Part Of The Union

Water. Of the utilities, water provision is arguably the most important. It is why the regular water “outages” are so hard to deal with. They never last that long, but they are frequent, usually in the mornings, disrupting showers or washing-machines. I rang the company this morning. Weren’t aware of any cut to supply, but a “técnico” would have a look. Never saw a técnico but the water came back on again after about an hour. Just one of those small trials of local life that really should not have to be.


Noises emanating from the World Travel Market are all very positive. If proof were needed of the importance of the British market, it has been there in abundance - in addition to the politicians, the top people of TUI, Thomas Cook and the Iberostar hotels have made their way to London, and have combined to declare that 2008 will be another excellent year. There is another side to this. If proof were needed of the importance of the tour operators and the major hotel chains to the Balearic and central governments, it has also been there in abundance. The politicians alienate these businesses at their peril, and so when the president of Iberostar announces, as reported in the “Diario” that the recuperation of the coastlines is a “political responsibility” and not one for the likes of Iberostar to assume, one well imagines that the politicians take due note.

There are few more impressive figures in Mallorcan life than Miquel Fluxà, the Iberostar president. He has presided over a highly successful international hotel chain that locally in Alcúdia and Can Picafort and more so in Playa de Muro is a byword for quality as it is elsewhere. Yesterday I was looking around the work going on at the Iberostar Albufera Playa. The interiors are being gutted and refurbished. Its neighbour, the Albufera Park, was similarly refitted last winter; the old Dunas Park became the remodelled Playa de Muro Village the winter before that. Continuous improvement - the old maxim of the quality movement.


And a bit more on politicians, or to be more precise political parties. The Unió Mallorquina (UM - Mallorcan Union) has celebrated its first 25 years. The UM is a nationalist party dedicated to the preservation of facets of Mallorcan (and Balearic) life, the customs, the language and so on. Its achievements cannot be underestimated. Its representatives hold positions of some power in Mallorca, the departing president was the head of the Mallorca council and is now president of the Balearic parliament, the mayors of both Alcúdia and Pollensa are UM. The Alcúdia mayor, Miquel Ferrer, has been in the running to take over as president of the party, but to the annoyance of Ferrer supporters who see his main rival, Miquel Nadal, as being too Palma-centric and being “of the past”, Nadal looks set to be the new president.

For many British expatriates, were they even to have an interest in local or indeed national politics (which generally they do not), the UM would not, I suspect, be the party of choice; that, one might presume, would be the Partido Popular. I declare no interest other than the fact that the UM has demonstrated that a nationalist party can build respectability in a relatively short period. UM nationalism is no militancy. Mallorca and the Balearics have no separatist tendency nor are they a part of any grand Catalan autonomy. Coincidentally, a survey in today’s “Ultima Hora” refers to the fact that the Balearics rank joint fourth among the regions of Spain in terms of how much the people of these regions identify with Spain (the Basque land and Catalonia being right down the list). It is perhaps a curiosity that this affinity with Spain co-exists with such a strong local political voice.


QUIZ
Yesterday - For all old Moodyists everywhere, The Moody Blues. Today’s title - who?

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