No more tourism promotion with the Sustainable Tourism Tax.

The government is distorting the eco-tax because it does not invest the funds in what the law says and mocks transparency and citizen participation. The administration is increasingly lax in its interpretation of the law and is deliberately and repeatedly ignoring all the participation mechanisms provided for in the ITS Law and regulations.

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The deadline for submitting projects under the annual plan approved at the end of July expired on 31 August. The environmental organisations demand that the decision-making spaces provided for in the ITS Act be made available so that they can influence the approval of the projects that have been submitted.

The justification that could have been provided by the COVID pandemic has fortunately disappeared due to the strong recovery of all productive sectors, stimulated by an excessive tourist season in terms of tourists, HPI and employment. Therefore, the information that Plan continues to formulate the provisions of Article 36 of Law 2/2020 on urgent and extraordinary measures to boost economic activity and administrative simplification in the field of public administrations of the Balearic Islands to mitigate the effects of the crisis caused by COVID-19 is now out of time and without any basis whatsoever.

At the Commission meeting prior to the approval of the 2023 Annual Plan, the Regional Ministry informed us (without any possibility of deciding) about the destination of the budget during the pandemic – when the tax was seized by the administration – The largest items were: transfer to the Councils (15M), Agency for Tourism Strategy AETIB (10M: tourist vouchers, concert 40 main, marketing …), ISBA guarantees to companies (7M), FOGAIBA (9M) …

Now that the effect of the pandemic has been overcome for the moment, we insist on the need to comply with the Bellver governability agreements regarding the revision of the ITS purposes: we must once again guarantee the provision of a purposeful tax, review the purposes, the decision-making process and guarantee transparency and real and effective participation of the decision-making bodies.

The approval in the Plenary of the Commission of the Annual Plan for 2023 with the reasoned vote against by Friends of the Earth and the absence of the GOB makes it clear that the intention is still to dispose of and pervert the initial objectives of the tax. Here are two samples of what was approved in the session on 28 July 2022:

1.- Creation of a working committee that will advise on the technical assessment of the subjective criteria, formed exclusively by general directorates of the government. Ignoring the provisions of the Law in relation to the instruments of participatory decision-making.

2.- Priorities of the 2023 Annual Plan (different from what is stipulated in the law, art. 19.3: “a) Protection, preservation, modernisation and recovery of the natural, rural, agricultural and marine environment”):
a) Mitigation and adaptation to climate change.
b) Access to housing and solutions to housing emergencies.
c) Sustainable blue economy, marine biodiversity and marine sciences.
d) Biomedicine and health sciences.
e) Sustainable mobility
f) Circular economy.
g) R&D&I projects, especially those linked to any of the sectors identified in the previous letters.

It is becoming increasingly clear that the ITS/tax is being distorted for the following reasons. Funds are being diverted to purposes other than those established by law. There is no willingness to open an open and participatory debate on the use of the funds collected through the ITS. This is in breach of point 91 of the Bellver agreements. Citizen participation in the executive committee and in the plenary session of the Commission is neither respected nor promoted. The projects financed are not available to the public, with an absolute lack of transparency. The designations of the “concepts of the approved items are totally ambiguous and confusing. This also opens up the possibility of proposing such dubious projects as the tourist promotion via influencers of Playa de Palma during the low season by the Palma Town Hall.

Environmental organisations demand a truly democratic functioning of the decision-making spaces foreseen in the ITS Law in order to be able to influence the approval of the projects that are presented. The environmental organisations demand that a working team be set up to review the aims of the ITS (art. 19.3), to draw up the strategy, at least for a five-year period, and that a process be opened to rewrite the composition, voting system and project evaluation.

We also demand:
● The promotion of citizen participation with popular consultations on the destination of the fund and by the choice of the projects financed (as provided for in Article 20 of the ITS Act).
● Publication of the funded projects on the Regional Ministry’s website, with detailed documentation on their characteristics and accounting.
To stop investing the ITS fund in tourism promotion, real estate development and other infrastructure and facilities that increase tourist capacity.