Aina And The 30 million Euros

When Aina Calvo, the erstwhile mayor of Palma, was promoting herself as leader of PSOE in the Balearics, the video which formed part of what proved to be her losing campaign ended with a sample from the dance hit by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis: "put our hands up like the ceiling can't hold us". Why this should have featured was frankly anyone's guess, but we may now have a clue as to what it was referring. It was the plafond of the Palacio, the roof cover for congresses. Hands were being put up to provide support and thus prevent the ceiling from collapsing along with the rest of the project.

Aina inherited the Palacio. It was a gift from Jaume Matas and the PP. Not that there was a gift as such to inherit when she assumed Palma's mayoral throne in 2007. Building didn't actually start until the following year. And then building stopped three years later and Mateo Isern inherited the increasingly poisoned gift. But before building was suspended because the construction company hadn't been paid, Barceló, the hotel group which was going to run the Palacio, had already waved the project goodbye. Four years later - i.e. now - it is riding to its aid with fellow white knights of the Mallorcan hotel industry, Melià. And only now do we learn that Barceló had, according to Aina, been indulging in a spot of extortion.

This extraordinary accusation does require qualification. Aina said that it was "like an extortion". (This is a translation from the Spanish. In English extortion is a mass noun that doesn't require the article "an".) It was like it because, as she acknowledged, Barceló had the right to make a demand for 30 million euros in order to complete work on the Palacio. Nevertheless, and despite the apparent  legality of the demand, it was taken as a "threat" to paralyse work on the project. Moreover, Aina maintains that it was a demand that was not necessary in order to finish the work. The work was eventually of course suspended anyway.

Simón Pedro Barceló, the co-president of Barceló and the person who Aina says rang her one night and made the demand, responded as you would have expected him to. "I have not extorted anything in my life," he said. It was all covered by the contract that Aina had signed.

The choice of word seems somewhat ill-judged. If Barceló had a right to request this money, then it didn't amount to "an extortion". Aina may have said that it was "like an extortion", but such a modification does not disguise the use of the word. Simón Barceló, for his part, appears to be fairly relaxed about what was said, placing it in the context of upcoming elections. But then do these elections not help to explain the current frenzy that is surrounding the Palacio project? Still, at least there is no longer any possibility that the ceiling might collapse on it. You can put your hands down now, Aina.