Mallorca Is Open To Business: Or is it?

The Balearic Government wants to make life easier for businesses. It wants to promote and encourage entrepreneurship, to simplify procedures, to make the finding of relevant information and relevant decision-makers easier, to attract foreign investors and to develop local talent.

It wants to do all these things and up to a point it is going about them in the right way. It talks the talk, but whether it walks the talk is another matter.

A gathering of mainly British businesspeople and others on Thursday last week at the offices of the Centre Balears Europa (CBE), part of the government's department of the presidency, was designed to impart information regarding "the changing landscape of business opportunity for European entrepreneurs in the the Balearic Islands". This was the title of the meeting at any rate.

It wasn't a bad meeting insofar as the most interesting aspect of it was to hear from a body that few people knew existed - the IDI, the institute for business innovation. It was interesting as there appear to be people within the institute, and by extension, therefore, the government, who do seem to know what they're talking about and who do seem to be genuinely committed to pursuing the objectives set out at the top of this article.

It was a pity, then, that I left the gathering with a distinct sense of pessimism, one formed by different factors: administrative structures, culture and attitudes.

There is an admission, and God knows why it has taken so long for there to be an admission, that governmental and agency structures that businesspeople have to confront are labyrinthine to say the least. Ultimately, what is needed is a flat structure, one which, culturally, places the user (the businessperson and/or company) above, and which serves this user. When there are as many agencies as there are, it is hard to see how such flatness can ever be achieved. Not while turf wars and vested interests remain endemic.

I give you a case in point as to how the government wanted to flatten decision-making but was denied the opportunity because of the interests of town halls and the Council of Mallorca. It was the process for obtaining permissions for hotel conversion. The town halls and Council were meant to have been taken out of the equation, but they refused to be. One-nil to the vested interests.

Changing bureaucratic structures can only come with a fundamental change of culture. This isn't necessarily a cultural change that brings about more Anglo-Saxon attitudes towards business, i.e. those which are more in tune with the needs of business and entrepreneurs, and away from an obstructive, everything in triplicate and then in triplicate again just to be sure, southern European mindset. These attitudes may well help, but there is also a question of cultural change of public sector mentality, and this is one that is universally obstinate in resisting change.

While the Balearics might look to northern Europe for guidance, it might be recalled how the British public sector once was. It still carries baggage from the past, but cultural change was one that proved hard, despite the insistence of Margaret Thatcher and then John Major. It can be done, but it doesn't happen overnight, especially if the structures inhibit or even prohibit its being effected.

Attitudes die hard. The landscape may apparently be changing for European entrepreneurs, but neither the CBE nor the IDI has fully cottoned on to the fact, if their websites are anything to go by. The best one can say is that the IDI does at least have a Castellano version; the CBE doesn't even have that. So much for an apparent wish to make English a language of business locally. Talking the talk (but only in Catalan), rather than walking it.

When there is a linguistic attempt to engage foreign investors, the attempt ends up being mind-boggling. I give you a different case in point: the translation into English of the new tourism law. Reader-friendly it most certainly wasn't.

Just how much do the Balearics and Mallorca want foreigners to invest and to pursue business activities? It is a key question, and I'm afraid that there is antagonism that stems from parochialism and even xenophobia (which is far more prevalent away from Palma and its cosmopolitan satellites, it should be noted). The reaction to Media Markt's opening from parts of the local business community has pretty much betrayed this antagonism, it being couched in an insular Mallorcan style.

But for big-ticket business, such xenophobia can be overcome. The labyrinth of bureaucracy can be worked through. Relationships can be formed easily with governmental leaders. Big-ticket business can do these things, but what of the small business or the one man? The IDI and the CBE might hope they can make life easier, and I wish them every success, but optimistic I am not.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.