Formentera warns of migrant children emergency gap

In Palma, Mallorca, Formentera’s representative warns on Tuesday, 3 November, that the island may be unable to trigger emergency measures if its care for migrant children becomes overstretched. Llorenç Córdoba raises the concern in the Balearic Parliament. Social affairs minister Sandra Fernández rejects his call to change how capacity is counted.

The current calculation uses an average for the Balearic Islands as a whole. Córdoba says that figure would prevent Formentera’s island council from activating contingency measures if its own services were overwhelmed. He wants the rules for distributing migrant children changed so each island council’s capacity is counted separately.

Fernández says a separate calculation would endorse distribution rules that are being challenged in court and let Spain’s central government off the hook. She accuses it of looking away while hundreds of people die at sea. Fernández says there is no point seeking changes to rules under legal challenge. She also points to more than 17 million euros transferred by the Balearic government to Formentera since August 2025 to strengthen public services.

Topics: Migration · Social affairs · Politics

Source: Europa Press / Mallorca.com