Simon Hunter
A SENIOR politician in Menorca has been slammed by the opposition after she organised a birthday party for her daughter in a protected historical site on the Balearic island.
Marta Febrer of the conservative Popular Party (PP) is alleged to have invited 65 parents and children to the event in the Lazareto de Maó, a public building dating from 1793 and that originally served as a quarantine station for seafarers.
According to local media outlet Menorca.info, the eighth birthday party took place on September 2, a day when there were no guided tours or other activities taking place at the site.
The families arrived at a nearby dock by boat, and Febrer is alleged to have made use of the staff who manage and maintain the site, which had been decorated for the birthday.
She later claimed that it was a ‘pilot test’ aimed at widening the use of the space, and denied that it was a private event.
Febrer is the director of Sustainable Projects and Cooperation in the Menorca island council, a role that she has occupied for the last three months since the PP took power in the administration with the support of far-right Vox.
The Socialist Party of the Balearic Islands has called for Febrer to quit after, they said, she took advantage of her public position to celebrate ‘a private party in a place that has public ownership’.
A spokesperson for the Socialists, Marc Pons, said that it was ‘another example of the personal use that the PP makes of public spaces. And not even the first 100 days of the legislature have passed’, online daily El Diario reported.
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