The civic ordinance of Palma has been approved and is expected to come into force in May, once the text is published in the Official Gazette (BOIB). After months of debate since the initial text was presented in November, the City Council has removed the controversial wording that penalised living in motorhomes, sticking to the provisions of traffic regulations, and has also introduced changes to another of the points that generated the most protests in the plenary sessions, the regulation of street artists.
The Councillor for Public Safety, Miquel Busquets, defended the ordinance during its approval, arguing that it ‘is not merely a compilation of penalties, but a commitment to a more orderly and cleaner city, where individual freedom is exercised in harmony with collective rights and civic-mindedness is not an exception, but a daily practice’.
The councillor stressed that the ordinance aims to put an end to ‘noise late at night, vandalism of heritage and the inappropriate use of public space’, among other issues; new rules, Busquets emphasised, that are not ‘a point of arrival but a starting point’. The head of Public Safety highlighted that the section on scooters addresses a ‘legal loophole’ in Palma's regulatory framework. Scooter drivers will have to have compulsory civil liability insurance with a minimum coverage of £120,000 and wear an approved helmet.
Although Vox called for specific spaces for caravan owners, its six councillors supported the text because, although they believe it could be improved, ‘what has been done is much better than what was there before’, in the words of Fulgencio Coll, who denied that the vulnerable were being ‘criminalised’ but rather that ‘a balance between rights and duties was being sought’.
This is a radically different stance to that taken by the left-wing. ‘You don't care what happens to the citizens of Palma, you just want to look good. You don't like caravans in neighbourhoods or artists on the streets, even though they have been regulated for years. You are elitist and classist, and your actions prove it. You (the mayor) are classist because you park your car in Plaza Santa Eulàlia and the police don't fine you,’ said Angélica Pastor (PSOE).
The spokesperson for Més, Neus Truyol, accused the PP of ‘persecuting those who think differently and criminalising poverty’, while Lucía Muñoz (Podem) paraphrased Pope Francis' words in favour of the vulnerable to denounce the “hypocrisy” of the City Council (which moments earlier had observed a minute's silence for the pontiff). In addition, Muñoz hinted that the ordinance ‘will not stop here.’