The protest outside the government's headquarters on Wednesday. | gobmallorca.com

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A protest was held outside the Balearic government's Consolat de Mar headquarters on Wednesday. Organisations including environmentalists GOB and Terraferida were calling for "socioecological transition" and were critical of the urgent measures decree that the government passed last week. As with the financial crisis of 2008, it is a decree "to save businesses" in the tourism and construction sectors.

They felt deceived by the government and demanded social dialogue that goes beyond just that with business associations and unions. The GOB spokesperson, Margalida Ramis, said that organisations such as GOB had asked to be able to present proposals, but meanwhile "they were preparing the decree", which is "surrender by the left in the Balearics to neoliberal economics which doesn't think about people".

The decree, the protesters claimed, will ignore the powers of island councils, town halls and the Balearic Environment Commission and in many instances will not be able to guarantee sufficient environmental or democratic control. It is a "blank cheque" for the tourism industry, which will be able to proceed with grand projects "with fewer controls".

In exiting the coronavirus crisis, the government, in Ramis's opinion, was forgetting climate change, sustainable development objectives, feminism, social economic measures, and social dialogue. The government's "vaccine" will not solve all the challenges that society faces.

The theme of the protest was "life at the centre", with the principal demand being that recovery from the crisis should be based on the pillars of social and climate justice, agro-ecology, the social economy and solidarity.

Government vice-president and minister for energy transition and productive sectors, Juan Pedro Yllanes, said that the organisations were "exercising their right to protest and to express their opinions". They had the government's "total respect", and the government was always willing to engage in dialogue with "all the social and economic sectors in the Balearics".