MATAS TO PUSH AHEAD WITH TAX SCRAP PLAN

BALEARIC president elect, conservative PP party leader Jaume Matas, repeated his determination to scrap the controversial tourist tax yesterday.
Despite disapproval from the Majorcan Union party, with which the PP has formed a governing coalition on the Council of Majorca, Matas made it clear that he wants to get rid of the tax, just 14 months after it was introduced. Matas explained that while the UM will govern the Council of Majorca alone as part of the deal struck, the tourist tax is an issue for his new government, expected to sit for the first time next week. “We promised to scrap the tax and we're going to comply with our promise,” Matas said yesterday on breakfast television. “The levy has damaged the Balearic tourist industry to the extent that instead of jobs being created, they are being lost,” he added.
This week, further messages of support for Matas's decision to do away with the tax were received from the international tourist sector.
The former Spanish Minister for the Environment said that one of the biggest mistakes made by the previous left-wing coalition was that while all the various parties which made up the out-going government pact were given special roles, no one actually took responsibility for anything. With regrads to the pact the PP has made with the UM in the Council of Majorca, a very clear programme of issues and policies has been drawn up and each party knows what it is responsible for and has to do.