Editorial:
Our town celebrates its Moors and Christians festival this weekend. Plenty of costumes, light, colour and music. The 26-year-old festival claims that it is unique in that 'no one wins, no one loses' – which is, of course, a slight, if romantic, rewrite of the historical facts (the whole town fell to the forces of Isabel and Ferdinand in 1488 and, in reality, was promptly put to the sword). Walt Disney (they say – improbably – that he was born in Mojácar) would have been proud of our Consejalería de Cultura's gentler version of events.
The King of Spain is to abdicate in favour of his son Felipe. The BBC has the story. Forty-six striking photographs of the new king-to-be here. The New York Times has a full report on Juan Carlos I of Spain. The scandal: here at Buzzfeed. Should there be a referendum on the monarchy before Felipe ascends to the throne? The left-wing thinks so here. Not that it will do them any good. Felipe VI will be crowned on June 18th.
Housing:
Introduction to a piece in the New York Times about real-estate opportunities for 'Global Investors' in Spain: 'As one of the most moribund housing markets in Europe, Spain has become a magnet for global bargain hunters. Real estate prices are down as much as 50 percent from their peak during a housing bubble, and investors from Asia to the United States and Britain are flocking to Spain to try to catch the uptick...'.
An excerpt from last week's Comando Actualidad investigation (TVE1) into the illegal homes. This nine minute long YouTube video with English subtitles takes us to Albox, Cantoria, the remains of Len and Helen Prior's home in Vera and the slightly clueless Secretary for Planning in Almería.
'Madrid is the latest region discussing new regulations for short-term apartment rentals, as pressure mounts to restrict the fast-growing industry. The draft of a new regulation for Madrid is “quite advanced,” Carmen González of the regional government’s tourism department told the audience during the X Hosteltur Forum in Madrid. The conference’s slogan was “New demand, new challenges for businesses”. Madrid officials have been warning for months that it plans to regulate the sector, which is coming under scrutiny around Spain. Governments in Barcelona, Andalucía and other areas have been crafting new legislation, with suggestions ranging from outright bans on short-term rentals to strict regulations on the standards for apartment rentals...'. From Mark Stüklin's Spanish Property Oversight. Once again, the hotel lobby is freezing out the small businesses. An opinion piece about this in my The Entertainer Online here.
Finance:
'In the first quarter of 2014, the Spanish State increased its spending at the greatest pace since 1995. This shocking fact adds another indication to the fact that in the last three months of 2013, Hacienda purposely engineered a fall in public spending so that they could square the accounts for the financial year. These are the figures. In the last three months of 2013, public spending fell a drastic and abrupt 3.9% over the summer months. This unexpected cut, the more abrupt on record, raised many suspicions among economists. Mainly because precisely in this quarter, the State makes one of its largest payments: the extra Christmas payout for the civil servants. A cut of 3.9% was hardly compatible with the extra spending of 5 billion euros in this regard...'. From El Diario.
Headline from The Guardian. Almost all Spanish stock market firms use tax havens, says report. Between them, 33 of the 35 companies listed on Spain's IBEX exchange had 449 subsidiaries in 17 tax havens in 2012.
The article notes: '...Tax evasion is a major problem in Spain. A report published by the tax office this year estimated that the "submerged" economy accounts for a quarter of the nation's GDP. While there have been recent high-profile court cases, such as the footballer Lionel Messi and the soprano Montserrat Caballé, tax inspectors say the bulk of the evasion is carried out by business and families with large fortunes. The tax authorities complain that their time is wasted pursuing small fry while the big fish remain out of reach'.
'May was another month of improvement in Spain’s job market. Social Security affiliations grew by 198,320 people, the greatest increase on record since July 2005, when the government granted legal status to thousands of undocumented migrants who left the informal economy and joined the rolls. New contributions to Social Security are used as a measure of job creation in Spain...'. Found at El País in English.
'The President of the regional Government of Andalucía, Susana Díaz, has enthusiastic support from senior PSOE politicians to succeed Rubalcaba, but she also generates distrust among the international credit rating agencies. The Junta de Andalucía is listed as CCC ('junk') by Moody's since 2012 and the problem is that the other main rating agency Standard & Poor's may give the same qualification to Andalucía for the worst of reasons: corruption. The agency stated last week that it considered Andalucía to be in the tail of Spain and that it would lower the region's credit rating to 'junk', if the latest scandal to hit the area – the unions/government training courses fraud – is confirmed...'. From El Mundo.
A piece regarding delayed payments, submitted by Russell Bedford International:
Late payments impacting liquidity for 80 per cent of Spanish businesses. Report reveals businesses are still facing challenges to growth.
A recent Europe-wide business survey suggests late payments are putting additional pressure on Spanish businesses, with 80 per cent claiming late payments are severely impacting liquidity.
The problem appears to be universal across Europe, with 55 per cent of businesses reporting late payments resulting in loss of income, 63 per cent claiming additional pressures on liquidity, and 50 per cent citing late payments as having a direct impact on company growth. However, the situation appears to be particularly acute in Spain, where 69 per cent of businesses claim late payments have resulted in a direct loss of income, with average bad-debt losses of 2.9 per cent. And while payment delays in the private sector appear to be better in Spain than in Europe as a whole, public sector businesses, it would appear, are delaying payments by up to 79 days.
Ricardo García-Nieto Conde, partner at Russell Bedford Barcelona member firm ASEPYME / GNL Auditores, attributes this to the wider problems afflicting Spain's public sector, and he does not expect any improvement to the situation in the short term. "It is hard to overestimate the impact current austerity policies have had on those businesses reliant on the public sector. There comes a point at which businesses have to evaluate the impact of public-sector clients on their on-going cash-flow situation, and their longer-term viability. There are signs of improvement, however. At PIMEC (Catalonia’s leading SME organisation) we have been lobbying for new legislation to ensure penalties for late payment are enforced through the appropriate channels. We are hopeful that this may be adopted by the end of this year.”
Corruption:
There's a problem in Santiago de Compostela. According to Galicia Confidencial: it seems that there aren't enough PP councillors, or names of substitutes on the last election list, to make up the number of council members for that party in the Town Hall. This, following a number of problems faced by the party, including the erstwhile mayor and two councillors resigning over corruption charges... and now another seven councillors being barred from public office for nine years each (following their part in a different corruption case).
Museum News:
Another museum which hasn't got round to opening to the public – one of the prime functions of museums – is in the Cabañeros National Park in Ciudad Real. Thirteen million euros have been spent on it, but the local town hall refuses to grant an opening licence. The gossip is... that there's nothing much in the museum to show, unless it's a monument to waste!
Politics:
'All the chatter after the European Elections has been about the surge in the far right parties with the National Front in France and UKIP in the UK leading the charge. Yet in Spain the move has been markedly to the left, which might come as a surprise as socialist PSOE’s voted collapsed causing the immediate resignation of party leader Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba and his team...'. David Eade at The London Progressive Journal introduces us to Pablo Iglesias from Podemos, who won five seats in the European Parliament.
The 200,000 party members of the PSOE will chose their new leader on 13th July.
'The Ministry of Agriculture, Food and the Environment has resolved favourably to plans to begin exploratory drilling by Repsol to search for oil off the Canary Islands, in an area that has been put forward as a place of environmental interest and protection...'. From El Huff Post. The good people of the Canarias are not amused.
The Pope recently used Andalucía as an example of the high unemployment rate for the Under-25s in Europe (it's around 60%). Now Susana Díaz, President of the Junta, has invited him to come to Seville for a scone and an orange squash and to join with her in a debate about how this might be improved. Susana says that it is down to 'La Crisis' and the government's austerity programs. The Andaluz PP leader, Juan Manuel Moreno, points out that Andalucía has always had the highest unemployment and the PSOE, after 32 years of mismanagement, is to blame. The story at El País here.
Courts
'For the first time since the economic crisis began, a group of bankers has been found guilty of financial crimes in Spain. But the former leaders of Caixa Penedès, a Catalan savings bank that received €915 million in state aid before being bought out by another bank, may be able to avoid going to jail despite their joint five-year conviction...'. From El País in English.
Various:
'...On the day that he signs the abdication document, Juan Carlos will lose the immunity he enjoys as head of state, and that privilege will be passed on to the new monarch, Felipe VI.
Also on that day, his daughters Elena and Cristina will no longer be a part of the royal family per se, but rather relatives of the king with no representation duties at official events ... The royal family will thus comprise six members: Felipe, his wife Letizia, their daughters Leonor and Sofía, and the former monarchs Juan Carlos and Sofía...'. From El País in English. This could allow the Courts freedom to pursue their investigations into the business dealings of Princess Cristina.
El Mundo kindly published its translation of the King's Speech last Monday. A translation of sorts, that is: '...I made the commitment to lead the exciting national task that allowed the citizens to elect their legitimate representatives and perform that great and positive transformation of Spain that we needed so much...'.
A YouTube short (in German and Spanish). In Germany, the unions are independent. In Spain in the year 2010, the UGT and CCOO were paid 256 million euros of public funds...
'In the last three years almost 100 people have been arrested for running human trafficking rings that used children, elderly people and individuals with disabilities to beg on the streets.
Most of the detainees are Romanian nationals, as are their victims, who are brought to Spain by the rings. In nearly all of the cases the victims were promised well-paid jobs in Spain, but once here they were made to beg on the streets in exchange for a sandwich and a bed inside a shelter. Each beggar makes an average of €80 to €100 a day...'. From El País in English.
A Danish neighbour of ours, Paul Becket, told me this story years ago. The small Granada town of Huescar, where Paul was working as an archaeologist, was at war with Denmark. It had been since the Town Hall had solemnly declared war in December 1809 following a situation where a 'rebel' Spanish army was in Denmark. War between Napoleon, the British, the Spanish and anyone else who had signed on was over by 1815, but the good people of Huescar had, in all the excitement, forgotten their declaration of war against Copenhagen. So, in 1981, peace, after 172 years, was signed between the mayor of Huescar and the Danish ambassador. The full story, including an explanation of the sign outside the pueblo, which reads in Danish: 'Warning to the Danes. You are entering into enemy territory. If you continue forward, prepare for the consequences!', in Spanish here.
Spain has a lot of prohibiciones. You can't do this, you can't do that. Many national laws, many local ordinances. A journalist called Francisco Canals, who also happens to be Director of the Picaresque Agency, has been collecting them – from prohibiting owning chickens at home in Alcúdia to the prohibition against rusty beach umbrellas in Barcelona. You can't put the image of the King inside a 12th Night Cake, eat a croissant while driving or indeed sell cakes in schools. No laundry hanging on city balconies and no 'extravagant or peculiar names' for newborns. According to Canals, the BOE (state bulletin), published each week, uses the word prohibición an average of 5,665 times in each issue. There are, he adds, a massive 2,917,000 people in the Public Sector who can promote or sign over fresh prohibitions. Story at Euro Mundo Global. In Mojácar, municipal workers may not listen to the radio and women may not walk around their apartments in high heels. As Groucho once said – whatever it is, I'm against it!
A long and gloomy documentary en castellano about 'la crisis'. It begins: By 2015, there will be 20 million Spaniards in poverty. At the same time, last year, the Spanish banks doubled their profits. 'Spain: engañados e intervenidos'. Made by Cuban TV (!)
The difficulties facing small business in Spain, from a blog at El País in English. '...The autónomos of Spain are faced with a barrage of problems. By far the biggest fly in the ointment is that, each month, they have to cough up an eye-watering €261.83 per month in social security payments...'.
'...Tuning out from technology can be challenging, but for the truly daring, there is an even more radical solution. In southern Spain, thousands of people live completely unplugged — in caverns. The province of Granada has about 11,800 caves carved into the mountains, located mainly in Sacromonte, an area that UNESCO has listed as a World Heritage Site. Most were excavated in the 15th century as homes for Muslims and Jews who were being chased out by Catholic monarchs. And about 58,000 are still privately owned and in full-time use today...'. With photographs. Story at OZY.
Letters
'What beggars belief is that SOHA only has a few hundred members out of the thousands of Brit and other ex-pats and holiday home owners in the Axarquía. There is an astonishing head in the sand attitude that none of it really matters, they won’t demolish our house anyway and it’s not as important as the loss of the TV. The reality is that our houses are virtually unsaleable, our investment worthless, our houses under threat at the whim of absentee politicians and this is a scandal on a massive scale. The only way this will be “happily” resolved is with a change in the law. An amnesty would help, but is not a solution for your property. It needs thousands of people demonstrating, huge publicity, relentless pressure on the morons calling themselves politicians in Spain and in our original countries. This is only going to happen if people actively support organisations such as SOHA in their thousands. I think that SOHA does a magnificent job, supported by a few stalwarts: it is beyond comprehension why it is not supported by every one of the home-owners whose property is at risk'. Elliot writing to The Olive Press.
Finally:
'Once, I was the King of Spain', with Scar. Ahem! Here.
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