€50,000 donation is not enough: Sant Antoni must justify the public interest behind private Egyptian-themed party

A €50,000 donation to two organisations does not, in itself, turn a private party into an activity of public interest. The law allows economic and social criteria to be taken into account when authorising certain activities and also provides for payments or other forms of consideration for the use of public assets, but it does not establish that a donation to third parties automatically constitutes the public interest required by law.

This issue lies at the heart of the controversy surrounding the private Egyptian-themed party held at the former sa Pedrera quarry, on land owned by Sant Antoni Town Council. Mayor Marcos Serra has argued that the €50,000 donated by the organisers — €40,000 to Cáritas and €10,000 to Motoclub Formentera i Eivissa — was what allowed the event to be considered to be of “general interest”.

“Those €50,000 are the reason the party was authorised”, Serra told Diario de Ibiza. The promoters also paid €199 for the corresponding administrative procedure. The mayor was even more explicit: “A private birthday party, without making a donation, obviously has no general interest”. He added: “In this case, because it was private, the only viable option was the donation”.

However, that automatic equivalence between a donation and public interest is not set out in the legislation.

The law does not put a price on public interest

Balearic Islands Law 7/2013 on activities establishes that authorisation for a temporary activity is “discretionary, exceptional and specific” and may be granted “only where there is a public interest based on economic and social criteria”.

The legislation sets no minimum amount and does not state that making a donation automatically satisfies this requirement. A financial or social contribution may form part of the factors considered by the authorities, but the law does not say that a donation, by itself, turns a private party into an activity of public interest.

Furthermore, the fact that the decision is discretionary does not mean the authorities can act without explaining their reasons. Law 39/2015 requires decisions taken under discretionary powers to be properly justified. It is therefore crucial, when assessing the authorisation, to establish what specific public interest Sant Antoni Town Council identified, how it justified that interest and what connection it drew between that interest and the €50,000 donation.

Law 7/2013 also excludes certain occasional or family events of a private nature from its scope only when they are not open to the public and are not held in public establishments or spaces. Therefore, the fact that a party is private is not enough for it to qualify for this exemption when it takes place on municipally owned land.

Temporary activities always require prior authorisation. If the party was processed as a major or minor temporary activity, the application was required to include, among other details, the dates, times, location and capacity, as well as plans and a technical report. The documentation must address matters including safety, evacuation, fire prevention, mobility, disturbance and protection of the surrounding area. The latter is particularly relevant given the controversy over the artificial lake installed for the party.

The artificial lake

After the event, Serra said he would never have authorised it had he known the promoters intended to install a large ornamental lake.

“In the descriptive report for their project, at no point did they say there would be a lake containing water”, he said.

The mayor also announced that municipal technicians were examining whether sanction proceedings could be opened and added that the Town Council’s future water-saving ordinance would prohibit this type of ornamental use.

Sant Antoni’s PSOE subsequently accused the mayor of lying about not knowing about the lake. The Socialists claim that the 69-page technical report filed on 28 July contains at least ten plans showing a large blue area labelled with the English word “water”. According to the party, the plans also contained references such as steps into water and showed a three-metre-wide walkway crossing the area.

The PSOE argues that this documentation contradicts the mayor’s version and is demanding that the plans used in processing the authorisation be made public.

The issue, therefore, is not simply whether the word “lake” appeared literally in the written report. If the event was processed as a major or minor temporary activity, the plans also formed part of the technical documentation required by law. It is therefore relevant to establish what information the project as a whole contained and what the Town Council knew, or could reasonably have known, when it approved the event.

Quarry listed as a municipal asset

Finally, the legal status of the land adds another relevant factor. The former sa Pedrera quarry is located on a municipal plot listed in Sant Antoni Town Council’s General Inventory of Assets and Rights as a patrimonial asset rather than public-domain property.

The site, located in Can Coix and acquired by the Town Council for the construction of a new municipal cemetery, is also listed in the inventory as rural land with “no use” assigned to it. This classification is significant because patrimonial assets are subject to a different legal framework from property forming part of the public domain.

Spain’s Law 33/2003 on Public Administration Assets establishes principles including efficiency, publicity, transparency, competition and objectivity for the management and exploitation of patrimonial assets.

This does not mean that every use of a patrimonial asset must necessarily be awarded through a competitive tender, as the legislation provides for different procedures. It does, however, require that any use of the property have a proper legal basis and comply with the applicable conditions in each case.

The law also allows the use of public assets to be subject to charges, fees or other forms of consideration. These mechanisms, however, are not equivalent to a voluntary donation made to third parties.