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In relation to the controversy over the works at Rafal Rubí, GOB wishes to recall that UNESCO has spoken very clearly about the documentation that the Island Council sent regarding the road works. There is no doubt that an opinion was issued on the information sent from Menorca.
The international body clearly warned that the indication was that the works already begun should be dismantled as soon as possible.
An unequivocal international opinion on the impact study
Last October, UNESCO issued a written statement warning of the significant deficiencies shown by the heritage impact assessment prepared and submitted by the Island Council, the main document the Council has sought to use to defend the completion of the two-level roundabout.
Indeed, UNESCO and its advisory body ICOMOS communicated, four months ago and in writing, that the heritage impact study appeared to examine only one option (completing the bridge that had been started), that there was no comparative assessment of alternatives, and that it did not incorporate a full evaluation of the impact on the landscape (see attached image).
The international body warned that completing the works under the current approach would have an extremely negative impact on the landscape context of the navetas, by breaking their relationship with their surroundings, as well as affecting the integrity and authenticity of the landscape of the site declared of Outstanding Universal Value.
This therefore represents a very strong disqualification of the documentation sent by the Council, which was signed by the international bodies, not by the Ministry of Culture.
It is worth recalling that this contested heritage impact study was directly commissioned from a private consultant, the firm Treserras. It was not prepared by the public service of the Island Council.
UNESCO has already spoken three times about Rafal Rubí
Since the declaration as World Heritage of several sites in Menorca that host archaeological remains, the Rafal Rubí area has been included within this category, which receives the protection of the International Convention for the Protection of Heritage, ratified long ago by the Spanish State.
The same recommendation to dismantle the partially completed works at Rafal Rubí had already been explicitly stated by UNESCO in May 2023, in the report prior to the declaration (see image).
It was also clearly included in the resolution that granted World Heritage status to Menorca in September 2023, in Riyadh. Documentation that was personally collected at that summit by Adolfo Vilafranca, Simon Gornés and Joan Pons Torres (see image).
In all this controversy, it is the Island Council that is carrying out incomprehensible manoeuvres, having decided to approve the project to complete the two-level roundabout and award the works while having in its correspondence the three aforementioned UNESCO statements, which are clear and unequivocal. It should be recalled that this way of proceeding led to the resignation of very relevant figures involved in the processing of Menorca Talaiòtica.
It should be borne in mind that the Balearic Roads Act allows partially executed works to be dismantled if heritage values are affected.
UNESCO’s letter of 20 October 2025 also recalled that on the same main road other junction solutions have been applied with much less impactful approaches.
Therefore, there is no excuse to justify the Council’s position regarding Rafal Rubí. The headlong rush adopted by the Menorcan institution in seeking to ignore such explicit resolutions leaves Menorca’s image in a very poor light before the international community.
