paper, they wouldn’t have gone in.

I suspect I know the reason why this other column was acceptable, and that’s probably because had the “offending” part of it had to be removed there would have been a ruddy great white space. Or maybe it wasn’t paid overly much attention to.

It is revealing that certain of my articles get vetoed by the paper. A recent one about Lidl was. I don’t think it was critical; in fact I’m sure it wasn’t. But no, too sensitive; might upset the commercial department. And too sensitive was one about the Bishop of Mallorca. Way too controversial and likely to offend staunch Catholics. There have been others. I am compiling a list of off-limits subjects.

There are tensions between editorial and marketing/sales. They occur in all areas of the media to differing degrees, but there is, or appears to me, a hyper-sensitivity locally. And this isn’t solely down to tensions caused by commercial realities. There really are only two subjects that are off-limits in terms of expressing criticism or disrespect, and those are the royal family (quite unlike Britain therefore) and the Guardia. But a certain censorship does apply, as in, for instance, why the former employment of a particular local mayor is never spelt out. You do wonder why.

There is too much sensitivity and it occurs at what is seemingly the most trivial levels. One only needs to go back to the fuss that the “John Nelson” column in “Talk Of The North” caused to know how something written without any apparent wish to offend can be blown completely out of proportion.

The local communities and indeed the island are small, so there is a perhaps not unreasonable restraint shown, but this hyper-sensitivity does also place a restraint on vibrant and at times important discourse. The day of reflection is a rather different case, but it is nevertheless indicative of an understated tendency to censorship or self-censorship that has never been quite forgotten from the days of when Diana Ross was topping the charts.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Taking The Pi: Mallorca’s capital (18 November)

You really would think there were more important things to worry about, like making sure the bus drivers get paid or having enough spare cash lying around to meet repayments to banks. But no, Palma town hall has found something infinitely more pressing with which to concern itself. It wants the city to be officially called Palma de Mallorca (and, by the way, this would be Mallorca and not Madge-orca).

The town hall says that the name was shortened by the last government which didn’t follow the right procedures in doing so. It also believes that the previous town hall admin should have engaged in a spot of denouncing as a result. It hopes to be able to negotiate and thus avoid taking the whole matter to a tribunal.

The naming of Palma is by no means an isolated case. And it is certainly not unknown for high legal authorities to have to adjudicate. The Balearics Supreme Court, no less, once came down on the side of Porto Cristo as opposed to Portocristo and other contenders for the name of the resort. And over in Menorca there is another carry-on.

The lady mayor of the capital there wants it known officially by its Castilian name of Mahón but also wants to reactivate a Catalan spelling of Mahó, rather than the current Maó. Why? No idea. She might just end looking a bit foolish and with egg mayonnaise all over her face. Perhaps she should go further and insist on Mahón or Mahó de Menorca. There are currently no noises emanating from Ibiza that Ibiza Town will become Ibiza de Ibiza or, just to confuse the tourists, Eivissa de Eivissa.

But to come back to Palma. Why is the town hall in such a flap over whether there is officially a “de Mallorca” or not, especially as there is disagreement among the scholarly fraternity and those of a more pedantic bent as to whether it ever officially had been “de Mallorca” in the past?

It wouldn’t be an argument over a city’s name or indeed anything in Mallorca if there wasn’t some political colour to it. The “de Mallorca” bit, or so it is said, is all a tad “foreign”, as in Palma de Mallorca is how the city is known abroad. We’ll have to take the word of those who say it is, but I’m not sure that in Britain, for instance, it is. However, it is fair to say that, in addition to the local post office, “de Mallorca” is used by the likes of airlines in their drop-down menus for airport departures and arrivals. It’s designed to eliminate confusion.

More than this, though, the argument appears to be based on little more than a desire among the left (anti-“de Mallorca”) and the right (pro-“de Mallorca”) to have a bit of a barney. And because the last government, and Palma town hall administration, was of the left and because the last government didn’t follow the correct procedures, the current administration, of the right, wants to do something about it.

One line of argument against the adoption, or is it re-adoption, of “de Mallorca” that might just have some credibility is that, by doing so, everywhere else on the island is made out to be merely satellites of the sun that is the capital city. It’s a reasonable point, but only up to a point. There is unquestionably a Palma-centricity and a Palma civic arrogance, but this is pretty normal for a capital, and in Mallorca everything does revolve around the sun that is Palma, whether people in other towns like it or not.

Though the anti-“de Mallorca” camp seems to equate the town hall’s wishes with some form of imperialism through nomenclature, Palma de Mallorca does have a fair bit going for it; a greater gravitas that Palma on its own doesn’t. When all said and done, it is a capital city named after a tree.

But as tree it is, then Palma faces a potential crisis. The palm-­consuming beetle that is on the rampage could leave Palma minus any palms. Where would it be then? Not so arrogant, I would suggest.

The town hall should be thinking longer-term. When the last palm in Palma succumbs to the beetle and has its head chopped off and is left as a grotesque and impotent phallic symbol, a completely new name will be needed. And there would be one prime alternative. The pine. The city already has Portopí, so why not go the whole arboreal hog now. The new capital of Mallorca. Pi.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Face To Face (8 November)

Face to face, face off, face up to facts, put a brave face on things, put a face to someone. Idiomatic contortions of “face” just go to emphasise how important the face is.

The face determines much. It determines reaction and impression by others, and it betrays reaction and impression on behalf of the “face” him or herself. Face to face, “cara a cara”, determined much. This was the face off between the Spanish prime ministerial candidates, facing up to the facts that inform the election, or diligently ignoring them, one putting a brave face on things, both being people you could put a face to.

Even if you were already familiar with the faces of Mariano Rajoy and Alfredo Rubalcaba, exposed to the television camera, facing each other across a vast desk, you saw things you hadn’t previously. Rubalcaba looked younger than his Solzhenitsyn appearance suggests, though he seemed to visibly age during his encounter with Rajoy who had seemed to have taken a leaf out of his predecessor Aznar’s book and had formed an acquaintance with hair dye; his beard looked strangely grey against a full head of vibrant brown.

The electoral debate on Spanish television was an event akin to a major football final. The lead-up was endless, a clock in the top right-hand corner giving a countdown to how long it was before the face to face occurred. Analysts there were in abundance, children had been asked as to their choice of next prime minister, campaign leaders of the two camps talked up their boys, the one heading the PSOE campaign standing in front of a legend which read “formularubalcaba”; socialist medicine, one presumed.

Then there were the presenters. Spanish television has taken the message of equality to the extreme. Barely a male was to be seen amidst the great numbers of female presenters. And what strikes one about them is the fact that nearly all are gorgeous. There aren’t many heirs to the throne or Spanish national football team captains and goalkeepers to go around, but a career in television does offer its marital and partner opportunities, though what does one make of the strikingly blonde Maria Casado, whose surname suggests that she already is married?

And so, eventually, to the face to face itself. The moderator wished everyone a good evening, including America, which might not have been glued to television screens as much as he might have hoped; Obama, one imagines, had better things to do than devote a couple of hours to potential leaders of a country that barely registers in the international scheme of things.

Though of course it might register, if the economy goes totally belly-up, and it was this, the economy, that formed the first part of the debate, the rules being set out by our moderator friend, a moustachioed gentleman with a resemblance to Bob Carolgees minus Spit the Dog.

It mattered little what was actually said. Far more important was the watching, the studying of the faces. Here were the two men with the fate of a nation in their hands, and what a choice they offer. The best one might say about either is that he is a safe pair of hands, possibly, but both are terminally dull, terminally bearded and grey, despite the efforts of the make-up people. Spain doesn’t do charisma politics.

They argued occasionally, some heat was given off, dismissiveness of the opponent was shown on the face, but only once was there genuine contempt, Rubalcaba’s glance at Rajoy during the bit on social policies saying all you needed to know. It was all pretty well-mannered and formal. “Señor Rajoy” and “Señor Rubalcaba”; both deployed the “usted” form. Little enlivened proceedings except for when Rubalcaba suddenly produced a graphic during the pensions debate; it was as though he were on a chat show and had remembered that he had a book to promote or as though he were on “Blue Peter” – here’s a graphic I made earlier.

When it came to an end, you were none the wiser. Bob Carolgees signed off events with thanks all round. There was no shaking of hands, no smiles for the camera, just a long, lingering shot of the desk on a stage in front of an absent audience. Frankly, it had all been an enervating experience, but then politics often are, especially when the protagonists are as stripped of vitality as these two.

Rajoy probably won, but then so he should as he went into the face to face in a position of strength, PSOE fast disappearing down the opinion poll plug hole. Rubalcaba’s face will have done little to have reversed the trend.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Gift Horse: The Euro crisis

Beware of Greeks bearing gifts. The advice has endured for many centuries. Far more recent is the advice to the Greeks to beware of Europeans bearing gifts, such as that which slashes what they owe by 50%. The Greeks, though, know a thing or two about deceptive gifts. They invented them. Or it. The European Trojan Horse that the Greeks are expected to admit into their walls comes stuffed with an army-load of more austerity. Ingrates they may be, sending the markets back into further turmoil, but when presented with a dubious gift, they do the only sensible thing – and that’s to call a referendum.

When the Greeks say no and send the Trojan Horse packing, they’ll be waving it goodbye from a dock side in Piraeus with banners proclaiming the default it was meant to avoid and their fond adieus to the Eurozone. Why bother waiting? Let them default now and get on with it.

Of course there is another way of looking at it. The referendum ruse is a way of extracting more gifts. 50%? Why not make it 25%? Or one can also see it as the Greeks wanting to get a bit of pride back. They have spent the last few months being portrayed as tax-swindling, idle ne’er-do-wells and now have to put up with Sarkozy saying that they made their numbers up on the back of a fag packet after a good night on the retsina.

Well, they probably did make up their numbers, pre-Euro admission, but then most European countries have played fast and loose to different degrees with “the rules”. The French, for example.

In the days – when were they, as they seem like centuries ago – when Gordon Brown was arriving at his tests for the UK’s entry into Euroland, a key measure was the ability to comply with the stability pact, the one that the French (and the Germans) regularly flouted. In fact, everyone did with the probable exception of the powerhouse that is Luxembourg.

Anyway, let’s not worry too much about who made up what figures, more pressing is what happens when Greece goes totally belly-up, as in Papandreou loses the referendum, Greece exits the euro, total chaos ensues and hyperinflation takes over with the printers pumping out so many notes that it will require pantechnicons to carry the money and not the wheelbarrows of the Weimar Republic.

Hmm, ah yes, Weimar Republic, economic and political chaos, hyperinflation. The Germans should know all about what follows from such circumstances. Indeed the Greeks should have a shrewd idea what can happen as well.

But then it is only Greece. Except of course it isn’t. There is always, well, Spain for instance. So just hypothesise for a moment. Poor old Mariano Rajoy, some time into his tenure as prime minister, finds himself in dire need of a bail-out, Europe comes along bearing gifts (assuming any of the trillion or so is left or the Chinese keep pumping money in) and effectively takes over the government, which, more or less, is what would happen in Greece. Referendum follows. Chaos ensues.

Leaving the Eurozone doesn’t mean leaving the European Union, but much would depend on how the political chaos is handled. The Greeks, and the Spanish, have, when all said and done, some form. It wouldn’t be a case of choosing to leave the European Union but of possibly being booted out. Idiotic concerns about having an identity residence card or not would be supplanted by rather different concerns.

The Spanish hypothesis might remain just that – an hypothesis. Much though a Greek no could create the long-anticipated domino effect that brings Spain to its financial knees, the possibility exists that Europe would still support Greece. It is also just possible that the Greeks would vote yes. Faced with more European-imposed austerity or leaving the Eurozone, they may decide to err in favour of the Euro.

Much might rest, however, on what voices come to the fore in the meantime. As this is as much a political as it is an economic issue, chuck some highly populist mouthpiece into the equation, one that damns Europe and anyone or anything else, and who knows what might happen. This might be the worry, either before or after a Greek referendum, and so it might also be for other countries, Spain included.

Whither the European Odyssey now? Who can predict with certainty, just as who could have predicted how the journey would unfold before the adventure was embarked upon. Whether the Greeks prefer to look a gift horse in the mouth will depend upon what they understand by “gift”. In German the word means poison.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Bishop, The Politicians And The Gays

If you fancy being a bishop, then having a Christian name of Jesús is probably no great disadvantage. And so it is with the Bishop of Mallorca, Jesús Murgui. But neither his status as bishop nor his Christological appellation absolve him from criticism; he gets it in not inconsiderable amounts.

Jesús Murgui became bishop in 2004, succeeding Teodor Úbeda, who had been Mallorca’s bishop for 30 years and who had cultivated a reputation for being progressive. It is a reputation that Monseñor Murgui appears not to share. He is said to be a confederate of the archbishops of Madrid and Barcelona and formerly of the late archbishop of Valencia (Agustín García-Gasco who died in May); these three archbishops have been described as the most reactionary and conservative in the Spanish church.

Monseñor Murgui has another type of reputation, a less than wonderful one among the local Spanish media and also among his own priests.

When the press claims that a typical reaction towards the bishop among Mallorcan clergy is one of sarcasm, this may well serve the press’s agenda. Sections of the media are suspicious of him, to the point of being antagonistic. And partly, this is because he never speaks to them. In his seven years as bishop, he has given not one interview to the press. Where his reticence is excused, it is not on the grounds of shyness, but on a wish to avoid getting too political.

The problem for the bishop, though, is that, despite his reluctance to engage with the media, his views are known and they are political (in the current social climate of Spain), while he represents an institution, the Catholic Church, which is anything but indifferent to politics.

The First Estate of the Catholic Church is heavily politicised and seeks to influence the political process, and this is especially so in Spain, despite Roman Catholicism having been abandoned as the official religion and despite also a dramatic fall in church-going. It is this seeking of influence that makes the Fourth Estate of the press so ready to leap onto what emanates from the Church. And much has been emanating, much that will be espoused from pulpits this weekend.

The Spanish Episcopal Conference, its president is Cardinal Antonio María Rouco Varela, the Archbishop of Madrid, has recently met. As is customary prior to a national election, it has had something to say for itself, as has Monseñor Murgui. There is little difference between the sentiments of the Conference and those of the bishop, which are being shared with the faithful, three weeks or so before the election.

It will come as no surprise that the bishop is not exactly supportive of issues such as abortion and gay marriage, but what has really stirred things up is that his letter, due to be read out in churches on the island, points to the “danger” of voting for politicians who support gay marriage and to “impositions” by the State. By politicians, he really means political parties, and by implication he lends his support firmly to one party – the Partido Popular.

The PP doesn’t need the Church’s support to win the election. Though as a party it is identified closely with the Church, it would probably prefer that the bishop, and the Episcopal Conference, in fact kept quiet. Social issues are unlikely to be prominent at hustings for an election that is all about Spain’s economy, but they may not be overlooked by much of an electorate which, dissatisfied with PSOE’s handling of the economy, has nevertheless broadly agreed with its social policies and with its attitude towards the Church.

For example, an investigation last year by the Mallorcan research organisation Gadeso into religious attitudes found that a majority between the ages of 16 and 59 supported gay marriage. A surprisingly high 35% of those over the age of 60 also supported it. The Church is out of step with social attitudes, just as it has become increasingly out of step with society as a whole and offers waning influence.

One suspects, however, that it sees the election of a PP government as a chance to grab back some influence, hence its pronouncements ahead of the election. For the PP though, it would be a huge mistake if it were to try and turn the clock back. There are unquestionably elements within the PP who would want to do just that, and there is always the suspicion that lurking somewhere in its background is the influence of the mysterious Opus Dei. But as a government it will have enough on its plate without seeking to send Spain back to a reactionary age.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The First Hundred Days

Because of the drawn-out process after elections, one is never entirely sure when a new Balearic government takes office. As José Bauzá was officially “acclaimed” as president on 18 June, then this is as good a date as any. The flexibility of the true timing of the taking of office does, though, make it difficult to agree on when the first one hundred days of office have been achieved. If 18 June it is, then 26 September marks the one-hundredth day.

The fascination with the first hundred days of a presidency or a government can be traced back to Franklin D. Roosevelt and to the laws he introduced to tackle the Depression which formed the basis of the “New Deal”. Ever since, it has been a benchmark period against which to judge new governments.

Generally, there isn’t great urgency to act swiftly. However, things are currently not entirely dissimilar to what Roosevelt had to confront in the early 1930s. It would be idiotic, for all manner of reasons, to compare Bauzá with Roosevelt, but he came into the presidency needing to move quickly. But what, if anything, has he achieved since taking command?

Primarily, he has succeeded unsurprisingly in alienating the unions, the Catalanists, the teachers, the broadcasters and the town halls. He has also succeeded in putting the fear of God up everyone by constantly referring to the legacy left behind by the last administration, i.e. he has seemingly picked huge numbers out of the air and labelled them as debt. He may of course be right, but there is more than just a suspicion that it is expedient for him to be over-egging things.

The remnants of the former PSOE administration, namely Francina Armengol, the ex-president of the Council of Mallorca, and one PSOE-ite who hasn’t jumped ship since the elections, have been berating Bauzá for doing a lot of talking and very little by way of initiating. This isn’t entirely true, as he has been going around with his new toy, the presidential hatchet, and taking it to the likes of TV Mallorca, the town halls’ funds and the unions’ worker representatives. Slashing and cutting things isn’t, however, the same as initiating things.

The little that has been positive has been coming out of the tourism ministry. One says positive, but behind the talk of hotel conversions, theme parks and some polo fields (for the all-important polo tourism), there is one thing missing: money, or government money at any rate.

When Carlos Delgado assumed the post of tourism minister, he said that the day of the grant was over. He has been saying this again. Private money is what will support the positive talk. And what positivity there is. Next year’s tourism season, aided by a flexible new tourism law, will herald a total turnaround of the economies of Mallorca and the islands. Or so says the minister.

Unfortunately, it won’t, as he went on to add that it will be three years before the new era of Balearics tourism starts. This also assumes that the various projects which are meant to be in the pipeline come to fruition. The necessary investment, largely by the main hotel chains, may indeed be forthcoming, but these chains are also investing elsewhere, in countries where there may be richer pickings and fewer obstacles to growth.

Even if this tourism positivity were to be realised and were there to be these new projects, what about the rest of Mallorca, other than hotel complexes (or indeed polo fields)? The town halls, starved of cash as it is, have now been told they won’t be getting the 16 million euros from the so-called local co-operation fund. Brand new complexes but a crumbling infrastructure doesn’t sound so positive.

Still, at least the tourism ministry is able to point to some action rather than the chop-chop of the cuts’ axe. But even its action is slow.

The new tourism law may, by the end of this year, be able to start its process of getting parliamentary approval. It depends on how negotiations have gone with various interested parties in the tourism sector. So, it may or may not be that after around 200 days the law gets somewhere near to the statute books.

Roosevelt was able to push through fifteen major law changes within his first 100 days. In Mallorca it would be unthinkable to get fifteen changes passed within 100 weeks. The process is interminable. Bauzá can’t really be blamed for this; it’s a system he’s lumbered with. His first 100 days may have achieved little, but it couldn’t have achieved much more.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Flying The Flag

A brand new and large Spanish flag is flying near Can Picafort. It is larger than a flag of the Balearics and larger still than a European flag.

The Spanish flag now proudly flutters over the finca of Son Real in Santa Margalida. It probably should always have been there and had pride of place; law suggests that it should have, according to the director of the Balearics Foundation for Sustainable Development, Jorge Campos.

Who is Sr. Campos? He used to be director for climate in the Calvia town hall administration of the now tourism minister Carlos Delgado. As such, he can justifiably lay claim to environmental credentials. However, Campos was also, until recently, the president of the Círculo Balear, which he founded.

The Círculo, in terms of the great Castilian-Catalan argument, is firmly in the Castilian camp. Defender of the language, it is the opposite of the Obra Cultural Balear (OCB), the great defender of Catalan and all things Catalan lands. It has had a number of run-ins with the forces of Catalanism. Its building has been vandalised with graffiti, its presence at new year celebrations in Palma last year sparked off violence, and Sr. Campos has been in court to see members of the Maulets, the Catalan independence radicals, get slapped with fines for having chanted “Nazi”, “fascist” and “terrorist” at him.

Campos was appointed to the post of director at the end of July. His was and is a political appointment in that the choice is that of the regional government. But it was an appointment with far greater political baggage. It has been like a red rag to the Catalanist, leftist bull.

The foundation, of which he is now in charge, has not been without its own controversies. Established in 2004 by the former president Jaume Matas, its main function was to oversee the promotion of the “tarjeta verde”, the green discount card, which came into being as a way of generating revenue for environmental purposes once the short-lived eco-tax was scrapped.

The green card has been a spectacular flop, not helped by the fact, as revealed by an audit for 2008, that the foundation managed to bring in a mere 13,500 euros from its sales, a shortfall of around 400 grand. Last year, when all hell broke loose regarding corruption cases stemming from the tourism ministry, the foundation was implicated. Questions were being asked as to how, when costs were added to the lack of revenue, losses of over a million euros a year could have mounted up.

The foundation was meant to have been wrapped up, like the two agencies more at the centre of the tourism ministry corruption affair, and brought under the new Balearics Tourism Agency. However, it survives as a separate entity, linked to the new tourism ministry and therefore to Campos’s old boss and anti-Catalanist soul mate, Carlos Delgado.

Other than the green card, what actually does the foundation do? It is charged with administering sites such as Son Real, the running of which it took over in July 2008, but the environmental group GOB has not had much that is positive to say for the foundation. It has argued that it should be scrapped and has criticised its operations in the Albufera nature park in Muro. It is likely that, with Campos as its head, GOB would be even more dismissive, as GOB is a fellow-traveller on the Catalanist left with the OCB. The Círculo Balear, for its part, has lumped both GOB and the OCB in with the Maulets, claiming that the Maulets have received the “adherence” of these two groups (and others) which have the “appearance of democracy”.

And so we come back to the Spanish flag at Son Real. What might seem a relatively inconsequential issue is anything but. It was Campos who gave the instruction for the flag to be raised.

The environment is a political issue, but now it is being even more politicised within the context of the whole Castilian-Catalan argument. And just to reinforce this, between the time of his appointment and his stepping down from the Círculo three weeks later, Campos managed to cram in a meeting with President Bauzá to discuss language and cultural matters.

Why, though, has the foundation escaped the axe when others haven’t and when it appears to have made a hash of things since it was formed? It is not solely reliant on government money, that’s true, but might it be expedient for the government to maintain it, with Campos as its chief, as an additional counterpoint to the Catalan left? There are more to flags than simply running them up a flag-pole.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.