Below The Belt: Corruption in the Balearics

Francesc Antich, president of the Balearic Government, has described corruption cases in the Balearics as a "low blow". One below the belt to the islands' image, to tourism promotion and to investment.

Corruption cases don't exactly help, but to what extent do they really register outside of the islands? Take tourists, for example. Some might be aware of the cases, but not so many. Those which are probably shrug the news off with a laugh and a declaration that "well, that's Spain for you". They are not totally wrong. The Balearics have assumed some prominence towards the top of the corruption league, but the islands have a way to go to wrestle the championship from the likes of Valencia or Marbella.

The biggest corruption trial of all is currently underway in Malaga, the result of the Operation Malaya investigation of alleged real-estate corruption in Marbella and elsewhere on the Costa del Sol. It goes back to the nineties and the time of one of the biggest public-office crooks of the lot - the former and now very much dead mayor of Marbella, Jésus Gil. Prosecutors in the case argue that a culture of corruption became ingrained once Gil took over as mayor in 1991, so much so that for a year from April 2006 the council in Marbella had to be run by the Spanish Government.

The Malaga trial will register overseas, just as Gil frequently also used to register with foreign media. He did so because he was, to use a euphemism, "colourful" and because he was known in another capacity, as president of Atlético Madrid. It's the sheer scale of the trial that will attract interest, but, as with Gil, it is most unlikely to have any repercussions for Marbella in terms of tourism. Gil was accused of all sorts of things, but he was also credited with having overseen a transformation of Marbella and with making it a desirable tourist destination.

The Balearics, however, have to contend with the case involving the ex-president, Jaume Matas, a bigger fish in political terms than a mere town mayor. There is the potential for harm, certainly when it comes to the islands' image. A journalist from a British daily has been in contact with me regarding the Matas case, one that she has been and is monitoring, and the climax to which might well give the media the opportunity for what some might construe as knocking copy. But this is about all it will be. Sleaze is sleaze, as many a British politician can also testify to.

More significant where local tourism and corruption cases are concerned might be those surrounding what was going on at the agencies linked to the tourism ministry, IBATUR and INESTUR, and involving former tourism ministers. Any impact they may have or have had, however, will not have been with a tourist public but with travel companies. Even here though, the tour operators probably viewed the revolving door at the tourism ministry as an inconvenience through a breakdown of continuity rather than as a reason to be concerned for tourism per se.

While corruption tarnishes a reputation, there's little or no evidence to suggest that it harms tourism. So much for the "low blow" to tourism promotion. But what of investment? If Antich means by this property investment, again there is little which hints of corruption having any impact. The Balearics have been spared much of the problems of the mainland, ones that have led a committee of the European Parliament to highlight specific parts of Spain, notably the Valencian Region, as areas where corruption has gone hand in hand with greed and abuses of land rights. It is true that there are corruption cases in the Balearics that have to do with irregular urbanisation developments, but they have not given rise to outcries similar to those on the mainland.

Antich is not wrong in highlighting how corruption can create a negative image, but the cases have been and remain ones largely for internal consumption. Corruption can cause a loss of confidence and trust, clearly it can. But the loss of confidence through the constant drip-drip of cases being investigated is more one of a loss of confidence in the local political system rather than by tourists or investors.

The Antich government is pushing through a public sector law which is aimed at creating more scrupulousness and better controls of public finance. It's way overdue. It is perhaps too much to expect that there will not be future transgressions, but like the hope for the trial in Malaga is that it will draw a line under a corrupt past, so too might a new code for local politicians consign much of the wrongdoing to history.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.