Marc Pérez-Ribas of Ciudadanos. | @ParlamentIB

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In parliament on Tuesday, Iago Negueruela insisted that the Balearics "are not competing with other destinations but with a virus". The tourism minister attacked the Partido Popular's Salome Cabrera for seeming to believe that "the virus is only here in the Balearics and that the vaccine factory is also here". "We should be serious when it comes to talking about when we should start our season, as this is a global problem."

Negueruela said that the Spanish government's plan for tourism reactivation has the "national market" in mind, but no one has spoken about the international market, "which is what concerns the islands". Tourism strategy, he added, needs vaccination and safe destinations.

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Marc Pérez-Ribas of Ciudadanos suggested that a government failure to suspend the tourist tax showed that the government "lacks empathy" with the productive sector. A suspension could have helped the self-employed, workers and small businesspeople, "who are forced to sell off their properties in order to save their businesses".

The minister replied by commenting that the government has made tourist tax modules more flexible, so that "no one pays for tourists who have not come". "It's not a question of withdrawing a tax, as this has made it possible to give aid to the self-employed."