In a meeting on the 8th of May with some members of the local government, leaders of the Popular Party in the Balearic Islands and the MEP Rosa Estarás, the Association of the Nautical Trade in the Balearic Islands (AENIB) requested an effort to be made to harmonize the VAT paid on nautical charter with the rest of our neighbours. The president of AENIB, Margarita Dahlberg, took advantage of the occasion to express gratitude towards the local government and the Popular Party for their commitment the recreational nautical sector in the Balearics. In continuation she asked Estarás to "continue working in Europe to defend the interests of all the residents of the Balearic Islands as she was doing during the previous term".
The president of the Balearic government, José Ramón Bauzá, emphasized his commitment to the sector, which he calls "strategic", and pointed out that "thanks to coordinated efforts between the administration and the businesses, we have become once again a reference point in the international nautical scene".
On the other hand, he reminded that "when I was still a candidate, one of the first requests of the sector was the elimination of the matriculation tax for charter yachts, and although at that point I didn´t have the power to do anything about it, I committed myself to try to get rid of this tax, which has now happened". It was a tax, he said, that "made us uncompetitive against other destinations like France or Italy".
Additionally, he expressed his disagreement with the "unpleasant surprise" caused by the central government´s announcement of the increase of the light house tax, something that "we were opposed from the word go, and have worked against in the local Ministry of Tourism".
Bauzá insisted that "it is in our interest to compete in the high quality segment and by managing our resources well", and although he admitted that "there is still a lot to do", he also added that "we can´t omit that thanks to this team work we have reached many goals".
When it comes to Europe, the president pointed out that "we have managed to have our insularity recognized", and remarked that "despite the Balearics just receiving the presidency of the Euro region, we have already managed to get tourism defined for the first time as a strategy for the companies to gain access for European financing, something neither the Balearic Islands nor Spain can offer".
For her part, Estarás stated that "since the Lisbon Treaty came into force, tourism has become one of the main pillars of the European Union".
This treaty, she said, "has meant that Europe has complementary means to regulate tourism issues with the member states". "One of the first decisions I made when I became a member of the Tourism Commission was to produce a report ´Spain, the top destination in the world´, where we requested, among other things, the simplification of the visa process, equalization of qualities and symbology, as well as getting the insular tourism strategy approved, which we will get started in the next five years".
She also informed that "the modification of the normative regarding the package tourism has been approved already after the first reading, as it has become evident that when buying package holidays online, many tourists are left unprotected against mishaps like cancellation of the contracted services, bankruptcy of the service provider, or that the tourist has to stay longer than in the destination than he has paid for due to force mayor".
The Minister of Tourism defended the work so far of the local government on behalf of the nautical sector, and lamented that "up until recent years it seemed that this sector was a tabu and the administrations were afraid of making decisions one way or the other".
On the other hand, he declared that "the local government has taken big steps to improve the image of our 46 ports, as these are the image of the sector and of our islands".
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