WEEK IN REVIEW

The stories that made the headlines this week in Mallorca

Mallorca’s farmers versus Brussels

Farmers don't always get a good press, and this is largely because - as farmers feel - the press is selective in its reporting. While this may be the case in certain countries, e.g. the UK, it can't be said of Mallorca. The media is generally very supportive of the farmers and sympathetic to challenges they face, which are various. They range from pest to the weather to low prices paid for their products and to regulations.

More than anything, the tractor protest on Monday was about the EU - the bureaucratic “impositions” of the Common Agricultural Policy and the allowing of imports that aren't subject to the same requirements that EU farmers have to abide by. The protest saw around 300 tractors from across the island heading in convoy to the Spanish government's delegation in Palma. There was common cause, a united front of unions, agricultural business association and cooperatives. The protesters made clear that their grievances were not with the Balearic government, hence why they made for the delegation. It is the Spanish government which can exercise influence in Brussels, not the Balearic government.

Local politicians didn't miss the opportunity to make hay (so to speak). President Prohens stated that the agricultural and livestock sectors will be given “all the support they need”. The agriculture minister, Joan Simonet, regretted the growing disaffection towards the EU among farmers, while Prohens was careful to distance herself from Vox by not criticising the EU's European Green Deal, which is a factor in the grievances. The president then announced that there will be a new agrarian law to help make farming more profitable. Hmm, well, timing is everything with such announcements.

A garden for tourists

The opposition, in the form of Més, gave its support to the protests. The party's par

liamentary spokesperson, Lluís Apesteguia, observed that the protests had placed farming on the political agenda, “when normally it is not”. “We have to reflect on what we want farming to be in the future,“he added before linking this to tourism. “Farming should not be a sector that takes care of the garden that tourists look at.”

He was right, but then residents benefit as much from tending the landscape and maintaining beautiful vistas as tourists do. And as we head to spring, forecasts are that there will be more tourists than ever over Easter. The president of the Aviba association of travel agencies, Pedro Fiol, reckons that there will be 90% hotel occupancy, with the Mallorca Hoteliers Federation estimating that 70% of hotels will be open. In fact, according to Fiol, there has been solid demand since December. It isn't a case of hotels opening “purely on a whim”. Further confirmation of a 2024 tourism bonanza has come from the CEO of TUI, Stefan Baumert. The tour operator is anticipating a 15% increase in sales in the first quarter and Mallorca “is way ahead in terms of current bookings”. “We expect demand to be higher than ever this summer.” One trusts that they will all appreciate the garden that the farmers lay on for them.

Food poisoning - alleged and proven

For British holidaymakers, a very small number of them, that is, there is no longer the enticement of free holidays because of an alleged organised racket to make false compensation claims for food poisoning.

Arrests were made in 2017, and eight people remain accused of having encouraged holidaymakers at specific all-inclusive hotels to make false (and successful) claims in UK courts with no more evidence than a chemist's receipt for diarrhoea treatment. The holidaymakers benefited from the payouts that hotels had to make, as did those engaged in the gathering and then processing of claims. Allegedly anyway, as the Prosecutor's Office in Mallorca doesn't believe there is sufficient evidence to convict.

There will be a trial nevertheless, as there are three private prosecutions being brought by two hotel companies and the Mallorca Hoteliers Federation.

At the same time as a Palma court was ordering this trial earlier in the week, a different court handed out a one-year suspended sentence to the manager of the Dragon Sushi restaurant in Palma. This was in respect of the salmonella outbreak in August 2019; the restaurant was at the heart of it. There was an admission that sanitary conditions were inadequate and that these caused the food poisoning; 29 claimants