Balearics migration row: 1,000 sea arrivals monthly

Around 500 people have arrived in the Balearic Islands by sea so far this September, the regional government says, after 1,000 arrivals in each summer month. In Palma on 10 September, Manuel Pavón accused Spain’s central government of holding back migration reports. He said the missing information left the islands unable to see the full picture.

Pavón, the Balearic Government’s director general for Immigration and Development Cooperation, said Madrid had declassified documents from the CNI, National Police and Guardia Civil but released only those it wanted to make public. The regional government requested the CNI report after Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez addressed Congress on the situation in Ceuta, but Pavón said it had still not received it.

He said the CNI report warned that the migration route to the Balearics could see the biggest growth in 2026. Pavón accused Sánchez, Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska and the government delegate in the Balearic Islands, Alfonso Rodríguez, of knowing about the warning and failing to act.

The central government had said the route between Algeria and the archipelago would fall this year, Pavón said. Instead, he argued, arrivals have continued to rise. He also said Frontex and the Interior Ministry held reports pointing to further growth on the Balearic route.

Pavón called the lack of information for regions affected by migration routes a matter of “extreme seriousness”. He questioned the government’s claims of dialogue with Algeria, saying arrivals by boat to the islands had kept increasing.

The PP has now asked Congress for a copy of a National Police report said to warn of a “high risk” of further sea arrivals in the Balearics. The party also wants the report’s annexes, communications sent to the Interior Ministry, the Secretariat of State for Security and the government delegation in the Balearic Islands, plus details of any action taken after the warnings.

PP MP José Vicent Marí said the party wanted to establish what the government knew, when it knew it and what it did in response.

Topics: Police · Migration · Politics · Palma

Source: Europa Press / Mallorca.com