The Grand Illusion: Policies and finance

The new regional government came in with something slightly less than a blaze of glory. It was under-cooked, half-baked. Its component elements - PSOE, Més and the part that isn't actually governing only supporting, Podemos - burned the midnight oil on many a late spring night in conjuring up a bag of tricks for the new legislature to pluck from the hat and cry magic. You will believe in magic because the government is going to create it. Yes, its announcements of policy were attention-grabbing. Yes, these policies seemed only fair, right and just. But the government was under-cooked by the very process of so many cooks adding to the broth. They were carried away with the policies and there was one major flaw. Money.

These right and just policies include the basic social wage to those without work or resources, the reintroduction of health care to immigrants who had been cruelly denied it. They included and still include the reactivation of the Llevant railway line, scuppered through lack of finance by the Bauzá regime and left to rot until a cheap compromise was discovered - the "green" way. They no longer seem to include, if they ever truly did, an airline for the Balearics.

There is a great deal to applaud about the government. Its instincts seem right. It is fighting the good fight over large retail outlets and defending the smaller retailer. It wants to regulate on tourism matters in ways in which many will applaud - all-inclusives, a possibly more permissive regime for holiday lets. But then there is less applause for the eco-tax, itself as woolly, as half-baked in its intent as the government's intentions for all-inclusives and holiday lets. Give them time. Yes, they should be given time, but the eco-tax cuts to the heart of what most exercises the minds of the government. Money.

The fronting-up to the national government over the retail outlets, the narrative of "aggression" being shown towards the Balearics on this issue, does not endear Armengol to Rajoy. Nor do many things. There is further aggression being displayed by the intransigence on financing. The rights of Balearic citizens, denied for so long, are being further denied.

The eco-tax, prior to the election, was for Armengol a negotiable. It remained a negotiable as the teams from the different parties worked long into the nights arriving at their "agreements for change", the fundamentals of the tripartite government with only two parts active. Armengol let Biel Barceló have his way. Eco-tax it would be. But this was before the new government had truly started to butt heads with Madrid over the most important issue. Money.

For Armengol the eco-tax was a fallback position. If there were not a better financing arrangement with Madrid, it would be needed. She knew before the election, just as she now does that Rajoy and the national finance minister Montoro would not be for turning. This, therefore, was the illusion of much of the policy, one that may fade to the grey of delusion. Money.

The regional finance minister, Catalina Cladera, is now saying that the government's objectives for 2016 (let alone the current year) will be difficult to meet because of the poor levels of finance coming from Madrid. The basic rights of citizens are to be denied because of the national Partido Popular's victimisation of the Balearics. The citizen as victim of Madrid is the slogan of self-righteousness. The Balearic Government has right on its side, and it is there right alongside the citizen in admonishing the austerity, the parsimony and the aggressions of Madrid.

But what did the Armengol government really expect? Did its members truly believe that they could twist Montoro and Rajoy round to their way of thinking? Maybe they did, but unfortunately, the impression is unavoidable. The policies - some of them anyway - were always likely to be implausible because the financing was not going to be there.

Was it, therefore, all a grand illusion? Not completely no, as a change in national government may usher in a new system of financing. This system, though, would at the earliest be in place in 2017 and some of its effects would not be noticeable until later in that year - more than 24 months after the government took office. Actually, it shouldn't, where Biel Barceló is concerned, be a case of may usher in. One of his bargaining chips was to get Armengol to extract a commitment from PSOE's leader Pedro Sánchez that there will be a new and fairer system of financing. Even if there were to be though, would it in fact be in place for 2017? How many other cooks might Sánchez have to deal with? And so, might the regional government end up edging to the 2019 election with its policies and it, as a coalition, in tatters?