Mick's Your Més Man

"Més seem to have no idea where they're going - how much they'd love Ensenyat to say yes, but he wants to stay at the Council of Mallorca."

I wrote this three weeks ago. It was in light of the opinion poll which confirmed that Més were leaking support. A revival of fortunes appeared unlikely. With Biel Barceló, the one Més politician of real substance in government and parliament circles, having been ejected from the frontline, the party was left with less than substantial leadership. Barceló was never in any event going to be a candidate for the Balearic presidency in 2019, but he remained a definable face of the party. Despite the controversies about the contracts and the trip to the Dominican Republic, he was still more asset than liability.

Prior to Barcelo's resignation in December, Més were already riddled with division. The party was aware that Barceló had no intention of standing in 2019, so the question was arising as to who would. Més, a coalition essentially of the PSM Mallorca Socialist Party and the Iniciativa Verds, had begun to show its fault lines, and the more dominant element - the PSM - was getting twitchy. The main candidate appeared to be the social services minister, Fina Santiago, and Fina is not a member of the PSM; she's from the Iniciativa.

When Barceló did resign, it had seemed as if Fina was nailed on to become the new government vice-president. This was before the PSM machinery moved into gear. The vice-president (and tourism minister as it was to also turn out) would be Bel Busquets. Fina has never said anything, but there was an unmistakable sense of her having had the right hump as a result. And she wasn't the only one. Outside of Més, Bel was not looked upon favourably; President Armengol clearly didn't want her.

Since Busquets was catapulted into her dual positions in the government, it has become apparent that she doesn't actually have much support within the PSM rank and file either. Hers, to be blunt, was a terrible appointment, one that was transparently motivated by a PSM determination to dominate Més. The opinion poll ratings are only destined to slip further, unless Més get a grip on where they're going.

Adding to the division within the party was the attitude of Santiago to the contracts affair and then also the Barceló trip. She was more forthright in suggesting he should go because of the Globalia "gift" of the few days in the Dominican Republic than she had been over the Jaume Garau contracts. She had nevertheless implied that more heads should have rolled than the one minister's which did. The PSM, closing ranks around Barceló, didn't take kindly to that.

So, Més have found themselves with two candidates for the presidency who are both, in their different ways, unacceptable. The party needs the cavalry to come and rescue it, and the cavalry charge consists of one person - Miquel Ensenyat, the president of the Council of Mallorca.

Ensenyat has said in the past that he wants to stay on at the Council. Having spent his time as president bolstering the role of the Council, to such an extent that it is appearing more and more like a government in its own right, his intention has been to go for re-election next year. He has also said in the past that he believes Santiago would be the best presidential candidate in 2019. Was he just being diplomatic or did he mean it?

One suspects that it was the latter, even if he now says that he would get a better result than Santiago in a selection run-off. An observation of Ensenyat is that he isn't quite the whole Més (PSM) insider deal. There is an element of distance between him and the party machinery. Nevertheless, Més - if only one faction - know that he is really the outstanding candidate. And it now seems highly likely that he will put his name forward at the primaries for selection. Busquets might struggle to beat Santiago. Ensenyat would have no such problem.

What is it about him that makes him such a strong candidate? One aspect is that distance. He gives the impression of being his own man. As such, and he has demonstrated this at the Council of Mallorca, he is able to draw people together, not divide them. His time as president hasn't been all a bed of roses, and there will be many who disagree with his policies, but he has succeeded in creating a unity with PSOE and Podemos that has been missing from the government and also at Palma town hall.

Ensenyat has his ideologies, of course he does, but they are modified by his being a sympathetic character. If he is confirmed as the Més candidate, it would be a surprise if the party doesn't experience a revival.

The Re-Expanding Council

We need to talk about the Council of Mallorca. Expansionist tendencies have returned. Munarism, even Armengolism appeared to have been consigned to the empire-building waste bin, but only because of Salomism. And she - Maria Salom - now has to watch on from the national government's delegation building while the Council undertakes its 100% U-turn. Or more than 100%.

The Council president, Miquel Ensenyat, seems like one of those rare political beasts - a decent enough bloke. He has had his moments, such as the row over Extremadura farmers being paid to sit around in bars all day, but for the most part he's gone about his presidential business without courting any major controversy of copping for any great flak. He has also not been shy in attracting publicity. There was the visit to Greece to come to the aid of refugees, there has been the recent business about Saint Valentine's Day, there is the "rescue" of the Soller Tunnel, there was the meeting with the Pope to press the claims of Ramon Llull sainthood, and there is now the re-naming of the airport ... after Ramon Llull.

Taking the lead in calling for a new airport name, and insisting that Aena pays for it, speaks volumes for the way in which the Council has been adopting an agenda-setting profile. One might ask why it is doing so. The answer lies - or does it? - with wishing to promote Llull and an alternative image for Mallorca: alternative to sun and beach, that is. There is a good deal of scoffing at the idea, though it might be recalled that a poll indicated that some three-quarters of respondents thought Llull should be the name, if there is to be a new name at all, which is another matter.

Those three-quarters will have predominantly been Mallorcan. They confirmed what Ensenyat is pressing for, a symbol of Mallorcaness, which is reasonable enough, but such Mallorca-centricity overlooks the wider world which Llull would supposedly be exposed to. The wider world really couldn't care less, and it's worth asking what the now finished year of celebration of Llull has achieved. Is the world more knowledgeable of Llull as a result? Well, is it?

Llull, whether he becomes an airport or not, is thus principally for Mallorcan (and Catalan) consumption. Emblazoning his name across departures would be a deeply significant act of identity, and it would be the Council that promoted it. And the Council is all about embedding this identity - one that is Mallorca. But in order to truly establish this identity, more has to be done than adopting the name of a mediaevalist. There is political identity, and that means government.

Recently, Ensenyat was asked whether he might stand as a Més candidate for the regional parliament (and therefore possibly the regional government) in 2019. His reply was instructive. It sounds, he said, as though there is a division one and a division two, with the regional government the number one. That isn't how he sees things. It would be good, he intimated, if he could secure a second term at the Council, for which he envisages very much greater things. The regional government should be slimmed down. Responsibilities should be transferred to the Council (and to the councils on the other islands). Not just responsibilities, but also officials, buildings - the lot.

Ambitions for the Council as an institution are rooted in the fact that it pre-dated the regional government: the first elections were held four years before those for the government. As an entity it has historical antecedent - the great and general council of the island, which brought together institutions for Palma and the "part forana", was established in 1373. History, as if we didn't know, counts for an awful lot in current-day Mallorca politics, not least when it comes to assertions of island "nationalism".

Ensenyat and Més represent one particular take on this nationalism. The alternative, as in having been a centrist-right perspective, was that of the former Unió Mallorquina. Maria Antonia Munar was the UM president of the Council for twelve years, the longest serving president, and during her time the Council grew to a degree that it seemed to all but mirror the government. A consequence of this was the massive amount of duplication and no shortage of debate as to what the purposes of the two institutions were and as to whether one was dispensable.

It was Salom who took the knife to much of this duplication. She got rid, for example, of TV Mallorca, established by the Council under Munar. Ensenyat, acutely aware of the charges of duplication (and therefore additional cost), argues that transferring responsibilities to the Council will be the way to avoid duplications. He may be right, but at the heart of these ambitions is the Council as an expression of nationalism, for which Llull is symbolic.

Mick And The Illegal Refugees

The Banbury Boy, Mick of the Consell, has been receiving plaudits. Allow me if I may to quote from Joan Riera writing in "Ultima Hora". "Miquel Ensenyat is becoming a rising star within the Balearic left. In a few months he has achieved extraordinary success by uniting all the left that governs the island institution ... He is demonstrating empathy and leadership skills that might even create jealousy within his own party." Joan was thus issuing a warning while at the same time praising Mick for soaring above the "mediocrity that is the norm in a land like Mallorca". More than anything he has achieved what the mediocrity of the regional government has been unable to. At the Council of Mallorca there aren't the interminable squabbles that are the consequence of a PSOE-Més-Podemos ménage à trois.

It isn't perhaps all that surprising. Unlike for the government, when the negotiations were taking place to decide who should be president of the Council, there was an absence of posturing and thinly veiled threats. Mick emerged as the Més president in harmony with his vice-presidents, Francesc Miralles (PSOE) and Jesús Jurado of Podemos. Consensus and dialogue may not extend as far as the Partido Popular, as one its spokespeople said last week, but when it comes to the comrades Mick is all ears.

It was all the more unfortunate, therefore, that this ringing endorsement of Mick's ability to govern in alliance with something that doesn't resemble a primary school playground should run up against dark forces of the German right-wing. Mick will now be issuing instructions that someone takes a good look at Google before attending symposia on the progressive development of international law with certain Germans.

What happened, you see, was that the week before last there was a symposium on this subject that took place in Palma. There was a nice photo of participants which showed Mick next to a dapper chap dressed all in black. Which might seem rather appropriate. He was Karl Albrecht Schachtschneider. Among other things, Karl Albrecht is an expert on "secessionist processes", which in good Mallorcan left-wing nationalist terms - which Mick is - means the likes of Catalonia becoming independent. However, Karl Albrecht has also associated himself with the likes of the AfD, Alternative für Deutschland. If you are unaware of what it stands for, then Karl Albrecht's views on immigration might provide a clue. He said recently that refugees have no right to enter Germany. They are illegals.

Apart from inadvertently having found himself photographed next to a voice that edges to the far of the German right-wing, Mick was also next to someone whose views on refugees are totally opposed to those of Mick, who has of course been needing to explain why he went to Chios on a fact-finding mission as part of the process of handing over Council aid for refugees.

When this all came to light last week, there were mutterings of it having been a "desastre" for Mick. Some of the jealous ones might well have been pleased.

Oh well, even the most empathetic of leaders can have their off days. Put it down to experience.

From Banbury Cross To Extremadura

Extremadura is a region of Spain north of Andalusia that nestles next to Portugal. The name comes from "extremo", the generally accepted view being that it was the land furthest from Castile and Leon at the time of the re-conquest and so the furthest but also first line of defence against the Islamic occupation. It is at the extremity of Spain, which implies a certain remoteness and distance, and, more than just geographically, it is. This is a land which is one of the poorest regions of Spain. Its population is roughly similar to that of the Balearic Islands (around 1.1 million), yet its area is vastly greater. Its economy is predominantly services based and great strides are being made to develop its tourism - it is actually one of the more innovative and proactive regions of Spain in this regard. But it is also agricultural, known for the production of tobacco and charcuterie. And its farmers have found themselves in the middle of one almighty great political spat.

Miquel Ensenyat, the president of the Council of Mallorca, was born in Banbury. It is unlikely that the infant Miquel ever became familiar with the competing versions of the Banbury Cross rhyme, but had he, then he would have known the one involving Tommy buying a penny white loaf, a penny white cake and a two-penny apple pie. In the rural Oxfordshire of the eighteenth century, they wouldn't have been reliant on handouts through a redistributive system of tax income, but were the rhyme to be updated and placed in a Spanish context, Tommy would be buying his penny white loaf with a penny derived from Balearic tax revenue, and Tommy, moreover, would have relocated: to Extremadura.

While the children of the Balearics go to school with colouring crayons of thirty-year vintage, the children of Extremadura arrive at their schools with brand new tablets. This was an observation made by Miquel in an interview for "El Mundo" which has blown up in to that almighty great spat. A further one had to do with the farmers of Extremadura. They get paid salaries so that they can go and sit in a bar. This was not an original observation, as some years ago the leader of the UDC (Catalonia Democratic Union), Josep Antoni Duran, had said this of the Extremaduran farmers.

In one respect, drawing on a remark by Duran, might seem odd. The UDC is not what you would call left-wing, unlike Miquel and his party (Més, aka the PSM, Mallorcan Socialists), but the UDC is a Catalonian nationalist party, and it is this nationalism which forms part of the row and the exchanges of opinion between Ensenyat and the PSOE president of Extremadura, Guillermo Fernández Vara, to which have been added the views of any number of other politicians, both in the Balearics and Extremadura.

The spokesperson for the Extremadura government, Isabel Gil Rosiña, has referred to the creation of "unnecessary tensions" raised by people who want to "separate", by which she means nationalism and independence - Catalonian independence, something which Ensenyat favours, as he also favours a political federation of the Catalan Lands of which the Balearics would be a part.

At the heart of all of this, as it has been for years and so since Duran made his original remark about the Extremadura farmers, is money. Nationalism aside, it is the system of financing which is what Ensenyat was referring to, one under which the Balearics (and Catalonia) end up in effect subsidising regions of Spain such as Extremadura. The Balearics, with an almost identical population, raises vastly more in revenues than Extremadura does.

Vara, for his part, says that the children's tablets are not paid for with Balearic money but with the region's own finances, part of which come from the fact that, for all that it isn't that wealthy, it creates more energy than it needs. It benefits from the tax pot, but it gives back in a different way. Regardless of this and regardless also of nationalism, the system of regional financing is one that generates considerable heat, which is why President Armengol is so keen to pursue a better deal from Mariano Rajoy.

Armengol and PSOE have been embarrassed by Ensenyat's comments, though they are saying very little about them. Biel Barceló of Més has said they were "unfortunate" but prefers to attach the blame to Madrid. The people of Extremadura and the Balearics are not responsible for conflict or disputes over financing, Madrid is.

The fallout from the spat is unlikely to claim Ensenyat, although Xavier Pericay of the anti-nationalist Ciudadanos has said that he should resign. Jesus Jurado of Podemos, represented at the Council of Mallorca, has been equivocal in his support of Ensenyat, but he says of him that he doesn't mince his words. Perhaps not, but sometimes they might be chosen with greater care.