Responsibilities In Reverse

Amidst the fuss about tourist rentals that the recent draft tourism decree has caused were others matters of policy, equally as arcane in their actual comprehensibility to the layman, which failed to work their way into the headlines. One of these other matters has to do with the removal of certain competences that the islands' councils have for tourism promotion and organisation.

If you have not seen the draft tourism decree (or other items of Balearics legislation come to that), you will not know just how convoluted it is and how, in its preamble in particular, it manages to refer to that many items of other legislation that any sane person would give up after a couple of pages. (Perhaps the government hopes people do give up.) If you persevere, however, and disentangle what is contained in all this mind-boggling legalese, you discover that statutes of autonomy, which apply not just to the regional government but also to the islands' councils, and a general law of 2007 to do with these statutes have been invoked by the regional government in its having now claimed exclusive right to decide on certain tourism matters.

In Menorca, they are bloody furious. The other islands will probably also be mad, but the Menorcans more than the other islands. They have been vocal in asserting their rights to introduce their own regulations in line with what they thought were their competences and responsibilities. The government has taken them away and in one particularly significant way. The Menorcans believed that they would be able to regulate on tourism rentals: not under this decree they can't.

According to Salomé Cabrera, Menorca's councillor for tourism, the decree "violates" competences that the council has for tourism organisation, and she has drawn attention to what was an agreement by the regional government to amend the 2012 law by stating that Menorca could regulate on the matter of tourist stays (which, in translation, is the official term for tourist rentals). Menorca had, before the passing of the 2012 law, lobbied for a more permissive rental regime. It has maintained its opposition since then, its president having not attended a meeting with then tourism minister Carlos Delgado a year ago at which Delgado claimed there was consensus on rentals. This was a barefaced untruth. Its opposition had, nonetheless, looked as if it had worked and had given Menorca the means to counter the harmful effects of all-inclusives on the island through the permissive regulation of private accommodation for rent.

PSOE, in responding to the Martínez decree last week, argued that other competences were being taken away from the councils. It remains to be seen what responsibilities they will be left with, but they are supposed to be getting one that allows them to promote tourism. This was promised by President Bauzá, and it was a promise that had a hefty dose of political expediency about it: smoothing unrest in the other islands.

The change of mind on Menorca's rental responsibilities is indicative of the way in which the statutes of autonomy and the relationships between tiers of government can become political footballs of interpretation, power politics and potential abuse. They are used by Palma where the islands are concerned, and they are also used by Madrid where the Balearics are concerned.

The tourism law and now the new decree are ways in which Palma can assert its authority. It can do so with carte blanche because it, as with other regional administrations, has been allowed to by Madrid, which abrogated its responsibility for legislating on tourist rentals. Had it not and had it opted to legislate centrally, it is quite possible, given how every other region of Spain has been moving, that the Balearics would now be facing a permissive system of regulation. It suited Madrid not to legislate because by not doing so it was able to appear to be acting in a decentralised fashion but more importantly it was able to avoid an almighty great conflict with the hotel lobby. It bottled it, in other words.

The statues of autonomy have created a system of pick 'n' mix whereby Madrid can wield the stick of centralisation or dangle the carrot of decentralisation as it sees fit. The result is one great big power game in which Bauzá has been revealed as impotent on two key issues - oil and financing from central government. Moreover, Madrid has, we now understand, approved some twenty laws which have stripped the Balearics of its own competences. In addition, several articles contained in the new Balearics fishing law have been queried by Madrid.

Because he is so impotent, Bauzá acts on things he knows will show him as being tough without upsetting his political masters. Tourism rentals are one. Education and trilingualism are another. But unfortunately, all that legal mumbo-jumbo can come back and bite. Menorca is threatening to go to court on tourism rentals, which could mean calling for a decision by the Constitutional Court in Madrid, a body which is in constant session, attempting to make sense and arbitrate on issues which are a direct consequence of the political power games played out through the statutes of autonomy. There surely has to be a better way.