Sorrier Seems To Be The Hardest Word

So there was I, not for the first time, labouring under a misapprehension of pronunciation. Sorry, sorrier, sorriest. The latter two, to me at any rate, sound odd in English, even if they are legitimate usage. The middle one - sorrier - doesn't sound odd if applied correctly (roughly speaking as it were) to the name of the national government's pantomime villain, José Manuel Soria. José Manuel is more sorry. He is sorrier.

Except of course that he isn't. José Manuel is not for apologising. Instead, José Manuel is for saying that's how it is, and you can lump it, the latest example of this take-it-or-leave-it attitude being reflected in the small matter of 63 million euros that the Balearic government would rather like to get its hands on and fritter away on Playa de Palma.

The problem, partly, is that José Manuel is none too convinced that what meagre amounts of investment for tourism purposes that Madrid has felt benevolent enough to transfer to the Balearic government's bank account have been spent wisely in the past. He may of course have a point, but such detail is of no importance to the current Balearic leadership. We want, nay we demand, our 63 million, and we demand it now. And with it, Playa de Palma will become Magalluf Mark II. Or something like that.

If it were all a simple case of justifiable spending of the nation's money, then this 63 million spat might be resolved with relative ease and a touch of maturity. However, it isn't so simple. One has to stress the "partly" nature of the problem. There are other parts which are somewhat larger and all a bit immature.

President Armengol tarried long enough at the World Travel Market to hear Soria not say that he was sorry and to hear him deliver a lecture against the evils of the tourist tax. Once he was finished, La Presidenta was there to deliver her own lecture, a public handbagging for national government enemy number one (a position Soria vies for along with Rajoy and Montoro). While she was launching into him, behind the pantomime villain - he's behind you! - was El Vice-Presidente, Biel Barceló, smirking with an ironic smirk. 

Were he to have to deal only with a PSOE-ist like Armengol, matters might be less fraught, but there are also the econationalists, i.e. Barceló, to contend with as well. Soria, solid Partido Popular citizen that he is, finds no common ground with such ecological self-governing tendencies, especially those that involve taxing tourists for whatever reason.

The withdrawal (or at best paralysing) of the 63 million smacks of being a punitive measure: a reprisal for the tourist tax. This may not be the reason, but perceptions suggest otherwise. And the one who did the withdrawing was Soria's number two, the Mallorcan Isabel Borrego, someone detested by the Balearic left and considered, how can one put it, rather ineffective by most of the tourism industry. Borrego seems to be the only aspect of Mallorcan and Balearic existence with whom or with which Soria can find common cause. In other words, he appears to have it in for the Balearics, regardless of which political party is in power.

This latest difference of opinion with the tourism supremo and his sidekick comes in the wake of several others, mostly all of which involved Soria butting heads with ex-president Bauzá. There is, therefore, form when it comes to Soria's dealings with the Balearic archipelago (and let it not be forgotten that he originates from a different set of sun-and-beach holidaying isles, i.e. the Canaries).

There was a time when Soria was declared persona non grata in the Balearics. He still is. This wasn't so much to do with tourism but with one of the other governmental hats he wears, that for energy. And energy means oil. The barrel of the gun that Bauzá pointed at Soria in having him firmly in his sights was principally one aimed at oil exploration off Balearic shores. However, there was more to it. Bauzá, it was widely suggested, also had Soria's job in his sights. This seems odd, now that Bauzá has been despatched to exile in the Senate chamber, but there was a time when he was a bit of a Madrid darling. So bad were relations between Soria and Bauzá that they once both contrived to avoid each other at the Berlin travel fair by pulling a sickie, having succumbed to the flu. The tourism industry was far from impressed by the fact that neither of them put in an appearance.

At least Soria was prepared to go to London (the flu season doesn't start for a couple of months yet), fully aware that the new guns of the Balearic government lay in wait to take a pop at him. Was he sorry or sorrier? No.

Out Of Sight ... The Balearics

Luis de Guindos, Spain's minister for the economy and competitiveness, was in Palma on Monday. The five-star Hotel Valparaiso was the setting for a conference to which he had been invited as a speaker. Its theme was "the keys to economic recovery in Spain". Perhaps Sr. de Guindos would have marvelled at one key to this recovery. He was standing inside it. The Valparaiso has been bought by Chinese investors.

The minister was able to explain how Spain was now on the cusp of economic recovery, the keys having already been partially turned, and the attendees were able to hang on his every word. And my, what attendees they were. Abel Matutes, one-time minister for foreign affairs and owner of the Ibiza-based Palladium Hotel Group; two from the family Fluxá - Lorenzo of Camper and Juan Antonio from Lottusse; the director-general for Santander Bank in Spain; members of the regional government; the director-general of Endesa in the Balearics; bosses of Alcampo and El Corte Inglés; representatives of business associations, such as the Chamber of Commerce. The great and good came to hear what Sr. de Guindos had to say and, for the most part, they were happy with his words.

But they weren't totally happy. Abel Matutes noted that de Guindos could have offered greater recognition of the Balearics. The president of the Balearics Business Confederation said much the same, as did the vice-president of Harinas de Mallorca, the flour makers. In a way, their remarks reflected the tensions which are apparent at governmental level. The regional government has its issues with Madrid over financing, as it does over oil prospecting. These are issues which further reflect a longstanding grievance in Mallorca and the Balearics; that the islands contribute much to the overall Spanish economy but are too easily disregarded or ignored. And such ignorance can lead to the occasional gaffe. Let us not forget Mariano Rajoy having referred to the "island of Palma".

This grievance may be purely one of perception, but might there be more to it? The Balearics have deputies in the national parliament. The islands have the odd representative within the upper echelons of governmental administration, such as the tourism secretary-of-state Isabel Borrego, but she isn't a cabinet minister, and when one looks at the background of the current cabinet, one begins to understand why there might indeed be more to the grievance than simply a perception of neglect.

Including prime minister Mariano Rajoy, the cabinet comprises fourteen ministers. Of this fourteen, four of the current incumbents are from Madrid: José Manuel García-Margallo, foreign affairs: Rafael Catalá, justice; José Ignacio Wert, education; and de Guindos. Three more - the vice-president Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, the interior minister Jorge Fernández and the minister for agriculture and the environment Isabel García - are all originally from the historic city of Valladolid in Castile and Leon, some 180 kilometres to the north-west of Madrid. Ana Pastor, the minister for development, is from Zamora, west of Valladolid.

But not hailing from Madrid itself has not stopped Sáenz de Santamaría having been a deputy for Madrid or Cristobal Montoro, the finance minister (from Jaén in Andalusia), having represented Madrid in Congress. Then there are the three ministers who have left the cabinet over the course of this administration: all from Madrid.

To these one has to take into account Rajoy from Galicia, where Ana Pastor was once the regional minister of health and José Wert was a deputy for La Coruña, and the two Basques - the ministers for defence and health, Pedro de Morenes and Alfonso Alonso Aranegui.

There are, therefore, only two ministers who are not part of a Madrid, Castile, Galicia and Basque elite of interconnection that resonates with the history of power in Spain. Madrid itself; the region of Castile which in essence was to create Spain and where, in the city of Valladolid, Isabel of Castile married Ferdinand of Aragon; Galicia, the region of Franco's birth and of Santiago de Compostela, the Saint James centre of Spain's religiosity; the Basque Country, historically one of the principal regions for banking and industry.

One of the two "outsiders" is José Manuel Soria, the minister for tourism, industry and energy, and thus Isabel Borrego's boss. He is from Las Palmas in Gran Canaria, as far from Madrid as it is possible to get. He is from the "other" islands, but he is not welcome in the Balearic Islands because of the oil issue. It might be said that he has gone Madrid native in disregarding Balearic sensitivities over oil.

When one considers the cabinet make-up, one can see why there might be more than just perception at work. This might equally apply to other regions of Spain, but those regions are closer to home; home being Madrid. Too little recognition of the Balearics? It might not be all that surprising.

Persona Non Grata: Persona nonsensical

Can you name any well-known people who were declared persona non grata? If not, then let me offer you a few (well, three anyway): Kurt Waldheim (allegations of Nazi war crimes and so given persona non grata status in the US among other countries); Queen Victoria Eugenie of Spain (the Italians booted her out in 1942 because she had sympathies with the Allies); Jörg Haider (the Israelis declared him non grata for fairly obvious reasons).

Persona non grata is used in diplomatic circles. The Vienna Convention says that a state may "at any time and without having to explain its decision" declare a member of diplomatic staff persona non grata, a declaration that usually leads to expulsion from a country. Persona non grata, by definition (diplomatic definition at any rate), has to apply to someone from another country. It cannot apply to someone from one's own country. Except in Spain, or specifically the Balearics, where it does.

When countries engage in a spot of non-grata-ing, there is usually a tit-for-tat response. You make our chap persona non grata, we'll make your chap persona non grata. So there. The Balearic Parliament has managed to introduce the same principle, substituting left and right for country X and country Y. Even by its pretty low standards, the parliament has plumbed even greater depths of stupidity by entering into a tit-for-tat non-grata-ing carry-on.

The background is of course oil, the subject which dare not speak its name with any modicum of measured debate, and the last place you will get any measured debate is the parliamentary playground. David Abril is the leader of the merged Iniciativa d'Esquerres (initiative of the lefts) and Els Verds de Mallorca (greens). This merged entity forms part of the Més per Mallorca coalition. Eco-socalism is an ideology to which David is partial and as such you would imagine - and you would be right - that he isn't overly keen on oil companies drilling ruddy great holes in the seabed near to the Balearics. As part of the parliamentary debate (if one can call it that) about oil exploration, David called for national energy minister José Manuel Soria to be declared persona non grata.

Having done so, the tit-for-tat started, the Partido Popular's spokesperson, Mabel Cabrer, calling for not one, not two, but three politicians from the left to also be declared persona non grata. They were, in descending order of importance, former prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, former president of the Balearics, Francesc Antich, and ex-minister for the environment in the Balearics, Gabriel Vicens. Why was she picking on this triumvirate? Because it's all their fault, this oil malarkey. Nasty, horrid socialists that they are. Nothing to do with us in the PP or with nice Sr. Soria. And in fingering Vicens, Mabel struck a deep wound in David's eco-socialist heart, as Gabriel is of a similar bent and a member of the PSM Mallorcan socialists, one part of the Més fraternity.

What neither David nor Mabel was able to explain was quite how persona non grata status might work in practice, especially where Antich and Vicens are concerned. As they both live in Mallorca, would it be the intention to force them into exile to Benidorm or somewhere? But of course, silly me, persona non grata doesn't really mean what it normally means (at least I don't think it does). It is a yah-boo, sucks to you, we're going to ignore you type of persona non grata; a sending to Coventry persona non grata, always assuming that Coventry doesn't invoke the Vienna Convention.

In fact, the resort to the non-grata mechanism is pretty common; so common that it is utterly meaningless. Just as an example, President Bauzá and agriculture/environment/transport ministerial supremo Gabriel Company both copped for some non-grata-ing from the train platform in Mallorca's Llevant region last year. This wasn't an actual platform because there are no platforms and there are no trains, which was the whole point; a group (the platform) in favour of the train that will not run from Manacor to Artà wanted Bauzá and Company to be declared personas non gratas, which presumably meant that they would get a frosty reception were they to set foot in Son Servera, Sant Llorenç or Artà ever again.

The calls in parliament were, as with other similar demands for persona non grata, pretty puerile and they also obscured whatever sensible discussion there may have been on the oil business. But as we know, there is very little that is sensible, just name-calling and tit-for-tat posturing in what - the parliament - is supposed to be the islands' premier debating chamber. That it is not, and so lamentable is its attempts at debate that perhaps the whole lot of them should be declared persona non grata.