Foreign vote loses weight as numbers fall in Balearics

Palma.—The major drop in British and German residents in the Balearics could mean that local political parties will not pay so much attention to foreign residents in the European elections this year and the local elections in 2015.
Non-Spaniards from European Union countries living in the Balearics can vote in the European and local elections and at one stage it was believed that they could tip the political balance in some areas of the islands.
However, figures from the census released this week say that the number of Britons registered has fallen from 23,808 in 2012 to 18,232 in 2014.  The fall in German residents is even bigger from 36,758 in 2012 to just 23,511 in 2014.
While some people may doubt these figures you have to be registered to be able to vote and therefore they are accurate in this instance.  In other words an estimated 13,000 German voters and 5,000 British voters have been lost in the space of two years. If you take into account that the turnout among expatriates in the last council elections was about 25 percent then the  vote figures become even more insignificant. In areas such as Calvia and Pollensa and Alcudia the non-Spanish foreign vote is key and I suspect that local political parties will be looking for their support. But the falling numbers may make political parties think twice.
The recession, the drop in the value of the pound sterling against the euro, too much red tape and a crackdown by the Spanish taxman have all been blamed for the fall in the number of foreign expatriates. The Moroccans have now overtaken the Germans as the top nationality in the Balearics and the Chinese are the only nationality in the islands whose numbers have actually  grown.