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The blocking of weeks in Spain is taking effect, half of the country can relax the exit restrictions on Monday. But de-escalation does not make everyone happy. In Mallorca there is ranting and asking for help, also towards Germany.
In half of Spain, exit restrictions in the crown pandemic will be relaxed on Monday. The decision of the central government of the left is not only causing displeasure in those regions that are not yet enjoying the relaxation. Mallorcans are also dissatisfied, although hotels there have been reopening for the first time in two months, and restaurants and bars in the outdoor area can accommodate guests once again. “Alone: customers are missing,” wrote the “Mallorca Zeitung.” The weekly newspaper predicted the weekend, so “almost all the houses” would remain closed on Monday.
The director of the association of Majorcan hoteliers FEHM, María Frontera, made a similar statement in the radio interview. The director of the German hotel, Christoph Gräwert, said: “Why should we open when there are no flights with which our guests can arrive?” In addition, “it is not yet clear what safety standards we have to comply with,” quotes the “Mallorca Zeitung”, head of the 900-bed “Samos” house in the Magaluf spa, west of the capital, Palma. “This relaxation is not a whole or a half,” complains Spaniard Joan, who runs a souvenir shop in Ballermann, the party area on the Beach dominated by German visitors.
The central government had announced on Friday night that on Monday, along with Mallorca and the other Balearic Islands, another ten out of a total of seventeen “autonomous communities” could enter “phase 1” of the downscaling plan, including the Basque Country and the Canary Islands. In addition to restaurants, churches and museums, they can also open their doors here. You can meet friends and family again. In compliance with safety regulations, meetings of up to ten people are allowed outdoors and at home.
Madrid would like to go further
This does not apply to Madrid, which initially remains in “Phase 0”. In other regions, such as Catalonia or Valencia, relaxation is only allowed in some areas. Like Madrid, the Catalan metropolis of Barcelona, including the province of the same name, has to “stop”. In Andalusia, the immensely economically important holiday areas of Malaga and Granada are not included.
The Madrid region, which with almost 65,000 cases of infection and almost 8,600 deaths is more severely affected by the pandemic than any other in Spain, unlike the province of Barcelona, which still admitted deficits, wanted to go to the “Phase 1 “on Monday. When Sánchez’s “no” came, opposition leader Pablo Casado of the conservative Madrid-based Popular Party (PP) accused the socialist of trying to cover up his “miserable management” by criticizing the region. The regional president of Andalusia, Juan Manuel Moreno, also a PP man, spoke of an “insult”.
The so-called state of alarm has been in force throughout Spain since March 15 and at least until May 23. As part of the third-highest level of emergency, there is also a strict exit ban, which was only lifted a week ago. So far, according to authorities, more than 220,000 infections have been detected across the country, and more than 26,000 people with Covid-19 have died. With a four-stage plan, Sánchez’s left-wing government wants to bring the country to a “new normal” in late June.
Nothing happens in the next month.
At the earliest, the Spanish will be able to leave their province of origin. As a result, current guests from the mainland will not be able to return to the Son Sant Joan airport in Palma in at least six weeks. Currently, no one dares to predict when guests from abroad can be received again. “Only with the tourists of the island we do not make the business work”, warns the president of the Association of Hoteliers of Palmanova-Magaluf, Mauricio Carballeda. “A panorama full of question marks”, titled “MZ”.
The fact that the German government’s tourism officer, Thomas Bareiß, no longer excludes summer holidays in the Mediterranean, and that Lufthansa re-announces flights to Mallorca, among other things, on June 1 is recognized on the island with a skeptical smile. Hotel representative Frontera expects tourism to start slowly in July. “But that depends on many factors,” which was also decided in Brussels, he warned.
Mallorca in particular cannot wait long for standardization. A study by Banco BBVA said that the economic performance of the Balearic Islands will decrease by 17 percent in 2020, almost double that of Spain. In April, the unemployment rate increased 62.1 percent compared to the same month last year. That was the largest increase in Spain. The regional president, Francina Armengol, recently asked for help from Madrid and Brussels. The “Mallorca Zeitung” looks in a “different direction” in the “dramatic situation”. It is “time for German solidarity”, he is the owner of an editorial in the online edition. “There are people here and today on the island who don’t know what to eat tomorrow. And things will get worse,” the newspaper warned.
