Goodbye to 2024, a year full of projects, initiatives, and regulations

There are very few days left to end 2024. A year marked by changes, advances, and improvements that will affect the Balearic nautical sector.

A 2024 in which new laws have been approved and that has served to lay the foundations for future regulations that will affect both users and maritime professionals.

Nautical Table

With the creation in 2023 of the first Ministry of the Sea in the Balearic Islands, led by its Minister, Juan Manuel Lafuente, the Balearic nautical industry has finally had a direct interlocutor in the public administration and a process of joint work with the sector has begun. As a result of this consensus, the first Nautical Table was created in 2024, where they are working in areas that directly affect the Balearic nautical sector. Thanks to this Nautical Table, the public administration will be able to know firsthand the needs of the sector and work together to agree on the steps to follow to achieve the best objectives. The foundations are laid and the first meetings have been held. During 2025 we will closely follow these meetings to see their results.

Reorganization of the Port of Palma

The light at the end of the tunnel is already visible, and the works of the Palma promenade. Although they continue, they are about to finish and to these will be added those of the new project of configuration and uses of the port of Palma. After having discussed with practically all the interest groups, the new proposal of the Balearic Port Authority contemplates four axes such as the integration between the port and the city in the spaces freed by the boat repair industry located in front of the Cathedral and in Contramuelle-Mollet. In addition to relocating the space allocated to cruises, concentrating their activity on the Poniente-Paraires dock and maintaining the simultaneity of port operations on the Comerciales docks, Poniente-Paraires docks, and West dock. Undoubtedly, 2025 will be a year of challenges at APB.

Maritime Reorganization Law

More focused on the legal scope of state navigation, in July of this 2024, the Law project to amend the consolidated text of the Law of State Ports and the Merchant Navy and the Law of Maritime Navigation was approved. For recreational boating, the reform of both texts has been a historical advance in rights, as it reinforces its recognition in the regulatory field and provides legal security to the sector. Thus, recreational and sports navigation will have its own chapter in the new Law, which incorporates a series of regulations, some of them particularly innovative that will provide solutions to essential practical needs to strengthen the modernization and improvement of the competitiveness of the nautical sector. We will be able to learn more and delve deeper into the evolution of this law at the Nautical congress organized by ANEN, which will be held in March in Malaga.