Editorial:
The flamboyant director of 'El Mundo', Padro J Ramírez, is leaving the newspaper he founded after 25 years. Like many newspapers, the company is in the red, but Mr Ramírez' opposition to the Government, despite his conservative leaning, may be the key to his departure. Mr Ramírez is no stranger to political removal. He was made the director of Spain's first major post-Franco newspaper, 'Diario 16', while only 28 years old. Criticism of Felipe Gonzalez' policies (particularly over the GAL affair) put paid to that particular job in 1989. More on the resignation here.
Housing:
'The market for property in Spain could see a substantial recovery this year, as it capitalises on an ever improving economic outlook for the nation to build on a 2013 that was stronger than had been expected. Prices throughout last year in the country were boosted by the fact there had been an increase in the number of foreign investors buying there, and it is expected that the volume of sales of properties will continue to head upwards throughout 2014.
Mark Stucklin of Spanish Property Insight said the market looks more positive on the back of the news coming out of JP Morgan. The investment bank has predicted that the economy in Spain is set to improve by one per cent through 2014...'. From Property Showrooms.
From El Huff Post: '35,098 families lost their homes in the first half of 2013, either because they reached an agreement with their bank to return the keys or through a court decision.
According to data published by the Bank of Spain, the number of homes returned in 2012 amounted to 44,745 homes; thus figures so far available for 2013 show things are still getting worse'...
A blogpost from Kelisto claims that 'More than 580,000 Spaniards are living in homes worth less than the outstanding amount left on their mortgages'.
'From the highs, the average housing price has fallen by 38.5%, going from an average of 245.313 euros in 2007 to 150.787euros in 2013.
As a result of this drop in prices, the number of 'bubble mortgages' have sky-rocketed from 14,333 properties affected in 2009 to a massive 581,441 today.
Currently, one of every 10 mortgages in Spain is trapped in a home that is worth less than the loan remaining payable (9.5%), a rate that will rise to 10.7% in 2014 and 11.3% in 2015'...
Tourism:
Foreign tourists left a cool 59 billion euros in Spain last year according to the Ministry. The figure is nevertheless at odds with Exeltur, which speaks for the hotels, rent-a-cars, airlines and travel agencies, who say the true number is about 45 billion euros. The hoteleros are anxious to become the single voice of tourism in Spain, and naturally have no interest in those visitors to this country who do not avail themselves of their services...
The EuroVegas was going to get all kinds of Government aid, points out Jesús Samper, the man behind Paramount Park being built in Murcia, what about us? He is looking more for political patronage from the Murcian government rather than funding, which he says he has more than enough fully committed investors. The current shape of the Murcian Paramount Park is at VoxPópuli here.
FITUR, the Madrid tourist fair is over for another year. El Huff Post has helpfully supplied various promotional videos made across Spain, from Asturias, Almería, Madrid, Galicia, Gandía, Andalucía, Málaga, Zamora... and so on. Enjoy.
'Almería had over a million tourists last year, according to our old friends the statisticians at the INE: 1,053,666 to be exact. These tourists spent an average of 4.18 days here (jolly nearly 4.19 actually).
Good stuff, eh? Oh, hold on a minute – the information was provided by the hotels, so it doesn't include anyone cheeky enough to have stayed with friends, or rented an apartment, or camped on the side of the road.
The worst of it is, these utterly spurious figures become gospel. The hoteleros are the experts. They can influence policy like making it difficult for apartment owners, or freezing out local bars and restaurants'. From Lenox' The Entertainer Online.
Finance:
'The year 2013 closed with 5,896,300 unemployed people, 69,100 less than at the end of 2012, which is the first year-on-year reduction since mid-2007, just before the financial crisis burst. However, the decline in unemployment is not thanks to job creation, but the loss of job seekers.
The unemployment rate stood at the fourth quarter of 2013 at 26.03%, one tenth more than in 2012, according to data from the National Institute of statistics (INE)'. From El Mundo.
Considering the figures quoted above, a blog called Open Europe concludes that: 'The latest unemployment figures show that, despite some encouraging signals, it will still take time before Spanish citizens feel the recovery has started. It also means the Spanish government may consider a second round of reforms – perhaps more targeted at closing the gap between the education system and the needs of the labour market'.
An interview in El País in English with the European Union commissioner for economic and monetary affairs Olli Rehn: “It will take 10 years to fix the Spanish crisis”.
El Huff Post features an article about the disappearing Spanish middle classes. According to the Gini Coefficient for inequality, '...Spain is already the second most unequal country in the European Union, beaten only by Latvia. In 2012 it occupied third place and, before the crisis, ranged between positions 5, 6 and 7.
Additional information: the so-called 80/20 ratio sets a ratio of 20% of the population that is the wealthiest versus the 20% poorest, so that higher values would indicate greater inequality. Here Spain breaks the record across the EU with a level of 7.5 while Germany stands at 4.6 and Norway, for example, at 3.3'...
From The Local: 'Spain's underground or 'black' economy ballooned to almost 25 percent of the country's gross domestic product in 2012 as a result of the crisis, a new report shows. The black economy was worth €253 billion ($344 billion) in 2012, the report by Spanish tax office workers union Gestha shows.
That's €60 billion higher than at the start of the crisis in 2008, and means the submerged economy was worth a whopping 24.6 percent of GDP in 2012. In 2008, by contrast, this underground activity was valued at a still-high 17.8 percent of GDP.
Courts:
'The Supreme Court of Madrid has opened proceedings against a judge for possibly overstepping his brief when he ordered the former chairman of a savings bank to be kept in jail while he carried out his investigation into the bank's purchase of a lender in Florida, judicial sources said Thursday. The court argued that there are "clear" signs that Judge Elpidio José Silva had exceeded his powers by sending Miguel Blesa, the former head of Caja Madrid, to jail twice'... From El País in English.
Politics:
'The President of the Government, Mariano Rajoy, has sent a clear message to Catalonian nationalism: "while I am President of the Government, you will never hold a referendum and Spain will never become fragmented'... The story can be traced to any newspaper, here it's from El Ideal. The Catalonians intend to hold their referendum in November.
'The Spanish government's punitive anti-protest draft laws are, critics say, an attack on democracy. That is precisely what they are.
In a number of recent front lines of popular protest, state capacities have been reconfigured to meet the challenge. In some instances, as in Greece, this has meant periods of emergency government. In Chicago, in Quebec and now in Spain, it has meant the expansion of anti-protest laws...'. Found at The Guardian.
Surprisingly, Vladimir Putin has something to say about Spain: - '“In Spain, the disproportionate use of force by the police is still common in the dispersal of street demonstrations". So reads a document from the Russian Foreign Ministry, presented in Brussels last week. The report offers the official point of view of Moscow on the violation of human rights in the 28 member countries of the European Union. The 153-page document devoted four pages to Spain'... From El Confidencial.
Spain's unemployment has hit 26% across the country once again. The Local helpfully offers seven reasons as to why this is happening. Find the story here.
The European Elections will become a chance for the various parties to show their strength and already some politicians are jockeying for position. There's an opening over at the PP. Here from El País in English: 'Jaime Mayor Oreja, the Popular Party (PP) spokesman in the European Parliament who for a decade had been one of Spain’s leading conservative voices in Brussels and Strasbourg, announced on Monday he will not run for re-election in the May 25 European race. In a statement issued by the PP, Mayor Oreja’s decision is “a personal one” but the party did not explain his exact reasons'... A companion story at the same newspaper doesn't help matters much, either: 'Alejo Vidal-Quadras, a vice president of the European Parliament, former leader of the Catalonia Popular Party (PP) and a member of the conservative group’s national executive, has announced he is to leave the party in protest at the policies of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy. Vidal-Quadras intends to join Vox, a newly formed right-wing group'...
Tax:
A private company, DMS Consulting, based in Palma, has an explanation of the tax rules in Spain for residents regarding the Modelo 720, which deals with worldwide holdings. Their article 'Modelo 720, to present it to the authorities... or not?' is in Spanish, and may bear translation. You have until the end of March.
The Eye on Spain was asking if people are spending less time in Spain thanks to the new tax declaration of overseas assets. One person writes in with: 'Clearly where you decide to become resident only affects your tax payments on assets if that country taxes wealth. Currently only France and Spain do that. The problem for many retired Britons is precisely that their wealth appears to be considerable, whilst their income from pensions or interest on savings may be small. So the wealth tax can and should play a major role in such retirement planning. You are quite right that there are few tax advisers who are expert in the rules in more than one country. But perhaps a British tax accountant resident in Spain would be able to help with the calculations...'.
Meanwhile, El Mundo notes that there is chaos this year in declaring IVA returns, since they must now be done 'online'.
Good news for self-employed? Perhaps, says the Eye on Spain: 'Spain's government is considering overhauling the Social Security system for the self-employed after years of complaints by sole traders and small business owners that they are being bankrupted by financial demands from the State. In what could be a landmark reform that would provide a much-needed boost to business for those working for themselves, the PP may be considering the possibility of the self-employed paying monthly Social Security (National Insurance) contributions according to what they earn, rather than a flat rate.
Although the government insists it has no immediate plans, after a meeting between vice-president Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría and a national association representing self-employed workers, the latter claims the cabinet has promised to investigate the situation in depth and consider a radical reform'...
Various:
From El País in English: 'The economic crisis has undermined social protection in Spain. The Council of Europe, which oversees respect for human rights in 47 countries on the continent, on Wednesday expressed concern over "regressive legislative developments concerning access to health care by foreigners illegally present in the country."
The conclusion is part of a wide-reaching report by the European Committee on Social Rights that examines whether national laws conform to the European Social Charter.
The 2013 conclusions, released on Wednesday, found that Spain was one of several countries that had regressed on social rights compared with earlier periods...'.
According to reports (here for example in The Olive Press), Swine Flu H1N1 is claiming lives, with five dead in Málaga in just one week.
Students at the University of Málaga have created a website to monitor massive wasteful ventures across Spain, called Despilfarro Público, which can be found here.
The Basilica de la Sagrada Familia in Barcelona will be completed in 2026, according to the chief architect of the project Jordi Faulí. An excerpt from an interesting piece in Architect Magazine: '...The fact, then, that the Basílica i Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Família in Barcelona, Spain, first got underway 13 decades ago would be almost unremarkable but for the particular character of the basilica itself, and of the man who designed it. The massive church—technically not a cathedral by Catholic law, the official seat or cathedra of the bishop being the nearby Catedral de la Santa Creu—is unlike any other house of worship in the world with its well-known, spiky, fanciful, mud-castle-like ensemble of swirling towers and twisting columns...'. I can hardly wait.
A site called Integra Local helps with integration issues for immigrants.
'Brokeback Mountain' is now an opera, and it's going 'great guns' in Madrid's Teatro Real. The story in The World Post. The writer of the original story (and the libretto), Annie Proulx, has seen the show. 'Are you content?', asks the newspaper. 'It’s tremendous. It’s enormous. “Pleased” isn’t the word I would use. It’s new, it’s emotional, it’s hard, it’s painful. There are other adjectives that I don’t care to mention, they don’t matter', she says.
Finally:
It had to happen, here are 'Spain's twenty worst restaurants' according to El País. And here is one of the 'World's ten most romantic restaurants' (It's in Granada, of course).
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