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Staff Reporter THE Balearic Parliament has narrowly rejected a motion calling for condemnation of the behaviour of a regional government delegation to Moscow as being “politically inadequate”.

Tabled by the opposition Socialist Parliamentary group, the call for rebuke comes in the wake of a scandal surrounding a public relations visit made by a Balearic team headed by Tourism minister, Joan Flaquer, to Russia's capital city earlier this year.

Some members of the delegation purportedly visited a night club, “The Rasputin”, after business was completed and expense chits were inadvertently later passed through regional government accounting systems for payment. As a result, a senior government figure resigned from his post.

Yesterday's Parliamentary voting revealed 27 votes against condemning the “political inadequacy” of the delegation, 25 in favour, and 3 abstentions.
Socialist Member of Parliament, Antoni Dieguez, also urged the President of the Balearic Islands, Jaume Matas, to dismiss Joan Flaquer who is also the official government spokesman.

Dieguez reiterated that the overall political responsibility for the actions of certain members of the delegation that went to Moscow should lie with the minister, in spite of the fact that Flaquer personally did not go to “The Rasputin”.

Answering for the Partido Popular Parliamentary group, Antoni Mari claimed that the explanations given by Flaquer of his own free will, were neither late nor contradictory, as was claimed by the Opposition. He praised Jaume Matas, who was not present for the debate, for maintaining Flaquer as a member of his cabinet and said that to keep bringing up the subject of the Russian night club is doing more damage to the regional government than the “scandal” itself.