Following the Balearics government announcement on shortening marina concessions, which was triggered by the row over the potential sale of Puerto Portals, there has been frenetic activity in the last few weeks by interested, and largely aggrieved parties from all sectors of the maritime leisure industry.
The main players in the saga which is destined to be a long running one, are the government´s Council of Public Works in one corner, with the opposing side of the ring extremely crowded by various protest groups including, La Asociacion de Clubes Nauticos de Baleares, (ACNB) and La Asociacion de Instalaciones Nautico Deportivas de Baleares. (ANADE)
These two groups convened at an extraordinary meeting in Real Club Nautica on 20th September to rally support and set out their objections, to what they see as a “retroactive and constitutionally unjust decision.”
The stakeholders with financial interests in the matter are not only the marina concessionaires, and yacht clubs, but around 4,000 berth owners, and 70 commercial business and apartment owners within the effected facilities, whose investment returns would be threatened by the enactment of the “Ley de Puertos de Baleares” which was approved on 21st June 2005.
Commentator´s from the legal profession in the Balearic´s have also remarked that the marina concessions ruling could be judicially challenged on several counts, and up to European Court level if neccesary. Some are sure to be preparing cases for individuals or groups of wealthy clients who are not likely to accept without a fight, what has been termed as “concealed expropriation verging on robbery”, by the President of the Spanish Association of Watersports Ports. (Asociacion Espanola de Puertos Deportivos)
Meanwhile the government department involved has announced that all but two, of the port concessionaires has accepted the new ruling, and that all the rest have chosen to adapt to the new regulation. They (the Public Works Council) have apparently made a calculation that the changes will net them a cool 9 million Euro´s a year in future, some 22.5 times more than the 400,000 Euros that they currently collect!
For their part, the water sports associations say that it´s one thing to accept the law, but another matter entirely to accept the financial implications visited upon it´s members, without individual negotiations for each and every site involved, who all have their own specific concessionary parameters.
In a nutshell, the regulation states that all concessions granted before 1988 will revert to public administration 30 years from that date in 2018, but will not have a shortening effect on 5 concessions recently expired and soon going for public tender, or 5 more that are destined to expire before 2018.
An extreme example of these variations is Club Nautico in S´Arenal who were granted a 99 year concession in 1967, now shortened by 48 years from it´s original expiry in 2066!