Matas And The Scandals That Won't Go Away

So, Jaume Matas may escape a further term in prison if he spills the beans. He would know that he potentially faces a far longer stretch than the nine months he spent in Segovia prison for peddling influence in arranging illegal payments to a journalistic cheerleader. The Son Espases Hospital affair eclipses even the Palma Arena case in terms of the money that was involved in the project. The cost of the contract is almost incidental, however. The links to alleged illegal funding of the Partido Popular are most certainly not.

Reaction from politicians with parties other than the PP (from which little or nothing is being heard) ranges from the phlegmatic to the apoplectic. While all this reaction suggests that Matas shouldn't avoid doing time, there is an acceptance that Matas holds a key - possibly the key - to revealing the secrets of this funding. These politicians won't know exactly what Matas knows. They will be capable of hazarding shrewd guesses, but the knowledge resides with the justice system and the anti-corruption prosecution service in particular.

While Matas was in prison, he appeared by videoconference link at a hearing into Son Espases. This was the bizarre occasion when his head was bandaged. He apparently had an ear infirmity and was therefore unable to hear the questions being put to him. Before he left prison, he was visited by the chief anti-corruption prosecutor, Pedro Horrach. It was said at the time that he exercised his right not to say anything. It now appears that things were rather different and that Matas was all ears. The origin of a deal to spill the beans was during that meeting with Horrach.

Why is Son Espases so important, and important enough for the national anti-corruption prosecution service to back the regional service and so Horrach's deal? It has everything to do with funding of the PP and with work on a remodelling of its headquarters building in the calle Génova in Madrid. The allegation is that the award of the contract for the construction of Son Espases was rigged in favour of the company OHL, the president of which is Juan Miguel Villar Mir, a long-ago minister of finance (in the period immediately after Franco's death) and the recipient of a marquis title from the former king in 2011.

The charge is that it was Matas who rigged the award. In the end, OHL didn't get the contract. This was after suspicions about the contract appeared in the press. Matas intervened and the award ultimately went to the rival consortium. But Matas, it is said, didn't act independently. He was under instruction from the PP nationally.

A famous envelope containing instructions that the tender board was to follow has been referred to often during investigations. The then health minister, Aina Castillo, has testified that she was given this envelope - without knowing its contents - to be passed on. Matas was the one who gave her the envelope, but he - the allegation is - was given it by the formal national treasurer of the PP, Alvaro Lapuerta. Matas, it is understood, is prepared to state this in court.

OHL and Villar Mir come into the story because Luis Barcenas, another former treasurer, has testified that Villar Mir was a major funder of the PP. He gave the party a significant sum - 300,000 euros - for its 2011 election campaign, but he has also come under investigation for payments in cash amounting to two million euros. An implication is that he paid for work at the headquarters.

Barcenas is also crucial to this whole affair. The infamous "B" accounts which he supposedly operated - undeclared income and payments - have been the subject of investigation by the national high court. A judge, Pablo Ruz, concluded eighteen months ago that the PP had used this "B" system between 1990 and 2008. Both Barcenas and Lapuerta were cited by the judge. Moreover, the judge said that according to Barcenas's accounts, Villar Mir had delivered over half a million euros between 2004 and 2008.

Whatever the rights or wrongs of Matas avoiding prison, the revelation that he might do comes at a bad time for the PP. While Matas was involved in corruption from several years go - it is now nine years since his second and final period as Balearic president ended - there are more up-to-date scandals surrounding the party, not least in Valencia, where Rita Barberá, the former mayor of Valencia, is facing allegations of money laundering that relate to the time just before the elections in spring 2015.

The additional backdrop of course is the ongoing uncertainty with the national government. A reason for this uncertainty has been the rise of Podemos and Ciudadanos, both of them taking firm aim against corruption. The PP's moral authority for government takes a constant battering. Matas, and what he might have to say, diminishes that authority ever more.

Son Rossinyol Nights Out: The trial

The entrance to the Son Rossinyol industrial estate is just off the Soller road, heading out of Palma. It is a development of a type that only Mallorca could somehow dream up. Amidst its light industry, services of various kinds, retail outlets, showrooms and offices, there is an old rural finca. The first building on this land was in the seventeenth century, and the finca is now classified as being part of the Balearics' historical heritage. Its name is Sa Possessió. It was converted into a cultural centre and is perhaps best known for the club that operates there. This Friday will be a night of black music.

Close to Sa Possessió is the School for Balearic Public Administration. Some of those who will be inside this building this week might like to relax on Friday at Sa Possessió. If they do, they will be members of the media, those from afar and nearer. Others at the building will be nowhere near Sa Possessió. They'll be keeping as far out of sight as possible.

This isn't the first time that this school has housed a trial. The "caso Kabul" was a major drugs trial involving one of Palma's principal clans. It started almost three years to the day, its cast having comprised 55 accused, the star of which (if star is the correct word) was Francisca Cortés Picazo, commonly known as "La Paca", the matriarch of the clan based in Son Banya, notorious for being at the centre of the capital's drugs trade. Other family members were similarly well known by their nicknames: "El Ico", "La Guapi", "El Moreno". 

"Caso Kabul" was a major media event but it is not in the same league as "caso Nóos". There is no matriarch. Instead there is a princess. Nicknames do not abound. Only the names of insults directed at certain accused. There is no clan. But there is a dynasty: the Bourbon.

To find the origins of the Nóos trial, you have to go back to an investigation that was opened by Judge José Castro in July 2010 into agreements from four and five years previously between two bodies within the Balearic tourism ministry - the sports foundation (Fundación Illesport) and the one-time tourism promotion agency (Ibatur) - and the Nóos Institute, a partner in which had been the Duke of Palma, Iñaki Urdangarin, the husband of Princess Cristina. These agreements were to later be exposed in the media. Reproduced invoices showed the amounts that had been claimed for work which, the investigation was to find, appeared not to have been undertaken. Or for which, at the very least, payment had been greatly in excess of what it had merited. One particularly revealing aspect of these invoices was one for 450,000 euros that was raised a month before the 2007 election. This was an election that the former president of the Balearics, Jaume Matas, lost. He is also on trial.

The fact was, however, that there were earlier origins to the case, and they stemmed from the investigations into Matas, in particular those to do with Palma Arena. There had been a domino effect that had started with the arrest of the mayor of Andratx in 2006. The dominoes were knocked over and they revealed Matas and eventually Nóos.

The amounts involved in Nóos are comparatively small beer when set against those related to Palma Arena and to the contract for Son Espases Hospital (about which we have certainly not heard the last). But 6.2 million euros, the amount of public funds alleged to have been embezzled, are still 6.2 million euros. The amount is immaterial of course. It's the principle that matters.

Though the trial is set to last until the end of June, it opened with a certain sense of finality. One of those accused, the former director of Balearic sport and one-time Olympic rower, José Luis Ballester, has already expressed his repentance. Even Matas appears to accept his fate, one that he is wishing to partially avoid by using his "palacete" in Palma as recompense for what he has described as the damage that was done. The irony of this is not lost on many. It was a raid on this "palacete" that marked the point when the dominoes had fallen and revealed him. And my, how the media revelled in its descriptions of the luxury inside and of his wife's wardrobe.

Diego Torres, the one-time business partner of Iñaki Urdangarin, has not thrown in the towel. For months, he has been doing his best to implicate the Royal Household and its intimate knowledge of the affairs of Nóos. If he's going down, he's taking others with him. In an extraordinary prelude to the trial, he was interviewed on national television last week, detailing his charges of Royal Household involvement. 

And then there is Princess Cristina. The trial is far more than just about her. Indeed it might yet be that she doesn't stand trial, if the defence of the Botin doctrine is accepted. As she faces a private and not public prosecution, everything hinges on the interpretation of this defence. For the media who have come from afar, they will be probably hoping that the defence fails. If it succeeds, there will be no nights at Sa Possessió. The big trial will suddenly seem smaller. 

The Chronology Of A Fiasco: Palma's Palacio

In June 2003 Jaume Matas became president of the Balearics for the second time. Among his top priorities was the revival of the international image of Palma, and key to this was the building of a major conference centre which would propel Palma into the forefront of the business tourism market. This was to be the Palacio de Congresos, one of several stellar projects of the Matas administration. A conference centre had been spoken about often before 2003. Matas was praised for being the one who sought to make it a reality. Even opposition politicians were inclined to approve.

Three areas of Palma were initially considered. One of these, Playa de Palma, was ruled out straightaway as there was no obvious site. A second was Porto Pi, which was the one that pretty much everyone agreed would be the best. It was not possible because of how land was classified. This left the Moll Vell, i.e. in the La Lonja area. A fourth option then arose: near to the GESA building. This was the one that was chosen.

By November 2003 the Palacio was already being talked up. At London's World Travel Market the boss of Meliá, Gabriel Escarrer, said that it would be an "emblematic installation" and alluded to the architect tendering process, which in itself would enhance Palma's image. Various names were mentioned, including Norman Foster and Richard Rogers. On 14 June 2005 Matas and the mayor of Palma, Catalina Cirer, unveiled the winning architect - Patxi Mangado from Pamplona. The project for the conference centre, the hotel and new parking would cost 60 million euros. On 17 April 2008 work officially started on the project. It would take thirty months to complete.

Fourteen months before the work started, the cost of the project having apparently risen to 130 million euros, the Matas government approved the 40-year concession to operate the conference centre and hotel to a consortium that was headed by the hotel group Barceló. It would have half the shareholding. Others included Globalia, Iberostar and the building company Acciona. In May 2007, three months after this approval, Matas lost the regional election. He left politics and went to work for Barceló.

Two years on from this election and so some months after work had started, Barceló, which had bought out other members of the consortium and so owned 95% of the project (Acciona stayed in with 5%), announced that it was "temporarily" abandoning the project. Reasons cited included an additional thirty million euros that had been added to the bill, modifications to the project and "legal and economic irregularities". In early 2011 Barceló definitively broke off its involvement, a month before the Palacio was supposed to have opened, the schedule for opening having been modified from the original end of 2009 date.

Uncertainties surrounding the Palacio increased through a combination of Barceló's concerns and economic crisis. Election victories which installed PSOE administrations in Palma and regional government were less significant, but when the PP regained Palma and government in 2011 it was faced with major problems. The lack of a conference operator was just one. Debts were mounting. Acciona, the constructor, was owed millions. Because of this, in June Acciona downed tools  and paralysed the work indefinitely.

Tendering processes proved to be fruitless. One produced no interest. The second attracted Meliá, but Meliá was not prepared to accept the proviso of paying a bond of eight million euros to secure the concession. Why not? This remains a good question.

This was in the summer of 2012. Work was suspended, but the costs were still rising. Over half a million euros a month had to be found simply to cover the costs of maintenance and security for the half-built white elephant. Palma's mayor, Mateo Isern, attributed the problems not to lack of interest from the private sector but to "country risk": the shaky state of the Spanish economy in other words. This shaky state was such that there was a financing shortfall of 70 million euros.

Hilton was another hotel chain which expressed an interest, but nothing was to come of this. Different solutions were now being sought. One was to separate the hotel and convention centre and invite tenders for each. Another was demolition. In February 2013 consideration was being given to this. The cost, just under 30 million euros, was prohibitive. 

In November 2013 Palma Town Hall was given permission by national government to take out a 42 million euro loan. The money was to pay Acciona what it was owed. In so doing, the way was open for work to restart. When in June last year the regional government committed to spend 36 million euros to finish the project, the financing shortfall that Isern had referred to was covered.

So we now come to the present day. The conference centre may well be finished this year. There is still, however, the matter of the operator. It has been suggested that a new consortium featuring some of those involved with the Barceló consortium might emerge. But were Mallorcan hoteliers to finally decide they want to be a part of the conference centre, how would this square with one of the most damning statements made about the project? It came from Iberostar's Aurelio Vázquez, the president of the Mallorcan hoteliers federation. In October 2013 he said that the Palacio was in a "bad location". It was too expensive and did not guarantee sufficient profit. "Hotel chains know which projects are profitable and those which are not," he added.

Damning though this was, there was another observation about the Palacio which was more damning. It came from advisors in 2003. Matas was told that it was an investment which made little sense because of the strong competition from conference centres elsewhere in Spain and in Europe and because of the high costs. And as for these high costs, does anyone actually know how much the Palacio will finally end up costing?

Photo: What the Palacio should eventually look like.

A Politician With No Idea

"I have no idea." As statements from politicians go, you couldn't ask for a better one than this, and who better to deliver it than the Partido Popular gift who keeps on giving, Mabel At The Table Cabrer? Never normally lost for a word or several - calling the opposition Nazis, for instance - the PP parliamentary goatherd was for once reduced to four-word cluelessness (actually there are five words in both Spanish and Catalan). Yet earlier in the week, Mabel had been vocalising in shouty spokesperson mode when condemning the "crusade" being led by the opposition against her own crusader, the Dracula-caped one, battling corruption wherever it may lurk. Be amazed as José Ramón fights the fraudulent. Gasp as he despatches the deceitful and expels the embezzlers. But Mabel would have been sore afeared at the sight of Judge Dredd roaring towards the courts on his Harley steel horse. The judge who should be dreaded, the OAP oath taker José Castro had been hearing from an axe-grinder.

Javier Rodrigo de Santos, the newly saintly Rodrigo, released from the penance of his misuse of his Palma town hall credit card and rent boys, was twisting the knife. Beans were spilling from His Holiness Rod (dismissed as a "confessed and convicted offender" by another spokesperson, Miguel Ramis) and they amounted to a great deal more than a hill. A mountain was built, and Rodrigo was music to the ears of the judge and subsequently of the anti-corruption prosecutors. Construction businesses had benefited from having been given public works contracts in exchange for which they had been handing 3% commissions to the Jaume Matas-era PP.

It was these commissions that Mabel had no idea about. She could proudly proclaim that she was now part of a PP that was totally new and which had nothing to do with the old Matas model PP. In Bauzá's new model PP army, things are different. Oh, by the way, Mabel had been the minister for public works under Matas.


The blood freshly dripping from the jugular of the revenge of Rodrigo, the vultures swooped. Biel Barceló of Més: Bauzá was "chained to the past" of the corruption of the PP. Fina Santiago, also Més: Rodrigo had confirmed the existence of a "mafia structure and generalised corruption within the PP". For PSOE, Rodrigo's evidence pointed to "systematic corruption" in the Matas government. The Caped Crusader retaliated by stating that his was a profile without corruption, an announcement that lacked a real sense of zap or pow, just as Bauzá the video did. What do you mean you haven't seen it? José Ramón wants to talk to you, so long as it is in Castellano or Catalan. No mention of any trilingual dialogue in giving "sufficient reasons for you to trust us again".

There were those who suggested that the talk-talk video showed signs of desperation. I prefer to think that it showed where linguistic preferences lay. By Friday, four days after having been posted, the Castellano version was beating the Catalan one by 370 views (3,385 versus 3,015). The combined total would, were they all to trust them again, fail to make much inroad into the lost support in the opinion polls. Anyway, if you wish to, you can talk to the president: Email, joseramon@gestionbauza.com; Whatsapp, 610 176 291; Twitter, @JRBauza; Facebook, José Ramón Bauzá.


Index for February 2015

AENA privatisation - 13 February 2015
Alcúdia anti-all inclusive party - 7 February 2015
All-inclusive control - 26 February 2015
Andratx, mayors and corruption - 11 February 2015
Balearics stand at Fitur and King Felipe - 5 February 2015
Canary Islands versus AENA privatisation - 24 February 2015
Eco-tax - 25 February 2015, 27 February 2015
Electoral pacts by Mallorca's left - 22 February 2015
Felanitx Theory: Columbus - 10 February 2015
Fitur tourism fair - 6 February 2015
Flu and hospital emergencies - 4 February 2015
Mallorca's hoteliers: unloved - 9 February 2015
Més and Balearics' own airline - 16 February 2015
Palma fiesta planning - 2 February 2015
Partido Popular corruption - 28 February 2015
Podemos power struggles - 3 February 2015
Podemos versus hoteliers - 18 February 2015
Police corruption in Palma - 1 February 2015
Pollensa: Day of destruction - 14 February 2015
Pope in Mallorca - 12 February 2015
PSOE and participation - 8 February 2015
Regional elections opinion poll - 23 February 2015
Sardine burial and Lent - 15 February 2015
Simplicity and Mallorcan winter marketing - 19 February 2015
Tourism ministry and a feeling for tourism - 20 February 2015
Town hall reduction - 17 February 2015
Virgen del Carmen fiesta and Saint Simon Stock - 21 February 2015

Society Is Sick: Corruption in Spain

There was a time when I paid comparatively little attention to politics in Mallorca or indeed to politics in Spain. What made me take far greater notice was what happened on 27 November 2006. The mayor of Andratx, Eugenio Hidalgo, was arrested, as was the director-general of land planning at the regional government. The trail from the corruption case which exposed Hidalgo was to lead to Jaume Matas, then the president of the Balearics. More or less all the corruption investigations since had their origins in Andratx. Investigators and judges began to make links; Urdangarin, Munar, Matas, you can trace them all back to that day eight years ago.

It is conceivable that fewer cases might have cropped up had it not been for the former attorney-general, Cándido Conde-Pumpido, seeking and appointing regional prosecutors to root out corruption and later creating the anti-corruption and organised crime prosecution service. In 2004 the Balearics got the first regional prosecutor, Juan Carrau, who instigated the case against Hidalgo, by which time he had been joined by the second prosecutor, the more celebrated Pedro Horrach. There are now four prosecutors in all.

As we are all too well aware, new corruption cases still arise with regrettable frequency. The prosecutors have greater powers, but they can't prevent corruption, only investigate it. Nevertheless, maybe these greater powers have had some deterrent effect or at least helped to improve the perception of corruption in Spain. The latest survey of corruption in 175 countries by Transparency International (TI) shows that Spain has improved three places since last year; it is ranked 37.

A director at TI, Alejandro Salas, has suggested that when economic times were good, corruption was hidden. Economic difficulties have brought about greater awareness and willingness to pursue the corrupt and a more open public and political debate about corruption. Hence why, one might suggest, Mariano Rajoy has been talking about the subject, but then Rajoy's pronouncements have tended to be reactive, as was the case with the now infamous "Spain is not corrupted".

Rajoy didn't actually say that "Spain is not corrupt". It was "is not corrupted". The semantic distinction is important, as it implies a corruption of recent times. But this is a view with which Alejandro Salas disagrees. "Corruption is not new in Spain. It is an historical phenomenon." "What strikes me is that corruption in Spain is very structural, very systematic. It is not just one party, not one government, not one province. It is impregnated into different sectors of society." Rajoy might be advised to take note of what Salas says, just as he might like to consider words that were spoken in 1993. "It is not politicians who are corrupt, but it is society that is sick." Who spoke them? Jaume Matas, who, in addition to having twice been Balearics president, was a colleague of Rajoy's in Aznar's national government. Matas was quoting a Spanish philosopher, José Luis Aranguren.

Gabriel Garcias is a professor of law at the university in Palma. He has said that "so long as there is no ethical or moral transformation in society, the law will solve nothing". I used this same quote in an article from 2010. The prosecutors have been prosecuting since then, but have they really had a deterrent effect? Maybe, but at the time I was quoting Garcias I was also quoting the Balearics spokesperson for the UPyD party, Juan Luis Calbarro: "The Balearics have the highest number of people who are corrupt or allegedly corrupt per square metre in Spain." Calbarro explained the link between politics and society thus: "businesspeople who are friends of certain politicians, businesspeople who assemble companies in order to receive adjudications decided by their political friends, as well as the wives, husbands, cousins and nephews of politicians".

Since the emergence of the Hidalgo affair in 2006, I have written some 70 articles with corruption as a central theme. The society-politics nexus has been a not uncommon aspect of these articles. Some might aver that politics are divorced from society at large. In terms of general society's distance from the political machinery and from decision-making, this is probably so, but society and politics are most definitely not separated in other ways. They are one and the same when it comes to corruption. Garcias and Calbarro said so in 2010. Salas now says so, and even Matas implied this twenty-one years ago.

The historical phenomenon of corruption to which Alejandro Salas refers can be found over the centuries. For example, the Inquisition was inherently corrupt on account of the need to fund and perpetuate itself, while the sham democracy from the later nineteenth century run by the local political bosses, the "caciques", was so corrupt that no one even sought to hide the fact. "Spain is not corrupted." It's a semantic error.

Should We Blame PSOE For The TIL Fiasco?

Prior to the regional election in 2007, Francesc Antich, the leader of PSOE, was asked about trilingual teaching in the Balearics. Antich responded by saying that all schools should have access to teaching in Catalan, Castellano and English, but he added that his party would not be issuing any laws or decrees on the matter.

The question about trilingual teaching had cropped up because a pilot system was in operation. Introduced by the Partido Popular government of Jaume Matas from 2003 to 2007, there were a total of 26 schools, mostly private, which were undertaking teaching in the three languages. The Matas government had toyed with trilingualism but only to an extent that other regions of Spain had - Catalonia and Valencia, for example, where there had been limited experimental systems for some years. The only region in Spain at that time which had anything like an established system was the Basque Country; it had started experimentation back in the early 1990s.

It is important to understand that these systems were voluntary ones started in these regions. There had never been any mandated requirement for there to be trilingual teaching, either from the central government or from Europe (the latter has no competence for directing what language or languages should be used for teaching in schools in the European Union). Nevertheless, they were a reflection of a growing desire to improve and widen language skills across Europe and of multi-lingual teaching systems in certain parts of Europe, mostly of a limited nature rather than nationwide or fully formalised.

The Matas scheme had run up against a couple of significant obstacles. One was the lack of English ability among teachers. The other was the cold reception the idea got from the STEI teachers' union, one that had long been dominated by a nationalist element (nationalist in terms of Mallorcan nationalism and so with a distinctively pro-Catalan bias). STEI was certainly not open to an expansion of the Matas pilot scheme.

Under this pilot, the schools which had dabbled in trilingualism had divided teaching hours up so that education was 40% Castellano, 40% Catalan and 20% English. Had he won the election in 2007, Matas (or someone else in the PP once Matas ran into his problems with the courts) had planned to extend the scheme to all schools. He lost and so he never did and was also unable to implement a training programme for teachers (part of which would have involved language training in the UK).

Antich won the 2007 election. Or rather, his party won sufficient seats in parliament to be able to cobble together a coalition that was known both as the "pact" and as the "hexagon" of six nationalist and leftist parties.

Even had Antich been in a stronger position in 2007, would he have been inclined to have continued with trilingualism in some form or another? When he said in answer to that question just before the election that there would be no decree, he was referring to a decree that the Matas government had issued in 2006 which had paved the way for trilingualism to have been introduced (possibly) for the school year starting in September 2007. He was not minded to accept a decree issued by the PP, but that didn't appear to mean that he wasn't open to some form of trilingualism, if only as a continuation of the pilot.

What happened though was that, having formed his hexagonal government, Antich scrapped the Matas project. He said, famously and vaguely, that there would be "English for all but without reducing the presence of Catalan". In 2008 his government went further. It issued its decree by which Catalan would be the only language in Balearics schools.

It is easy to overlook what happened during the Matas and Antich administrations when considering the fiasco with trilingual teaching (TIL) under the Bauzá government. The TIL battlelines had been drawn in 2007 and made wider by that 2008 decree. When it came to the 2011 election, Bauzá, despite what he claims, did not expressly say that a PP government would introduce TIL (the manifesto doesn't mention it as such). Had he made his intentions clearer and had he adopted a style that was more inclined to dialogue than diktat, there might not be the mess there now is. Bauzá can and should be blamed for the fiasco, but Antich and PSOE should also share the blame, as must the teachers. They were fully aware of what Matas had introduced and had intended. Bauzá was equivocal, but there was always the likelihood that trilingualism would come back onto the agenda, and it did.

PSOE could have been more broadminded in 2007, but driven by a determination to undo the Matas experiment and with its coalition partners in mind, it wasn't. It missed an opportunity. And if PSOE form the next government, history will no doubt repeat itself.


Index for September 2014

Alcanada - 20 September 2014
Almonds - 21 September 2014
Catalonia independence - 22 September 2014
Cristòfol Soler - 11 September 2014
Dishonourable Balearic Government - 27 September 2014
Formula One in Mallorca - 5 September 2014
Holiday lets - 6 September 2014, 12 September 2014
Hollywood greats in Mallorca - 16 September 2014, 17 September 2014, 18 September 2014
La Beata procession politicisation - 9 September 2014
Loryc and early years of Mallorcan motoring - 24 September 2014
Magalluf and police corruption allegations - 3 September 2014, 15 September 2014
Magalluf drugs operation - 14 September 2014
Mallorca Day and Day of Virgin of Lluc - 7 September 2014
Mateo Isern versus President Bauzá - 8 September 2014
Mayors and electoral reform - 1 September 2014
Moors and Christians fiestas and Unesco - 25 September 2014
Oktoberfests in Mallorca - 28 September 2014
Playa de Palma/Magalluf obsession - 2 September 2014
Resort regeneration - 13 September 2014
Sewage plants Playa de Muro/Son Bauló - 4 September 2014
Storms - 10 September 2011
Tourism volume reduction - 23 September 2014
Tourist spend fall - 26 September 2014
Trilingual teaching - 30 September 2014
Vita Delta closure - 19 September 2014
Unstable government under Bauzá - 29 September 2014

When Canaries Sing Of Corruption

Just when you thought that everyone had gone away on their jollies and that the rest of August would lie quietly in the deep heat-induced somnolence of late summer and maintain the enervated silence induced by thirty degrees, a good lunch and a bucket of sangria, something stirs deep in the cesspit of the past and explodes with the force of a sewage pipe ripped apart by the pressure of accumulated and stinking waste. It is an eruption of the most unhealthy variety, spewing out over the monument of Mallorca's health service. The deep-cleaned, bacteria-free white walls of Son Espases were showered with muck of the brownest type.

Aina Castillo was Jaume Matas's most loyal acolyte. Not is. Was. While others had long waved their hankies at the shoreline and watched as their former master was sunk by their confessions, Aina, the one-time subservient servant at the ministry of sanitation, had continued to calm the drowning former president with her enduring loyalty. Until, that is. As any good canary can tell you, when there is a whiff of gas, there is danger ahead. It is time to get out quick. Or it is time to activate the explosion before the explosion launches you over the battlements of Palma's jail and deposits you on top of Maria Munar. It is time for all good canaries to sing. Aina sang. This was not a love song. "I have a new goal, I'm changing my ways. Where money applies, this is not a love song." The Johnny Rottenness of public image was fully exposed. Money had applied all along. Aina had changed her ways. The anti-corruption prosecutors were taking aim at the goal, one already inside a gaol. Aina blew the lid on the sewage pipe. Matas had rigged the tender to construct Son Espases. The biggest corruption scandal of the lot had shattered the sleep and dreamtime of late August.

Of course, everyone had long suspected that Son Espases was iffy. It was just that the nature of the iffiness was not known. It is now. Jaume gave instructions that one of the bidders should gain higher marks. The winner was Dragados. Technical reports had given a rival, OHL, better marks. But it still lost.

Prosecutors will be having a word with Jaume, currently on leave in Segovia's prison. The "caso Son Espases" threatens to eclipse even the Palma Arena affair. And for the present incumbent in the presidential palace, José Ramón Bauzá, it is a horrible reminder of the not-so-long-ago past. The bad debts that Matas had left had been written off, so Joserra has said. The biggest debt of all now brings renewed harmfulness. And what does the president do about Aina? She's still knocking around. His presidency was to have been a clean one. Unfortunately, it can't be because it can't escape the recent past. Not when the walls of Son Espases are dripping with the filth of corruption.

Matas In Exile

Segovia is a city in Castile and Leon with a long and rich history. In 1474, as an example, Isabel the Catholic was proclaimed queen of Castile in the church of San Miguel, and the rest was thus history. She married Ferdinand, Spain was united, the Muslims were subjugated once and for all, Columbus invented America, Spain ruled the world and the world got a beer named after the church.

Into this cradle of Spanish empire last Monday strode a former president of the Balearics. Jaume Matas had an appointment with the keeper of the keys at Segovia's prison. He was welcomed in, the door was shut and the key was turned. Segovia's prison, unlike other buildings in the city, doesn't have a long and rich history. It is modern, it is under-occupied, it is low risk. Most of its occupants are classified as low risk. Matas will be classified thus. He may be reclassified within a short time as low-low risk, meaning he can go out during the day and only have to sleep at the prison.

His attempt to be pardoned having failed, Matas was, right up to the moment when he entered prison, seeking alternatives, such as community service - coming back to the island he stole from and cleaning the beaches (or something like that). Once these alternatives were exhausted, he opted - as is his right - for the cushiest prison gig going. And why not? He is, after all, head of the Balearic Government in exile. One day he will return and stride victoriously around the site of his greatest achievement and greatest loss of public money, the Palma Arena, arm in arm with Iñaki Urdangarin and be greeted by cheering and admiring citizens of Mallorca who understand how wronged he has been.

Well, he might think this, because Jaume still really doesn't seem to get it. What, after all, were 483,186 euros of public funds that were handed over to his tame propagandist, Antonio Alemany, so that the journo could write glowing accounts of his glorious reign? Why does he deserve to be banged up for such a trifling amount, having been pursued by a bunch of bloody ingrates in Mallorca who had forgotten just how much good he had done?

There are others who don't appear to get it, who believe that they, too, are entitled to special consideration. Maria Munar, struggling, so we are told, to adapt to life in prison, a year on from having started her sentence, is seeking third-grade classification, meaning she can have day release. Alemany, he also having had a request for a pardon turned down, has had the date of his entrance into prison put back until September, the same month that Carlos Fabra is due to start a four-year sentence for fraud in Castellon. Friends are gathering signatures to petition for a pardon for him.

You shouldn't of course only go on appearances, but if you do, then Fabra, the ex-president of Castellon, would have been played by Brando or De Niro. Those friends wanting to get him pardoned insist that he is "an honest person". Mariano Rajoy once described him as an "exemplary politician". Yes, but exemplary of what? There is a truly hideous sculpture at the white-elephant Castellon airport which features the face of Fabra. The honest truth is that, like Matas, Fabra succumbed to the vanity which power brings. And this vanity remains of such an order that it leads both of them to believe that they are above the law or that the law owes them a favour. The law does not, but there are plenty who would argue that it already has shown Matas a favour by reducing his six-year sentence to nine months and who fear that further favours might follow. Matas is facing several other charges. How many pardons can one man ask for?

The Lonely Summer Of Jaume Matas

Like other coastal resorts in Mallorca, Colonia Sant Jordi has its fair share of residences which are rarely occupied other than in the height of summer. These are the apartments, houses and villas which are holiday homes. Their owners might typically only stay in them during the month when Mallorca all but closes for business, August. It is a pleasant place, Colonia Sant Jordi, a pleasant place to have a holiday home. It is busy but not too busy. The wonderful beach of Es Trenc is close at hand. A boat can take you to the island of Cabrera.

Sometimes you wonder about these holiday homes. They seem like a lavish expenditure for only one-twelfth of the year. But then there are those who can afford such lavishness. Aren't there. At one of these holiday homes a photo was taken in August 2010. It was a photo of the owner. He was wearing a light-grey polo t-shirt and a pair of orange shorts. He was in pretty good spirits, it seemed. He was back last year, slightly earlier than normal in July. From his holiday home, an apartment rather than a house, he was able to make trips around the island. He visited Sóller, taking the train and hiring one carriage for himself and friends. The town's mayor, Carlos Simarro, greeted him as though he were royalty. He visited Alcúdia, where he dined at the Bistro Mar with an old friend, one of Telefonica's top men. He visited Palma where he had more to eat; it was a lunch date with an old colleague, the president of the Partido Popular in Palma, Jose Maria Rodríguez.

This summer, he will not be going to his holiday home. The apartment in Colonia will be empty and closed up. The owner will be going somewhere else. To a prison cell.

In August 2010, Jaume Matas, twice president of the Balearics, was in good spirits, despite knowing that not all summers in the future might be filled with days of wine and roses. In the back of his mind, he must have thought that one summer (perhaps several summers) would come along when he couldn't go to Colonia Sant Jordi. Or maybe he believed that those summers would never come. Charges for corruption that he and the rest of the world were aware of in August 2010 were just charges. Ever since, he has projected a persona of innocence, one of disbelief that charges could or should stick. Last July, he gave a press conference at a hotel in Colonia. He was coming on holiday and he was protesting his innocence. A few months earlier, he had been sentenced to nine months in prison for the trafficking of influence, a sentence which, to the surprise of many, had been reduced from six years.

Much has happened since last July. In November, and many of you will recall, there was some very bad weather in Mallorca. One particular storm hit Colonia Sant Jordi. Two pine trees fell down. They had given the holiday home some privacy. Now, it was exposed. The trees came down violently and suddenly. They were a metaphorical fall. It has been a very much slower process, but the fall of Jaume Matas has now been confirmed. He probably still doesn't believe that it's happening. How can they do it to him?

It has taken this length of time because Jaume sought a way of avoiding going to jail. He asked for a pardon. There was astonishment at the request. On what grounds? Astonishment or not, the request was processed. Some thought this process might take years. Maybe Jaume did, too. It didn't. Last week, he discovered that the pardon had been denied. The final say-so was had by his old colleague in national government, Mariano Rajoy, from the days when Jaume was environment minister and when another colleague in government was that top man from Telefonica, Eduardo Zaplana. Strictly speaking, it is the king who grants a pardon or doesn't. He does so on the advice of the government. Felipe was not about to make his first act as king a pardon for a politician found guilty of corruption. Nor would his father have made it his final act. Jaume has not spoken, but what must he be thinking? How could his old friend Mariano have allowed this?

In a few days, maybe this week, Jaume will enter prison. It will be a shock because he has given the impression that he believed it would never happen, that he was somehow above the law or at least capable of moulding the law to let him off. But he wasn't. The law, finally, has seen to it that he is imprisoned. And Jaume may himself, finally, realise that summers in Colonia will not be like they were. This summer might just be the first.

Mallorca's Greatest Scandals And PR Disasters

Here are just a few scandals and potential or real PR disasters that Mallorca has had to face over the past twenty years or so. One of them doesn't really belong here. Which one? You decide.

1. The Sóller Tunnel. The first great corruption scandal of modern, autonomous-government Mallorca. In 1989, the Balearic Government granted the concession for the building of the tunnel to a company owned by Antoni Cuart, a friend of the then president of the Balearics, Gabriel Cañellas. In that year, money started to be lodged in bank accounts. It came from Cuart, though he was to state in court that it was a company director, by then dead, who was responsible for administering payments. The money was used for Partido Popular electoral purposes and was channelled to the Balearic Islands Foundation, presided over by Cañellas, who was forced to resign as president. He was indicted, but the affair came to an end when the Balearics High Court closed the case in 1997. The charges were proven but those accused were acquitted because of the statute of limitations.

2. The eco-tax. Dreamt up by PSOE's Celesti Alomar, the tourism minister, and the minister for finance, Joan Mesquida, the eco-tax, officially and legally named the "tax for stays in businesses for tourist accommodation", was approved in 2001 and introduced from 1 May, 2002. The battle to prevent the tax's introduction saw the national Partido Popular government against it and the national constitutional court having to arbitrate. It decided against suspension of the tax, and so it came into being. At the time of its introduction, there was a slump in the German tourism market and, though it has been argued that the tax didn't contribute to a further slump, there were plenty who argued that it did. The PR fallout was felt in Britain, too, and when the PP came back to power in the Balearics in 2003, it scrapped the tax.

3. Jaume Matas and all that. Where does one begin with the corruption charges levelled against the former Balearics president? They all stemmed from what was known as the "caso Andratx", a series of charges brought against, among others, the former PP mayor of Andratx, Eugenio Hidalgo, in 2006. They all had to do with urban planning corruption. Hidalgo went to prison, but in the process of investigation, anti-corruption prosecutors and investigating judges began digging much deeper. One of the others who went to prison was the director-general for land planning in the Matas 2003-2007 government. The link was established. What followed were numerous separate investigations. These implicated not just members of the PP but also leading figures in the Unió Mallorquina, the PP's partner in government. These leading figures are all now in prison. Matas isn't, but he faces many charges which have yet to come to trial. And the most significant of the cases is one known as the "caso Palma Arena". It was this investigation which led to something even more scandalous.

4. Iñaki Urdangarin. He was just another member of the Spanish royal family, the husband of Princess Cristina, King Juan Carlos's younger daughter. He had been an Olympic sportsman and through marriage to Cristina, the Duchess of Palma, he became the Duke of Palma. He wasn't an obscure royal but he wasn't important either. He became very important, however, when Judge José Castro, investigating the "caso Palma Arena", unearthed some invoices which had been raised by the Instituto Noos, of which Urdangarin had been a co-founder, and sent to the Fundación Illesport, a body linked to the tourism ministry. They were for 2.3 million euros, and the final invoice was raised just before the 2007 election that Matas lost. The judge was interested in these invoices. Very interested. And he became interested as well in the role of the princess. The Mallorcan scandal became a Spanish scandal. Juan Carlos was embroiled in the scandal, and who is to say that the possibility of his daughter being placed on trial didn't contribute to his abdication?

5. The Palmanova bombing. Five years ago (the date was 30 July), two Guardia Civil officers were blown up by an ETA bomb that had been hidden on their patrol vehicle. It was Mallorca's first true atrocity by terrorists. The island went into lockdown but the terrorists were not found. The press, the British press in the form of "The Sun", did its best to turn the bombing and two subsequent minor incidents in Palma into a PR disaster. Its travel editor wrote that the bombs could spell the end of tourism in Spain and that tourists would avoid Mallorca. She was very wrong.

6. In a bar in Magalluf in 2014, an Irish girl was filmed while engaging in some action with over twenty todgers. The video went viral on the internet. No one died.

Cards Versus Corruption: What matters to expats

Tuesday was an eventful day in the Balearics parliament. It was a day which brought joy to expatriates. Their lives will soon be made that much more worth living. Oh, the convenience of it all. A lovely, lovely residence card replete with identifying photo and chipped fingerprints. Just like the ones the natives have. Rejoice, rejoice.

The Balearic parliament approved a motion calling for an end to the residence certificate, which not so long ago was reduced to a credit-card-sized piece of flimsy green paper but which lacks a photo unlike a health card or driving licence, both of which can do a reasonable job as means of identification but aren't complete (no fingerprints, for example). Parliamentary approval means comparatively little, other than adding more pressure on Madrid to get a move on and scrap the flimsy piece of paper and replace it with some plastic. Madrid has already agreed to this.

But never let the moment be missed for politicians to get in on a photo opportunity and appear as though they might have had something to do with this momentous decision. There was a beaming President Bauzá, radiant at the prospect that the bit of plastic in an expat's wallet might rub off on his party when it comes to municipal elections next year. Unfortunately, one can well believe that some expats might actually think that he was in some way instrumental, when he wasn't.

While the champagne corks were popping and expatriates could face a bright future with their shiny new piece of plastic and convict-style photo, parliament was engaged in other matters. One of these had to do with the minor issue of political corruption.

Jaume Matas, the one-time president of the Balearics and member of the Partido Popular, has sought a pardon from the national Rajoy government (and by extension, the King) which would mean that he would avoid doing nine months in choky. This was the greatly reduced sentence he received in respect of the first of various charges which he faces. Already having seen several years lopped off of the sentence, such judicial generosity hasn't been enough for Jaume.

The matter came before parliament. It is, like residence cards, not something over which the regional parliament has any real say. It can make its views known but no more. As such, it might have been considered irrelevant that the matter had even been raised, but it was relevant, highly relevant. Bauzá has made much of this PP administration being clean and of attempting to distance himself from the murky recent past in which Matas and others snorted around the sty as happy as political pigs in shit, gobbling up whatever was going.

The PP were content to vote in favour of a general motion against there being any pardons for political corruption. This wasn't good enough for the opposition on the left. They wanted a specific motion which would have called on Madrid to turn down Matas's request for a pardon. The PP refused to back this motion.

A justification for this was given by the PP's Miguel Jerez. He said that the motion led by the Més leftist grouping would personalise a specific case (i.e. Matas). The general motion that the PP favoured would avoid the need for any possible future debates if politicians on corruption raps also sought a pardon. In a rare moment of humour, he suggested that debates related to other individuals might require the use of an "indultómetro", a pardon-o-meter.

He may well have been right to suggest this, but of course the opposition were right to personalise the issue. Matas may not be the only Balearics politician to face further charges or to already have been sentenced, but he was at the top of the whole festering pile of corruption that has been exposed as having existed during his second period of office. He deserves the personalisation.

By having refused to accept the opposition's motion, the PP has risked looking as though it is soft on corruption and is unwilling to finger one of its own. As such, therefore, the corruption debate was both relevant and revealing. Yet, what was more important in parliament on Tuesday?

Expat convenience viz the residence card versus political corruption. There, in a nutshell, was an expression of priorities and concerns.

The Pardon Game

At the end of September, the journalist Antonio Alemany presented a plea for a pardon to be considered. He was seeking this pardon as a way of avoiding serving a prison sentence of two years and three months that was handed down at the end of a trial which also involved former president of the Balearics, Jaume Matas, and which resulted in Alemany having been found guilty of having received irregular payments, made from public funds, for speeches and articles he had written for and about Matas. The pardon plea was presented to the "Audiencia" in Palma, the court which had heard the case. As his sentence was for less than three years, the court had to accept that Alemany's entrance into prison would be suspended, pending the processing of the pardon plea.

Three weeks later, the court had to agree to his not entering prison because there was a possibility that he could serve his sentence but then receive the pardon. The fact that this was a possibility serves to highlight quite how slowly the judicial process can move. The court, in acceding to the plea, laid down certain conditions. One was that Alemany would have to report to police once a month, another was that, if the pardon process had not been resolved by May 2018, the case would go back to court in order to establish whether or not Alemany should indeed enter prison. By May 2018. Over four and a half years later.

It is not for the court to decide on the pardon plea. Its processing is undertaken by the national Ministry of Justice. It gathers all the information relevant to the case and this is then given to the Cabinet (of Mariano Rajoy) to make a decision. There is a minimum period that this processing requires. Approximately one year. As far as there being a maximum period, perhaps May 2018 gives an indication as to how long this might be.

Alemany is not the only defendant to have been found guilty to seek a pardon from the Prime Minister. A former colleague of Mariano Rajoy's in national government is also seeking one. Jaume Matas. He had initially been sentenced to six years for the same case as that involving Alemany. The sentence was reduced to nine months.

There is something of a convention that sentences for first offences of under two years mean that a spell in prison is avoided. Where Matas was concerned, it had looked as though this would be the case, but the court has insisted otherwise. Once it seemed as if he would have to enter prison, the pardon was sought.

In July, the former president of the Council of Mallorca, Maria Antònia Munar, went to prison to serve a sentence of five and a half years. In October, her lawyer, responding to confirmation of the sentence by the Balearics High Court, indicated that he might seek either a "recurso de amparo" or a partial pardon for his client. The "amparo", which would, in this instance, be granted by the Constitutional Court, is a legal remedy akin to habeas corpus. The word means protection, and its purpose is to protect citizens and to guarantee that basic rights are not being violated.

It would be unlikely that the Constitutional Court would uphold the amparo plea, as to do so it would need to establish that a fundamental right had been breached. Munar continues to argue her innocence, but her sentence has been upheld and she indeed faces, like Matas, other possible sentencing. Were a pardon to be considered, this wouldn't mean that she could leave prison. Once there, she stays there until or if it is decided she has been there long enough (less than the five and a half years in all likelihood). 

It has emerged that, prior to going into prison, Munar sought the help of three leading politicians with the PSOE party. They were the leader of PSOE and former national Interior Minister, Alfredo Rubalcaba, the former president of the Balearics, Francesc Antich, and the one-time director-general of the National Police and Guardia Civil, Joan Mesquida. Help was also sought from a fourth person, the Balearics chief prosecutor. In a letter to Rubalcaba, she pleads with him to intercede on her behalf.

These requests for help amount to requests for influence to be used. As such, they go to the heart of what lies behind corruption - the wielding of influence and the use or abuse of position and power. Are requests for pardons, directed in Matas's case at a former government colleague, not in a sense similar? To be met, they require those in power to not just wield influence but to make the decision.

What justifications are there for pardons? If convictions are wrong, then there are plenty. Have these convictions been, as Munar alludes to in her letters, the result of political persecution? If the convictions are right, then there are surely no justifications.

When Friendship Is Not Corrupt

Spain has slipped to number 40 in the worldwide ranking of corruption by country issued by Transparency International. This is a ranking which is called the "Corruption Perceptions Index". The title is quite important. While it can be relatively straightforward to highlight cases of corruption - as with those which come to courts - it is less straightforward to make tangible the intangible, an underlying sense of corruption or of not. The perception of corruption.

Some reaction to Spain's fall to number 40 has been predictable enough. On one side, it is a clear consequence of highly publicised corruption cases and is therefore unsurprising. On the other side, it means little because every country is corrupt and Spain is no more so than any other. Both reactions carry elements of truth but where the latter is concerned, it is far too simplistic a reaction. It is also, in a sense, irrelevant. While Spain can see where it ranks in relation to other countries, comparison really isn't the issue. What is, is that there is a stronger perception of corruption in Spain than in many European (and other countries), and such a perception goes beyond the highly publicised cases; it has to, as corruption is a societal matter as much as it is a political one. The perception is, in effect, a measure of the totality of corruption: how pervasive it is or is not; how rooted within society's mores it is or is not.

We are familiar with the highly publicised cases in Spain, be they those related to the caso Gürtel, to the King's son-in-law, Iñaki Urdangarin, and (though only possibly) to Mariano Rajoy, supposedly the recipient of illegal payments, as noted in the ledgers of former Partido Popular treasurer, Luis Bárcenas. That Rajoy has not been charged with anything, and probably never will be charged, does not reduce the perception of corruption. Quite the opposite. It is the very fact that he has appeared in the Bárcenas ledgers which just adds to the perception.

Mallorca has been described as being one of the most if not the most corrupt parts of Spain, the result of the numerous corruption cases that have arisen, especially since the end of the Matas government and the fall of his one-time partners, the old Unió Mallorquina party. Jaume Matas, a former president, is a high-profile case, so he is another reason for the perception of Spain's corruption being as it is. But of the Matas-related cases to have been brought to court thus far, there is evidence of the wider pervasiveness of corruption, even if this is not evidence of what we might typically consider to be corruption or indeed what many people in Mallorca might consider to be less than fully appropriate. Money doesn't have to change hands. Positions of power do not have to be given. All that is needed is a favour, one born out of what might even be thought of as a societal acceptance of the power of friendship - the "amiguismo" network, a phenomenon which is very much more pervasive in Spain and Mallorca than it might be in other countries. It has to be more pervasive. If it were not, then why is it so often referred to when it is not elsewhere?

Matas has just been found guilty of having abused his position in order to secure a job for his wife. His defence was that he was only doing what any "father of the family" would do. He almost certainly believed he wasn't doing anything wrong. Everyone does the same, or so Matas would doubtless believe. Everyone might do the same if they were in a similar position which could be abused and have a similar network of friends of whom a favour could be asked. Not everyone does, and so no, not everyone does the same. Only some.

Maite Areal, Matas's wife, received a salary of 42,000 euros for a job she never carried out. She was on the payroll of the Valparaiso hotel in Palma, a hotel which forms part of the Grupotel chain. Its president and founder, Miguel Ramis, himself a former mayor of Muro who has been disqualified from public office, told the court he had agreed to Matas's request as a favour.

So here is an example of how inappropriate behaviour extends its tentacles into wider society, the business world in this case, and in so doing, it casts a shadow over how that business world and the political world actually operate and interact. It casts a further shadow into Mallorcan society because of connections that a large hotel chain might have. And indeed the court also heard from another Miguel Ramis, one-time mayor of Alcúdia, himself associated with hotels, the PP's Balearics spokesperson and the nephew of the other Miguel Ramis. The appointment of Matas's wife was one based on friendship not on politics, he told the court.

Wheels within wheels, friendships within friendships. Not obviously corrupt. Just how it is. Perceptions count for a great deal.

* For the record, and so by way of comparison, Spain is not the worst of the European countries which once formed the pre-Soviet/Balkans break-up, "democratic" Europe. Italy is 69th, Greece is 80th. The most virtuous of these countries are Denmark (first), Finland, Sweden and Norway (third, fourth and fifth), Switzerland, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Germany, Iceland and, in fourteenth spot, the UK. Of non-European countries ahead of Spain are New Zealand (second), Singapore, Barbados, the USA, Chile, Qatar and Botswana.

Jaume Matas On Tour - Summer 2013

They should be selling T-shirts for Jaume, the comeback tour. Puerto Alcúdia, Sóller, Palma. Live at the Bistro Mar in the Alcudiamar, see Jaume eat some fish with a bloke from Telefonica. Sóller, witness Jaume with friends on his personally hired train carriage. Palma, on the Paseo Marítimo for more to eat with his old support act José Maria Rodríguez. In a summer of entertainment, no one entertains as well as Jaume. What does he do for an encore?

A man can have lunch, even a former president of the Balearics, but there is lunch and there is lunch and there is appearance and there is appearance. A man can have lunch, but does this man have no shame? It would seem not. Oh well, one trusts that the various political miscreants who weren't so lucky with m'lud's sentencing and who are having to make do with porridge instead are pleased to see that Jaume is enjoying such a summer of walkabout and of fine dining.

Unseemly is a way of describing the Matas summer roadshow. The Bistro Mar gig wasn't that bad in that his dining partner was only the former president of Valencia and now a colossally well paid senior manager with Telefonica, but in Sóller, the town's mayor, Carlos Simarro, appeared to think that Matas was paying an official visit. Jaume and José María may make a habit of breaking bread with each other during the summer, but José Mariá is that José María who made the phone call to Andratx's one-time mayor Hidalgo, soon after which documents began to be shredded, and the same one who was indicted over allegations of illegal financing of the Partido Popular and who, as a result, was removed from his post as government delegate for the Balearics.

But what to make of Jaume's jaunts these past few weeks? Was he angling for a job with Telefonica? He might have been but you would hope that Telefonica, one-time employer of Urdangarin, wouldn't put Matas on the payroll. Perhaps he just needed to have something to eat with someone who would have no problem picking up the tab. Wasn't Matas meant to have been reduced to virtual penury? Who knows who paid for the hire of a carriage on the Sóller train, an act of exclusivity that not even Felipe and Letizia engaged in last year when they went for a trip with the kids. There again, Matas turning up in Sóller was clearly like royalty paying another visit; Simarro seemed to believe so, at any rate. As for the meal with José María, Matas's lunch date from last year as well, the conversation was doubtless reserved for nothing more serious than the weather.

There is, though, a different way of looking at the Matas manoeuvres, as manoeuvres may be exactly what they are. Despite his still facing other charges which could yet see him in chokey and despite his having been totally discredited in the eyes of most of the populace, Matas would appear to harbour ambitions of a return to politics. Astonishing though this may seem, it is less astonishing when one appreciates just how great the rifts are in the Balearics PP. President Bauzá has opponents not only among the moderate, more Catalanist wing of the party, he also has rivals among the older guard, of whom Matas and Rodríguez are very much a part. This old guard tends to support Matas in his antagonism towards Bauzá who has shown him no support during his travails.

Whatever one thinks of Bauzá, he has at least tried to clean up the PP's act, his own difficulties in respect of his business affairs notwithstanding. He was clearly relieved when Rodríguez had to quit as government delegate, as his original appointment could only have been one intended to keep the old guard reasonably sweet. But he has confronted, as he would have known, the power of old friends, some of whom seem intent now on reasserting their power or at least demonstrating that they exert some; hence, Matas and his summer tour. It hasn't simply been a case of a few nice days out. It has been a reminder that he, Matas, is still around. It is a shameless performance, one typical of a politician who shows so little humility and so little remorse but rather enormous vanity, enormous ego and enormous and misguided superiority displayed towards Bauzá and the people of the Balearics. Jaume, the summer tour; don't anyone buy the T-shirt.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

A Nasty Smell Of Power

Let's not beat about the bush. There's no sympathy for Mallorca's politicians who, one by one, have been sent or are being sent to a prison cell. For so long they didn't go inside. Now they are going. Nadal, Buils, Munar. Enjoy your summer vacations.

No sympathy but a nasty smell. There is one name missing from the register of inmates. Jaume Matas. Ex-president of the Balearics. He can enjoy the rest of the summer at liberty. And he can thank the Balearics High Court for allowing him to put his feet up on a sun lounger rather than having to take a holiday in the company of two former tourism ministers.

Matas had been sentenced to a total of six years for various misdemeanours related to that part of the "caso Palma Arena" which had to do with irregular payments involving the journalist Antonio Alemany. The High Court has reduced this sentence to nine months. It has confirmed Matas's guilt on one count of corruption but has quashed the other charges. A nine-month sentence for a first offence means he will not go to prison; a two-year sentence is normally the tariff required to trigger actual incarceration.

The nasty smell emanates from the fact that, whereas Matas has had a significant reduction in his sentence, others, in a different case, have not been so lucky. Miguel Nadal, one of the former tourism ministers, has copped for four years. Francesc Buils, the other former tourism minister, has received three years. Both these sentences relate to the "caso Voltor", one that centred on irregular payments through the tourism ministry. Nadal and Buils will, by the time you read this, either be inside or be packing a bag and getting ready to go away for a stretch.

Maria Antònia Munar, the former president of the Council of Mallorca, has been sent to prison. She has managed to thus far rack up a total of eleven and a half years for different offences. The court in Palma, not the High Court, agreed that she should enter prison. Her case will doubtless go to the High Court, the one that has spared Matas but has condemned Nadal.

Munar, powerful woman though she once was, may not find the High Court to be as  lenient as it has been with Matas. One very big difference between, on the one hand, Jaume Matas, and on the other, Munar, Nadal and Buils, is that Matas was a Partido Popular politician; Munar, Nadal and Buils were all with the disgraced, now defunct Unió Mallorquina. And it is this difference that really causes the smell plus the fact, where Nadal and Buils are concerned, that they were comparatively unimportant and lesser political figures. They have been dispensable, and their dispensability owes at least something to their weakness; they, especially Nadal, just seemed to do what they had to do or what they were told to do.

There can be no sympathy and there is no sympathy for Nadal and Buils, but the shock that has greeted the reduction in Matas's sentence has been compounded by the treatment of these other politicians. They were different cases, but there is a real feeling of one rule for the powerful and one rule for the less powerful; for the dispensable.

Matas, prior to his reprieve, had spoken of the messages of support he had been receiving from former colleagues within the PP. He was at pains to point out that they were just friendly gestures, but the mere fact of them having been made has raised suspicions. Not for the first time, a leading politician, rather than a more lowly one, has been spared a spell in prison. And these leading politicians typically come from the ranks of the PP, though not exclusively; a case against the former PSOE minister, José Blanco, for trafficking influence, was recently archived by the High Court in Madrid.

Matas isn't completely out of the woods as he is implicated in other cases, but it has been put to me that he will end up avoiding prison. The sentence reduction reinforces a perception that the courts ultimately bow to pressure. Matas was not just a former Balearics president, he was also environment minister from 2000 to 2003 in the Aznar national government. 

But what of Munar? Not a member of the PP, will she prove to be dispensable? What has come out over the years since both she and Matas were first faced with serious charges is that both of them ran their parties in all-powerful ways. But while Matas might still be able to cling to some former power, what is there for Maria Munar to cling to?


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Palacio Of Follies

An organisation called One DMC Mallorca reckons that Mallorca has lost out on staging a hundred or so conventions because Palma's Palacio de Congresos is still a building site, one where there is no building actually taking place at present. How does One DMC Mallorca arrive at this figure? Anyone got the answer, because I don't know. It sounds like a good headliner though, but when the organisation issuing it is a group of travel agencies and events organisers that makes up One DMC it probably would be. One DMC has an interest in shaming the regional government into action and out of the inertia that has brought the Palacio building works to a standstill; it wants to be Run DMC, running events at the convention centre that occupies a prime seafront site in the Mallorcan capital.

Lack of finance, debt, a monthly cost of over half a million euros just to cover maintenance and security, no company willing to operate it, the partly built Palacio is a folly that assaults the senses and embarrasses all the thousands who pass it each day. It is a folly half-built on the folly of the grand project, just the type of project that has helped to bankrupt most regional governments in Spain. It is a folly that can be laid at the door of the Balearics president for grand projects. Who else but Jaume Matas.

In the scale of grand projects across Spain that have gone disastrously wrong, the Palacio is by no means the greatest disaster or the most expensive, but it is one that has been a disaster of vanity, vagueness, lousy timing and legal wrangle. Its justification was as a means of adding dynamism to the local economy and especially the local economy in the low and winter tourism seasons. It was a justification, however, that took no account and still doesn't take account of competition from popular convention centres on the mainland or of the low contribution that meetings and business tourism offers to the local economy - less than 1% of tourism business in 2009.

With the new Palacio, this less than 1% would rise one would hope, but to what level? A dream of boosting winter tourism is only as strong as direct international flights in winter; not that strong, therefore. Why do you suppose it was that the recent sports tourism forum at the Palma Arena was held in October and not in November? Flights would have been one reason.

Despite the vagueness as to just how much the Palacio would contribute, it was still just about justifiable to build it if only in the hope that it might make an increasing contribution and only if funds were readily available. Economic crisis has not helped where funding has been concerned but then neither has the legal wrangle helped, the one that led to the original operator and major shareholder, the hotel group Barceló, definitively pulling out of the project early in 2011, just a month before the Palacio had originally been scheduled to open.

Barceló headed the company that was awarded the concession for constructing and operating the Palacio and its hotel in early 2007. The consortium that made the award comprised Palma town hall and the Matas government. When Matas lost the election in spring that year, he soon left Mallorca for Washington. He went to work for Barceló.

The political complexion of the consortium changed after the election. It was no longer Partido Popular but PSOE. Two years after the 2007 election, Barceló announced that it was temporarily abandoning the Palacio project because of what were described as "legal and economic irregularities", one of the irregularities having to do with part of the land having been discovered to not be public property.

Barceló, which had bought out other members of the company and so by then owned 95% of the shares, took almost two more years to then come to its definitive decision to wash its hands of the Palacio. With its withdrawal, it was necessary for there to be a tender for a new operator. None was forthcoming. A second tender process brought an offer from the Melià hotel group, only for this to be rejected because it didn't meet certain conditions.

And so we are where we are now. Building has been suspended, there is no operator, the builders Acciona, part of the original company with Barceló, are owed pots of money, and the whole stupid folly stands there waiting the day when or if it might actually be finished. This stupid folly which offends and embarrasses.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

The Power Of Love: Jaume Matas

From the start of his second presidency until anti-corruption investigations began to unravel his world, six years had passed in the life of Jaume Matas. For each one of these years, he has now been condemned to serve the equivalent in prison. Possibly. At present, he remains at liberty. His sentence is to be appealed, the Supreme Court will be invited to ratify (or not) the decision of a Palma court, though there is still the small matter of numerous other trials that await Matas.

We now no longer have to pussyfoot. Or do we? Matas' lawyer argues that the higher court has often overturned decisions by lower courts, indeed he appears confident that the Supreme Court will overturn the sentence against Matas. In his view, Matas remains innocent. Can we dispense with the pussyfooting, or do we still have to resort to the "allegedly" caveat?

The essence of the first trial as part of the "caso Palma Arena" and of the guilty verdicts delivered against Matas, journalist Antonio Alemany, ex-director of government communication Joan Martorell and head of the Nimbus PR agency Miguel Romero was that Alemany received payments well in excess of what he was entitled to in writing speeches and glowing articles about Matas and his government and that Alemany's businesses, a news agency and an online newspaper, benefited from government funds.

Matas' offence, put in basic terms, was that he bought favours, while Alemany, condemned by the prosecution as being "fiercely independent except when it came to money and power", was happy to be the one being bought.

On the face of it, this has been an open-and-shut case of corruption in public office, but for journalists with the Spanish media reporting the case and now analysing its verdicts, there has to be a slight nag in the back of their minds. What Matas and the others did was to set up an arrangement that was not out in the open, unlike the system of government funds that have been paid, quite legitimately, to newspaper publishers. Alemany's online newspaper has made a point of itemising the payment of these funds. Alemany's independence was bought, but how truly can the Spanish press locally be said to be totally independent when it has been a government beneficiary?

Why, though, would Matas have gone to the lengths that he apparently did in order to obtain favourable press coverage? I'm not sure that this question has been adequately answered or even discussed. A hint as to the answer may lie with what has emerged of Matas, a man depicted as vain and a power freak who dominated his government. It is, without getting too deep into the psychology of someone known only through press reporting, a not untypical extension of a combination of vanity and power to also seek to be "loved". One way of doing so is to buy the right reporting. Another way is to buy something that will guarantee the love. Robert Maxwell was an example. When I once asked an executive at one of Maxwell's companies why he wanted to buy Manchester United, the answer was simple. He wanted to be loved by the fans.

It is still difficult, though, to really understand. Alemany wrote for a newspaper not exactly ill-disposed to the Partido Popular ("El Mundo") in any event. One has to presume that the arrangement with Alemany was one of guaranteeing that that fierce independence didn't suddenly include criticism. But it was also a case of power going to the head, of believing that anything could be done with impunity, including abuse of public office in blatantly manipulating the media (rather than the more subtle or less overt ways by which the press is influenced). In Matas and Alemany, from their performances and demeanour as reported and depicted in court (including the pre-trial declarations that Matas made), here were two people who appeared to mock the court, who gave the impression of being superior.

Ultimately, as the prosecution has put it, everything comes back to power and to money. And now that the court, notwithstanding the appeal and reference to the Supreme Court, has had its say, a "cascade" of repentance is expected from various of the accused in other parts of the Palma Arena case. The game is up, they might believe, and will have noted that neither Martorell nor Romero, who confessed, will actually go to jail. What more, though, awaits Jaume Matas? And what also now awaits the Duke of Palma, for whom the verdict, it is being said, has made his part in the whole affair that much more "complicated"?


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

MALLORCA TODAY - Matas gets six years

The sentencing of ex-Balearics president Jaume Matas and others in the first trial to do with the "caso Palma Arena" has resulted in Matas being given a six-year sentence.

Journalist Antonio Alemany has received a three-year and nine-month sentence; former government director of communication Joan Martorell has been condemned to a year and a half and head of PR company Nimbus, Miguel Romero, has received a sentence of one year, one month and 15 days.

Matas has been found guilty of abuse of public office, false accounting, fraud and misappropriation. The facts of this part of the Palma Arena case had to do with payments to businesses operated by the some-time journalist with the "El Mundo" newspaper, Antonio Alemany, which amounted to some half a million euros during Matas' period of office between 2003 and 2007.

The payments, described as totally unnecessary by prosecutors, were for articles that were favourable to the president and his government, while some other articles never actually appeared. In addition, Alemany, with government funds, was able to create a news website and news agency. This website is among those reporting the declarations by the court, one of which describes Alemany as "fiercely independent except when it comes to money and power".

Lawyers for Matas and Alemany have said that they will appeal against the sentences, while for the moment it is unclear whether they will enter prison immediately or not. The public prosecution had said that if the sentence for Matas was longer than five years that he should go straight inside, but it seems that no demand has been made on preventive grounds, i.e. that Matas might leave the country. As he has had his passport withdrawn anyway, this might seem unlikely. Ratification of the sentence by the Supreme Court could also delay any entrance into prison, and the delay could be as long as a year. Meantime, there will be other parts of the "caso Palma Arena" to be heard.

MALLORCA TODAY - First Matas sentence to be delivered tomorrow (20 March)

Prosecutors, lawyers and accused have been called to attend court in Palma at 11am tomorrow (20 March) to hear the decision of the court in respect of the first trial of ex-Balearics president Jaume Matas and others that took place in January. Prosecutors have called for a prison sentence of eight and a half years for the former president.

MALLORCA TODAY - Duke of Palma in court - day two

After the Lord Mayor's Show, this morning's events outside the court were quite different. It is Sunday morning after all. No more than 20 protesters, and the Duke arrived for the second day of declaration in a more relaxed mood.

The Duke is expected to insist that Princess Cristina had nothing to do with the Instiuto Nóos. Meanwhile, revelations keep emerging, the latest being the apparent existence of false invoices related to the European Games, something the Duke was involved with along with the Valencia regional government, but which didn't take place.

The Duke has said that the alleged contracting of phantom employees at the Instituto Nóos was a matter to do with his ex-business partner Diego Torres. He has admitted that he was involved with a regional government payment of 400,000 euros to the institute in respect of a sports promotional forum held in Mallorca but that the exact amount of payment was not something he controlled. He has continued to insist that he knew nothing about the network of companies with which he was said to be involved. Lunch taken at just after 14:00.

Update: The real-estate company Aizoon, in which Pincess Cristina was a partner, was the sole responsibility of the Duke, he has testified. Money from Nóos, it has been suggested, was diverted to Aizoon.

The judge lost patience at one point with the Duke's evasiveness and inability to remember, suggesting it might have been better had he not come to declare. After some 15 hours of questioning, the judge handed over to the prosecutors at around 17:30.

The Duke has accused Diego Torres of having negotiated contracts with local governments off his own back.

Update (20:30): The proceedings seem to be becoming increasingly absurd. Some lawyers are unhappy that the judge took so long in his questioning, and with others, in addition to the prosecutors, to lodge their questions, it is possible they could all be there into the early morning. How can anyone be expected to give reasonable evidence (or reasonable questions) after such a protracted session? They should call it a day and come back again. Ridiculous.

On and on they go. The judge has indicated that if there is to be an injunction served on the Duke it will not be today. There is also now a suggestion that, because of the evasiveness of the Duke, Princess Cristina may be called to declare. Thankfully, not today or nearly tomorrow. The prosecutors have just about finished their questions. It is now 23:30.