DAY OF THE BALEARIC ISLANDS “Equal but different”

Good day, thank you to all the local authorities and residents who have made it out for this official celebration of El Dia de les Illes Balears – the Day of the Balearic Islands.

An event that is observed here on Formentera, but also on Mallorca, Menorca and Eivissa.

Tomorrow is 1 March. An important day in the Balearics. It's no coincidence that it be designated the official day of our community.

1 March 1983 the first Statute of the Balearic Islands took effect. It was also the first day of March – this time in 2007 – that the statute was revised.

That revision led to our community's current guiding statute, which saw to the creation of el Consell Insular de Formentera – the Formentera Island Council.

1 March is an important day for our island.

The establishment of the Formentera Island Council simultaneously gave political ground to something that was already geographically evident.

Until the year 2007 Formentera was an island in the Balearic community, but only from a geographical standpoint.

The political unity manifest south of Es Freus, captured in Isidor Torres' oft-uttered maxim - “we want to be the fourth wall of the Balearic Islands” - culminated in the creation of this island council on 1 March 2007.

We are not yet through with challenges.

A new challenge now stands before us, no less important than the one that preceded it. It's a challenge on which our entire economy depends, and it too demands political unity.

Fortunately, such political unity is our reality. On all the essential questions, the course Formentera plots today is clear; our collective work evident.

This political unity is real enough for us to be able to recognise that, at times, outside factors impede us.

Our unity is so genuine that we were able to come together and ask the Balearic Islands Parliament for the power to administer a local tax on vehicles entering the island.

Real enough as well to fuel improvements to the productivity and natural beauty of our countryside.

We are united in our hope that soon one of the largest farmable plots on Formentera, Can Marroig, be included in the most-recent project of the Farmers' Cooperative.

As I said, we have another challenge ahead.

We must make use of the current climate of unity in order to surmount it.

And surmount it now. We mustn't wait long. If we set our sights on it, we can achieve it. Let no one say that Formentera lacked the initiative.

And what is this challenge that lies ahead? Convincing any who would believe otherwise that, in the same way that we are an island in geographical terms, in the same way that we are our own island in political terms, Formentera is its own brand name in tourism.

We have our own identity within the autonomous community of the Balearic Islands. Just as Mallorca has one, just as Menorca has one, and of course, just as Eivissa has one as well.

Formentera is a brand name on the rise. We have got our own values, taxes, and we deserve the power to dictate and fund our own policies in tourism.

Mr Bauzà, we are in negotiations to bestow this island the resources it needs to promote the brand name of Formentera on an international scale.

We are fashioning a model that permits each island to do the same. May each of our community's four islands have the resources to explain its strengths to the world.

Equal but different.

All four islands with sufficient resources to explain their own respective realities.

Ultimately, we are doing the same with tourism promotions as with this important celebration of our autonomous community.

For these commemorative acts, all four islands have sufficient resources to celebrate the Day of the Balearic Islands, as each sees fit.

Equal but different.

Equal in opportunities and in the existence of sufficient resources.

Different in the attributes, messages and characteristics.

Thank you for your attention,

Feliç Dia de les Illes Balears.

Jaume Ferrer Ribas,
28 February 2015