The Formentera Council has received an official visit from representatives of the Balearic Islands' council on economic and social affairs, or CES (Consell Econòmic i Social). Today at 12.30pm, Jaume Ferrer and the administration's senior councillors sat down with CES spokespeople in the Council's hall of ceremonies. After the meeting, CiF vice-president Bartomeu Escandell and CES chair Carles Manera gave a press conference before members of the media.

Escandell thanked the CES reps for their visit and applauded the group's reactivation. In the vice-president's words, CES “can count on our administration's full cooperation providing information pertinent to their analytical work”. He also highlighted the Formentera Council's insistence since its creation that data be broken down, or “disaggregated,” between the individual islands, rather than bundled together for Eivissa and Formentera.

According to Carles Manera, the CES's reactivation in July 2017 after shuttering in 2012 signals “an exciting new era” for the group. One project already in development involves a yearly publication on economic, social, cultural and environmental data with two new features: disaggregated data between the islands and a systematisation of a database on current business trends employing commercial registry data.

At 7.00pm on Tuesday, November 21, la Mola's Casa del Poble will host a gathering to update area residents on the progress of initiatives in the neighbourhood. President Jaume Ferrer and the administration's cabinet councillors will outline anticipated upgrades of the town's central square as well as plans to remodel and rebrand la Mola's lighthouse as a facility with multiple functions, among them as a cultural venue.

Today at the head office of the Formentera Council, President Jaume Ferrer and Councillor Susana Labrador sat down with Santiago Marí, the senator of Eivissa and Formentera. The two Formentera officials seized the opportunity of Senator Marí's first official visit to speak to him about infrastructural and service-based issues related to the national government.

President Ferrer renewed some longstanding petitions on the island, that Formentera be assigned its own senator, for instance. He also highlighted the Formentera plenary assembly's unanimous vote urging local offices of the national police to regularly provide services such as delivery of ID cards, passports and immigration documents, and spoke about the importance of maintaining robust law enforcement and security forces in summer. The officials also asked Senator Marí to go to bat for Formentera on the issue of rubbish, so that waste transfer costs from Formentera to Eivissa receive some state funding.

Renewal of highways agreement
President Ferrer also spoke about the need to renew the two administrations' agreement on highways, which would entail upgrades on main thoroughfares like the one linking la Savina and la Mola, the road to Cala Saona, or a still incomplete stretch of the road to Es Cap. Moreover, he highlighted the pressing nature of a new power cable connecting Eivissa and Formentera, and the Council's suggested improvements to the plan.

Ferrer reminded Senator Marí that Formentera hasn't forgotten its commitment to securing “a fair delimitation of the island's coasts” and bemoaned the elusiveness of redress for those affected by “the last failed attempt to modify legislation governing the coastline”.

Formentera Council president Jaume Ferrer and the rest of the administration's team of senior councillors sat down yesterday evening with members of the Sant Ferran community to give an update on the projects due for completion in town this winter. The presentation got started at 7.30pm in the nearby seniors centre, el Centre de Majors.

Rafael González, Formentera's head of infrastructure, reported that upgrades on two streets —carrer Guillem de Montgrí and carrer València— are on track for a mid-November start. The cost of work on the two key Sant Ferran thoroughfares will cost €1.6 million. The two streets' meeting point will be made into a plaza, with vehicle traffic through town and towards Es Pujols restricted.

For her part, Formentera's education and culture secretary, Susana Labrador, explained that staff of her assorted departments —education, culture and patrimony— would soon relocate to a street-level space beside the CiF Offices of Tourism and Environment on carrer Mallorca. The town's new reading point will soon open next door as well.

Mention was also made of the Govern balear's planned construction, now that the Council has now issued permits, of new primary and nursery schools in Sant Ferran.