Business Over Tapas

Editorial:

It was eighty years ago this week when the Spanish Civil War began. Eighty years is a long time, but the wounds from this terrible time are still in evidence. Many Spaniards would rather not talk about their grandparents’ experiences, and perhaps it is time to respect their wishes. There is, of course, one thing we must remember – there can be nothing worse than this kind of war, where families and neighbours are pitted mercilessly against each other: often (in 21st century terms) thanks to media manipulation, lies and exaggeration.

Housing:

‘According to local press reports, Barcelona City Hall has provisionally approved a plan to hit owners of empty homes in the city with a new administrative charge (tasa in Spanish) of €633, followed up with further fines of €286 for every notification issued to owners of empty homes. City Hall will present this provisional plan to the Economy Commission this week for approval...’. From Mark Stücklin’s Spanish Property Insight. Mark notes that ‘...They may call it an ‘administrative fee’ but it’s basically a fine for owning an empty home in Barcelona...’.

The price of rentals has finally stopped falling after 38 straight months says El Mundo here. The article refers to urban long-term rents.

It seems that 6.6% of Spanish workers are lucky enough to be based in their own homes. Better still, if they have an eccentrically designed home-office like the ones featured in an article at Idealista here. Although not mentioned in the article, the main BoT office, while extremely isolated, does have a large colony of geckos that share the work-space.

Madrid: ‘Award-winning sustainable residential complex offers affordable, energy-efficient homes. ... Modestly priced, the project has succeeded in exploding some of the myths surrounding sustainable construction, while reopening the debate over whether building green homes is a viable option in Spain...’. From El País in English.

The PSOE is careful to say that ‘the changes in the LOUA – the Andalusian planning laws – are most certainly not an amnesty for “irregular” houses’. This, as the Andalusian Parliament voted on Wednesday to ‘regularise’ around 30,000 homes built on lots without planning permissions. See here. A brief press note late on Wednesday sent by the AUAN (in Seville) simply says ‘Approved with the support of PSOE, PP and Ciudadanos’.

‘A British real estate agent has been cleared of fraud by a court in Almería after being accused of duping a couple into buying a house on non-urban land in Arboleas. Gordon Condrey, 60, went on trial at the Audiencia Provincial court in Almería city recently...’ From a report posted (as a fragment) by Costa de Almería News.

Tourism:

‘If it lives up to expectations, 2016 will be a record year for world tourism. Right now the number of travellers who went abroad for purely recreational trips in 2015 is a record 1.184 billion. Of these foreign vacationers, Spain received 68.1 million, a figure likely to be overtaken in a matter of months. The latest statistics show that foreign tourists coming to Spain still seek out the sun, flocking to the country’s beaches...’ Taken from an editorial called ‘Cracks appear in Spain’s low-cost tourism model’ at El País in English.

Preferente notes that two leading Spanish journalists have recently questioned the veracity of information found at TripAdvisor! (Who would have thought?).

Agent Travel says that Spain will be one of the European countries most affected by the Brexit. Quoting Moody’s. In 2014, 26.7% of foreign visitors to Spain were Britons.

Finance:

‘No matter how fast Spain’s economy grows, its government cannot seem to get a grip on its spending habits. This year is going to be the eighth consecutive year that Spain has overshot its fiscal target. Originally, the Spanish government was supposed to get its deficit back below the EU’s sacred limit of 3% of GDP by 2013, from a staggering 11% in 2011. When it became clear during the darkest days of the crisis that it would be impossible, the deadline was extended by a year. A year later, Madrid had made so little progress that it got a further two-year extension, to 2016...’. Taken from the always readable but frequently depressing Wolf Street.

‘The Social Security’s pensions fund is emptying. And this is causing huge alarm amongst current and future pensioners who believe, incorrectly, that “there’s going to be no money left and one day they’ll tell us that there is no monthly payment.” This is completely untrue. In 2009, the pensions fund had a maximum amount of 66 billion euros and its maximum gain was 3 billion, when the yearly expenditure on monthly pensions is over 100 billion!...’. A useful article from The Corner.

‘Spanish lenders close as many as a million unclaimed bank accounts. Despite frantic calls and letters from banking firms in Spain, small balances and in some cases huge sums are likely to be passed on to the taxman...’. Many foreigners have accounts which have not been substantiated. Story at El País in English here.

Wolf Street explains the Floor Clauses used by most Spanish banks, how they were disciplined by Spain’s Supreme Court and later by Brussels, and how they have now got out of having to pay anything back to their customers. ‘...Not only will taxpayers have to bail out the banks whenever they run into trouble, stiffed bank customers will also soon have to accept that they have no lawful right to compensation if doing so could run afoul of “macroeconomic considerations.” And with the banks as weak as they are, just about any punitive fine could be construed as posing a risk to the macroeconomic environment...’.

Reuters on Spain’s banks notes that ‘...Spanish banks' bad debts as a percentage of total credit in the system fell to 9.8 percent from 9.9 percent in May and 11.4 percent a year ago, data from the Bank of Spain showed on Monday. Those debts include non-performing loans left unpaid for 90 days as well as borrowings in danger of falling into default...’.

Politics:

‘Lawmakers on Tuesday picked a close ally of Mariano Rajoy as parliamentary speaker as Spain's acting prime minister cast around for coalition partners following last month's inconclusive general election. Public Works Minister Anta Pastor, 58, got the speaker's job under a deal between Rajoy's conservative Popular Party (PP) and market-friendly upstarts Ciudadanos who came in fourth in the June 26th polls...’. From The Local. The two parties also collected another ten ‘secret’ votes – apparently from parliamentarians from within the different ‘independence’ parties (what do they get in return?). This, indeed, gave Rajoy’s candidate a House majority. Could this be repeated to deliver the government to Mariano Rajoy? We may know on August 2nd.

If everything once again goes pear-shaped, the date for the next general elections in Spain is November 27th.

Well, goes the thinking, let’s bring some of the EU agencies currently in London to Madrid. Acting-president Mariano Rajoy, the mayoress of Madrid and the President of the Region of Madrid are all in agreement – and are working on bringing ‘the City of London’ to Madrid where ‘say what you like, none of Spain’s political parties are anti-European’. El Diario reports here. From Yahoo Finance we read that banks must now reassess their London-heavy structure: ‘A JPMorgan banking analyst ... took a look at office rents and capacity in different EU cities, with Madrid coming out on top both for cost and supply...’.

Corruption:

Andalucía is the most corrupt region of Spain, says the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ), quoted in the far-right Alerta Digital.

Spain’s counterfeiter king was arrested last week for printing up twelve million euros of false banknotes. This was the third time that the master craftsman Juan Pedro González Sánchez from Beniaján, Murcia has been taken by the police. The story at Voz Pópuli here.

Brexit:

From Le Monde Diplomatique. Title: ‘UK: lost, divided and alone. The Brexit vote was an insurrectionary protest against neo-liberalism, globalism and cultural contempt. It will break up the UK, and split England forever’.

The Seville ABC seems unfazed by the proposition that the ‘guiri councillors’ as it says ‘will lose their positions thanks to the Brexit’. To prove their point, they show a picture of Maura Hillen, confusingly known in Spain by her real name Marie Therese O’Donoghue (vice-mayoress of Albox and president of the AUAN). Maura is of course Irish.

Interviú has an article on the British residents in Spain titled ‘I want to die here’. Well, not now, of course. ‘They are Britons, retired and happy living in Spain’, says the article. ‘They have lived for years in third age complexes that look nothing like the places the elderly Spanish must face. In these ‘urbanisations’, they have their own apartments and services, like a swimming pool, a spa, hairdressers, restaurants, gymnasia, organised excursions, domestic cleaners, doctors and medical home-visits...’. Anyhow, the Brits love Spain, we read, and around 400,000 elderly Britons intend to stay here... and one day die here, thank you very much.

Brexitears: some links at The Entertainer Online for those who don’t want to give up!

Funny letter from a German newspaper: ‘Dear Englanders, we, the Redaktion of Germanys oldest Newspaper, would like to know what you thought have, when you showed the stinking finger to the European Union, Brussels und our beloved Chancellor Merkel. Have you still all candles on the christmas-tree?...’.

From The Independent: ‘Britain will not take up its scheduled presidency of the EU Council next year and will instead focus on its preparations to leave the bloc, Theresa May has said. The announcement is the first key responsibility relinquished by Britain in the wake of the EU referendum result...’.

From the British Government: Living and working in the EU – property, pensions and healthcare: British nationals retain their legal status as EU citizens and can continue to work and live in EU countries. British nationals can continue to receive healthcare in EU countries. British nationals can continue to retire and collect their pensions in EU countries.

From Spanish Shilling: ‘While we are all reeling in shock from the ghastly Brexit and the insults from the British Roundheads, a number of local 'please-don't-send-me-home' groups have been set up by the Britons hitherto living peacefully in Spain, France or other parts of the European Union. I'm in one and have joined a couple of others. We need some energy here, as there is no one (no one!) to speak for us or represent us...’.

Lenox asked in a pro-EU Facebook page (here) ‘Seriously - how bad is it in the UK now - tense or life as normal? (I live abroad, so don't know)’. A typical answer: ‘At home the subject is rationed. We all voted remain. But outside, and we are in a 74% remain area, it's like a remake of the Body Snatchers. We aren't sure of who the Brexiteers are. It's civil but tense, apart from the odd racist who picks on someone who looks foreign, like my daughters. But being Surbiton it's limited to 'fuck off home' type comments. I hate what this has done to our country. I feel ashamed to be British’.

Various:

Twenty five slides of the Spanish Civil War, which started eighty years ago this week. Found at MSNBC.

Spain imports the worst and dirtiest kind of petrol, says El Diario. A quarter of all crude imported by this country is considered the most contaminating for climate-change gases. This crude comes from Nigeria, Algeria and Kazakhstan.

One business that’s doing remarkably well is the export from Almería of insects used in biological controls. In the first six months of this year 405 million of them went abroad!

A petition to the Spanish Government asking for double nationality for Britons who have been resident in Spain for over ten years. Indeed, it is the front page of The Olive Press!

See Spain:

Laujar, the wine-producing town in the Almerian Alpujarras, is celebrating its first equine fiesta from July 22 to 24. Several flamenco concerts and at least 100 horses are promised.