The Government of Spain has declared this Tuesday as areas seriously affected by a civil protection emergency several territories of Ibiza and Formentera, by including the islands in the agreement that recognizes 63 catastrophic episodes in eleven autonomous communities registered between August 26 and November 9, 2025. The decision comes after the torrential rains of September 30, the adverse meteorological phenomena of October and the fire of Mal Pas (Formentera), which have motivated weeks of public claims from institutions and affected people, as La Voz de Ibiza has been reporting.
The official note of the Ministry of the Interior details, among other incidents, the floods of September 30 in Ibiza and Formentera, when the AEMET activated the red warning for extreme risk and up to 236 liters per square meter were registered, with flooded streets and houses and road closures in different parts of the Pitiusas.
Sept. 30 storm and DANA Alice, key events
Interior recalls that, in addition to this episode, between October 9 and 13 the DANA Alice kept under red and orange warnings several areas of the Mediterranean coast and the Balearic Islands, with very heavy rains, storms, floods and traffic cuts, which forced an intense intervention of the emergency services in the community.
In the case of Ibiza, these storms are added to other episodes of “heavy rains” and “adverse weather events” that the note itself places in September and October in the whole archipelago, including Ibiza and Formentera again in the risk warnings. This concatenation of incidents motivated the Consell d’Eivissa and different town councils to insist on the need for state reinforcements, in parallel to the autonomic measures already announced, such as the 5 million euros of aid from the Govern to alleviate the damages caused by the storms Ex Gabrielle and Alice or the emergency works for 1.78 million euros to repair the riverbeds in Ibiza.
Floods in Ibiza and Formentera and fire in Mal Pas
The agreement of the Council of Ministers includes a detailed list of events that are considered “areas seriously affected by a civil protection emergency”. This list includes, among others, the following events linked to the Pitiusas:
-
Forest fire in Mal Pas (Formentera), reported on September 23, expressly included as one of the fires justifying the activation of aid.
-
Floods in Ibiza, reported on September 30, after the episode of torrential rains that collapsed several points of the island.
-
Floods in Formentera, also on September 30, affecting roads, houses and services.
-
Adverse weather phenomenon in Mallorca, Ibiza and Formentera, on October 10, in the middle of DANA Alice, with new incidents and emergency actions.
With this explicit reference, the Government formally recognizes that Ibiza and Formentera have suffered personal damages, in infrastructures and in public and private goods of sufficient entity to activate the intervention of the General State Administration, “based on the principle of inter-territorial solidarity and in a subsidiary manner”, according to Interior.
What grants are now open
The declaration allows the victims of these episodes in Ibiza and Formentera to benefit from the aid catalog of the Ministry of the Interior for personal damages, homes and belongings, as well as for industrial, commercial and service establishments and for those who provided material or personal means during the emergencies.
In addition, the agreement enables other ministries to implement complementary measures, including:
-
Tax benefits through the Ministry of Finance.
-
Labor and Social Security measures through the Ministries of Labor and Social Economy and Inclusion, Social Security and Migration.
-
Aid to local corporations from the Ministry of Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory.
-
Subsidies for damage to agricultural, livestock, forestry and aquaculture production managed by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food.
The other ministerial departments may, within the scope of their competences, declare a special action zone and process emergency works to repair damaged public infrastructures in the territories recognized as affected, which opens the door to specific actions in the road, hydraulic and urban network of the Pitiusas.
Weeks of institutional pressure and neighborhood unrest
The state declaration comes after political leaders in Ibiza have been denouncing for weeks that the central government had not yet activated specific aid, despite the magnitude of the damage caused by the floods in late September, as this newspaper recently reported when echoing the criticism of the PP in the Senate for the lack of state response.
In parallel, there have been subsequent episodes of rain, new floods and the need for emergency works to restore normality in garages, roads and urban areas affected in Ibiza and Formentera. It has been an autumn marked by the repetition of storms and concern among neighbors and merchants.
