The population of the Pitiusas has increased by 70% in the last 20 years, almost double that of the Balearic Islands as a whole, which was 39% (18% in Spain), while on the other hand has fallen 20 GDP points per capita on the islands, which causes “quite obvious problems”. With these four data, the president of the Autonomous Community, Francina Armengol, described yesterday, after the fourth conference of presidents (of the island councils) held in Ibiza, the problems suffered on the islands by the “overpopulation” and the effect on “basic services such as security, health, education and social services”.
The Balearic Ministry of Finance is preparing a diagnosis of the situation and demographic projection of the islands to present and introduce it into the national strategy to address the demographic challenge that the Government of Spain is working on. As Armengol explained, the State plan focuses on the opposite phenomenon to that of the islands: that of depopulation and its economic consequences. The Balearic Government intends to provide “the reality of the islands” and the necessary funding to deal with this overpopulation, not only in summer.
Over the last five years, the population of the Balearic Islands has grown by an average of 1.2% a year: 1.2% in Mallorca, 1.5% in Ibiza, 0.7% in Menorca and 0.1% in Formentera. As this upward trend is expected to continue in the coming years, the Balearic Islands will ask the state to plan public policies to compensate for the extra cost to public administrations. “The Balearic Islands need sufficient resources to ensure the provision of essential services to citizens in conditions equivalent to those of the rest of Spain,” states the document of the agreement reached by the four councils of the islands and the Govern for each island to contribute the specifics of each regional level for the diagnosis prepared by the Balearic Govern.
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