Editorial:
There's not much to say, beyond the point that Spain is missing a huge opportunity... Here's a story from Euronews: 'Portugal wants to convert itself into a paradise for European retirees'. You see, in Portugal, you don't pay any tax on your pension for ten years. This brings home-buyers to the country, with large purses. They create jobs and keep the prettier villages alive for the future. As contrast, there's a letter this week in BoT from readers who criticise the Junta de Andalucía, who vaguely rule a region with 35% unemployment (and rising), and who seem incapable of bringing any wealth to their people at all.
Housing:
'Private housing prices rose by 0.8% in the second quarter of 2014, compared to the same period last year, marking their first positive annual increase since the first quarter of 2008 and putting an end to six years of annual declines, according to the latest House Price Index published on Monday by the National Statistics Institute...'. From Kyero. Note that in this case, 'private housing' refers more to apartment sales in large cities than to desirable houses with swimming pools located in small and unspoilt villages...
But then we read... 'Spain’s improving economy won’t immediately lead to a “sustainable” rise in house prices as oversupply, high unemployment and a dwindling population mean demand will remain weak for the next few years, Moody’s Investors Service Inc. said.
“The declining house price trend will continue over at least the next year” despite recent improvement in the Spanish economy, Moody’s analysts including Luis Mozos and Antonio Tena wrote in a report today.
Spanish home prices, which have fallen by about 40 percent since the nation’s real estate industry imploded, are rising for the first time in six years, according to official data. That’s prompting talk that the property market is rebounding more than six years after triggering the worst recession in the country’s democratic history...'. From Bloomberg.
'During Wednesday's Parliamentary debate on the state of the autonomy of Andalucía, the President of Andalucía, Susana Díaz, announced that it is her government's intention to place a proposal before parliament to CHANGE the LOUA (the Planning Laws of Andalucía) to enable the regularization of properties that are in a legal limbo....We believe this refers to the proposals of the associations to modify article 185.2 of the LOUA with respect to parcelaciones urbanisticas or illegal land divisions' (note from AUAN, following from a report in the Diario Sur titled 'Junta propone cambiar ley urbanística para regularizar viviendas ilegales' ('Junta proposes to change the planning laws to regularise the illegal homes'). Could things really be changing for the better or is it election time again? *There's a press release from AUAN at the bottom of this report (Or in Spanish, here).
The ex-mayor of Cantoria in Almería may face some more court-time in October says La Voz de Almería, unconcerned about the 17 illegal and British-owned houses built there under his watch – homes which may be ordered to be torn down by the Court.
Despite trying to sell them off, the banks continue to have more money than ever tied up in properties. Currently, according to El País, the banks (particularly the Banco Popular and the Caixa) hold 90,200 million euros – which is 6,100 million euros more than in January.
'Spain’s trip to the economic brink and back has made investments in its hotel market much more profitable than the frothy real estate markets in other countries … After fleeing the country following the 2008 collapse of its real estate bubble, property investors have flooded into the Spanish hotel market. In fact, during the first half of 2014, 724 million euros was injected into the Spanish hotel sector, according to CBRE Spain, compared to 665 million euros in all of 2013...'. Found at Fortune.
Tourism:
The average one-night stay in a hotel in Spain for two will cost the customer 116 euros, according to this.
Nothing frightens the wealthy hotel sector more than those who offer short-term apartment lets. Indeed, some cities, under pressure from this sector, have banned rentals for less than 30 days (who would want to stay in a hotel for a full month?). Now comes word of a small hotel chain, Room Mate, which has broken rank with the others, by offering apartments for rent. Be Mate began yesterday with apartments on offer in several cities, including Madrid, Barcelona, Málaga and Granada. Might we argue that it's OK to rent apartments, as long as it's a hotel chain that's doing the renting? More at El Mundo.
Finance:
The unfortunately named Emilio Botín ('booty' or 'swag' in English) died last week, and his daughter takes over as head of the Banco Santander, a public company. That's nice.
Corruption:
Hacienda has discovered a potentially huge IVA fraud of 60 million euros in the accounts of ONO, the telephone company just now bought by Vodaphone. Meanwhile, another phone company, Jazztel, has just been sold to Orange.
Politics:
(As we wait for today (Thursday)'s outcome on Scotland's vote) 'José Manuel García-Margallo, Spain's Foreign Minister, has said that his government would use "all means necessary" to stop the planned independence referendum in Catalonia, including stripping the region of its autonomous powers, but ruled out 'sending in the tanks' because it was 'not in the constitution'...'. Found at The Local.
Catalonia was in the news early last week, with stories to chill the heart of any reader of El Mundo, which is increasingly becoming the preferred newspaper of the Government. We read that two British mercenaries are training some of the mossos (the Catalonian police) and others in crowd control ('war tactics'). The students are all members of the radical 'Estat Català', an independence group. Perhaps they will be used to repel the Spanish army if the Generalitat declares UDI, a unilateral declaration of independence, as the Nº 2 in the CiU suggests in an interview. Meanwhile, we learnt that his government has been pumping in 180 million euros with 'institutional advertising' and other aids to the local pro-Catalan press since 2008. On the same day, another feature, this time on La Sexta TV, found Pablo Iglesias, the leader of Podemos, making the valid point that 'the case of Jordi Pujol isn't about Catalonia corruption or their independence (it's become a useful stick against the region) but about 'la casta' (the breed of politicians we have here)'.
From Monday's Guardian: 'As the campaign for Scottish independence enters its final week, Catalonia is launching the next phase in its attempt to break away from Spain. On Monday, the regional parliament began laying the groundwork to pass a law allowing a referendum on 9 November.
The Catalan leader Artur Mas told the Catalan parliament that the law would pave the way for the region to call non-binding consultations. "This would mean that Spain would effectively bury the 'old Spain' and rediscover that it is a country made up of several nations," he said. "In an instant, Spain would emerge as a country with an impressive level of democracy, tolerance and one that is capable of listening and resolving what is, above all, a democratic challenge."...'. Good luck with that!
'The Junta has “regularised” just 200 of the estimated 300,000 “illegal homes” in Andalucía in the past two years', says El Mundo. We've seen it before, but here it's presented as a political comment on the apparent inertia of the PSOE-A (which may help to explain the news item above, that Susana Díaz's Government is now prepared to repair the situation).
'A controversial Spanish MEP has been appointed as the EU’s new energy and climate commissioner. Miguel Arias Cañete was handed the key role as Russia slashed gas supplies to the Ukraine ... The incoming European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker picked the 64-year-old Spaniard with French and British politicians taking positions in economic affairs and financial services respectively...'. From The Olive Press.
The scandal involving the Pujol clan in Catalonia erupted at a good moment for the 'constitutionalists' – as the keep-Spain-together group is known here. It has now come out that the senior 'Spin Doctor' for Mariano Rajoy encouraged the Press to follow up the story.
'The controversial abortion law that would have sent Spain back to the days of Franco has been dropped. PM Rajoy’s office has admitted that due to lack of internal consensus it’s unlikely to be passed in this legislature and can be considered shelved. It’s a humiliating blow to the extreme conservative wing of the PP, under Justice Minister Alberto Gallardón (he used to be Mayor of Madrid), but Spain has united in defence of women’s rights and forced them to back down...'. From David Jackson. It seems that Gallardón may now resign his ministerial post following his disappointment.
Courts
Have you read about the senior politicians, on retirement from their jobs as servants of the state, who get nice gigs sitting on the electric company's boards of directors? The “anti-corruption prosecutor” hasn't and therefore he won't be making an investigation. Heh!
Tax:
'Ex-pats who rent out their homes in Britain will be stripped of the right to use the personal allowance, under a tax raid prepared by George Osborne. Britons could be forced to return from retirements overseas if the Chancellor presses ahead with plans to force non-residents to pay tax on all their UK income, accountants warned. Retirees drawing a Government pension are also likely to be hit by the proposals, which could cut a couple’s income by up to £4,000 a year. At present, EU nationals and British ex-pats are entitled to offset income earned in the UK against the £10,000 personal allowance...'. From The Telegraph.
A few links to the Inheritance Tax story: 'EU rules against Spain on 'discriminatory' inheritance tax' (from Reuters); 'Inheriting Trouble: Spain’s Tax Almost Drove Me From the Country' (from The Wall Street Journal) and 'Legal tip 1201. EU Court states discrimination of Spain IHT' (from Eye of Spain).
White Elephants:
The 'City of the Environment', a 52 million euro idea half-built in an empty area near Soria, is described here as 'a Chernobyl without the dead'. The plan was to build an industrial park, apparently in the middle of a nature park, but no one came. It's all about the commissions.
Various:
In a slightly incoherent article about the British from Público, the disparity between the highly official and utterly sacred Instituto Nacional de Estadísticas and the more pragmatic statistics supplied by common sense – in this case the British Foreign Office – we once again find that there are either 311,774 or roughly 770,000 of us, according to who you believe. We also learn from the same article that 80% of us are here to work rather than to retire (which seems hard to believe, but of course – who knows more about the British than the Spanish newspapers?). Público also wonders how the UKIP and other 'ultras' justify their dream of leaving the EU while so many of their fellow countrymen live in Spain, the article (in the immortal words of Nigel Farage) sets out to explain – '…“you can not compare the Britons living in Spain with the Poles living in the United Kingdom (says Farage), given that the former contribute significantly to the Spanish economy and, therefore, it would not be hard to sign a bilateral agreement with Madrid that guarantees them the same rights as at present”. In the opinion of Farage, the arrival of "expatriates" from the United Kingdom to any country in Europe should be greeted as a blessing...'.
'Al-Andalus is still considered by jihadists as Muslim territory, international terrorism analyst Fernando Reinares told ANSA in an interview. Both Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State (IS) see it as ''under Spanish and Portuguese occupation'', and this leads to a greater risk of terrorism in the area, the senior analyst for the Real Instituto Elcano - the most prestigious center for strategic studies of Spain - told ANSA...'. Found at Italian Ansa-Med.
Who could ever forget Mrs Thatcher? Certainly not the residents around the recently opened Plaza de Margaret Thatcher in Madrid!
'Spanish road authorities have reduced the speed margin on cameras without warning drivers in a bid to meet their target of pocketing a staggering €384 million ($496M) in fines by the end of 2014. Spain’s Directorate General of Traffic (DGT) failed to make it public knowledge that speed cameras across the country are now taking a register of vehicles over the speed limit by 8km/h, whereas before it was 12 to 15km/h....'. From The Local.
Another way for the State to squeeze some money out of citizens... average speed detectors. The Sur in English explains: 'Thousands of drivers who travelled on the Las Pedrizas road north of the city of Málaga over the summer months have been caught speeding. Though the system, which measures an average speed between two distances, usually several hundred metres apart, was installed by the traffic department in February, it only started to take evidential photographs of those driving over 80 kilometres an hour at the start of summer. The Málaga traffic authorities detected, just during July, 15,000 violations of the speed limit - or 500 a day. According to the head of the ‘Dirección General de Tráfico’ in Málaga, Trinidad Hernández, not all of these will result in fines since some will be ambulances, fire engines and police vehicles...'.
'We can expect to see some savage rises in the cost of electricity before the end of the year warns consumer organisation FACUA. You see, we all know about the fuss earlier this year with the electric companies keeping the price artificially high. The government was forced to act due to public outrage (and the threat of an EU investigation), and prices dropped, ever so slightly. Well, they’re going back up again, and the government has quietly loosened the rules that were supposed to prevent this happening...'. From David Jackson. The CE News isn't impressed either with its title: 'The biggest rip-off in the history of Spain is called “electricity”'. We read: 'Neither the scandal of the sale of “Preferentes” by the banks, nor the Andalucía ERE; neither the Afinsa, the Forum Filatélico, or any of the large number of other known scams, are close to being as bad as the deception suffered monthly by more than 20 million Spaniards. In the last five years the price of electricity has risen more than 60% with only an increase in consumption of 1.9% in the same period. The various governments of Spain together with the electric companies have organized a complex set of calculations in the energy sector, making it rather incomprehensible to understand...'.
An opinion piece in Público has some fun on the beach – Jellyfish are like politicians, they float around stinging people more or less aimlessly...
'Up to forty families ask for bi-lingual education in Catalonia as allowed by law' says El Mundo. It's not many when you think about it. Here's the headline from El Huff Post: 'Just 40 families ask for bi-lingual education for this school year'. The reflection that it would be most useful for any Catalan child to be able to speak Spanish we leave for another moment...
A comment from the Colin Davies Thoughts From Galicia blog: 'It costs a lot to send a kid back to school at the start of the academic year here, largely because parents have to fork out for text books in each of maybe 12 subjects. And these are changed every year, making the previous books obsolete and unsaleable. Some say this is a deliberate strategy, aimed at keeping Spain's publishers solvent. But now the EU says it's illegal to charge for books as it's a basic right of children to have a free education. Just another Brussels dictate to be ignored for as long as possible'.
...And another from Colin (September 11th): 'El País today had 8 pages of reportage on the passing of the president of Santander Bank. Plus the lead item on the front age. And an editorial. Finally, a dedicated opinion column. Appropriately, he was referred to as the 'emperor' of Spanish banking. But why not 'Caudillo'? At times like this one wonders how long it will take Spain to move away from worship of the Big Man. Or el cacique. Meanwhile, his eldest child has inherited the fiefdom which is Santander Bank, masquerading as a public, listed company. But I don't suppose there'll be a shareholder revolt. Even though the chances of her getting the job in a meritocratic recruitment process would probably not be all that high. Perhaps they're confident all the other not-so-big men to keep her in her place'. Since then, the head of the giant retailer El Corte Inglés has also passed on to his reward, leaving his post to his nephew... (more at El País in English).
Enjoy living abroad, says Karen McCann in her blog here.
Anthony Bourdain is an American TV personality and traveller. Here at No Reservations he discovers Spain's national dish, the tortilla de patata. Video. And here from Josh Marshall at Glimpsed is a video with his explanation about the Tuna, the colourful troubadours found at the universities (and in the bars, late at night...).
Letters
Dear Lenox,
As members of SOHA, we regularly read BoT and note from your editorials that you feel the same way as we do about the so called illegal housing problem in the region. You probably already know that the Junta de Andalucía are apparently going to be making an announcement in the next week or so that will supposedly sort out most people's problems but that remains to be seen. We find it very hard to believe that the administration who created all these problems in the first place will be either willing or capable of carrying out the radical reforms that are needed. Does this mean that Helen and Len Prior, John and Jan Brooks and all other injured parties will finally receive adequate compensation? What is needed is a radical reformation of all the existing rural property laws in Andalucía and an amnesty for all the affected properties.
I have voiced my opinions to SOHA on numerous occasions and tried to galvanise fellow SOHA members into being more vocal and more critical about the way that so many property owners have been treated - it is a violation of human rights. We need to up the ante, be far more hard-hitting in our approach and have far more UK press coverage. This whole situation is an outrage and has been allowed to go on for far too long yet there seems to be relatively little opposition to it. People should be screaming from the rooftops about it at every given opportunity and basically making far more noise. Can you imagine the public outcry if thousands of foreigners had ploughed that amount of money into the UK and then had their houses declared illegal?
I believe you live in the Almería area and wondered if you have a different experience there. Perhaps people are more motivated since Helen and Len Prior and John and Jan Brooks had their houses demolished. (We have the support of the AUAN in Almería – Lenox).
We do not have a so called illegal house but we are affected by it. We would like to sell our house (Málaga area) and take our money out of Spain but with all the legal uncertainty, it is virtually impossible. This situation has killed the property market stone dead and virtually wiped out what was a very lucrative residential tourism industry for Andalucía. The loss to the region in terms of inward investment, business investment and employment opportunities is immeasurable and one can only assume the Junta de Andalucía have some sort of death wish. They had a good thing going with wealthy northern Europeans moving to their country and bringing their large pensions, investing large sums of money in property, paying taxes and buying goods and services from local businesses. But the minute that bulldozer crept towards the Priors' house and struck the upper part of the façade, the whole industry died. And for what? Who is the winner? The despotic Junta de Andalucía and the brain-dead environmentalists (a huge minority with what seems like a very big voice) pretend to care about the environment but it is simply a political ideology that they hide behind. Do they have any viable alternative to the residential tourism industry? Perhaps their idea of tourism is to demolish the Algarrobico Hotel and erect some mud huts with no electricity or running water. If they really do care about the environment, where were they 15 years ago when all these houses were being built? Basically, the Junta de Andalucía, backed by the environmentalists, used the tripwire technique: i.e. they sat back, did nothing, watched and waited until they had milked it for all it was worth and then decided to strike - this is when they illegally demolished the Priors' house. It was a premeditated act of fraud and they knew exactly what they were doing but so far, it seems as though they have got away with it relatively unchallenged. These ex-pats should have been cherished but instead they have been treated liked something lower than vermin. During this time, the Junta de Andalucía were busy lining their own pockets with the millions of Euros sent to them by the EU which was supposed to be used to improve the lives of their constituents. The more you think about it, the more unbelievable it is. It is unimaginable that this type of thing can happen in a so called civilised, western democracy and we can only hope that the officials at the Junta de Andalucía finally get booted out of office and sent to prison for a very long time.
We feel that anyone buying a property in another EU member state should be protected from this type of thing happening and if not, then that country should not be a member of the EU. To say we are disgusted would be an understatement and it goes without saying that we wish we had never bought property in Spain. The region of Andalucía has frightening unemployment statistics with no light at the end of the tunnel - in other words, it has no future.
Obviously these are our personal views but we thought that you might be interested to hear them and would welcome your own personal take on the situation.
Many thanks and kind regards,
J and R.
Finally:
Drinking ginebra has suddenly become fashionable in Spain. In the old days, we had 'Larios', 'MG', 'Giro' and the never to be forgotten 'Green Fish'. Now, there are any number on offer... And here it is, the bar with the most brands of gin. It's in Palencia and is called The Lemon Society. It has 475 gins in stock, and 57 different kinds of tonic. ¡Madre Mía!
ILLEGAL HOUSES – LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL??
AUAN Press Release 17.09.2014
Susana Díaz, President of the Junta de Andalucía spoke about illegal houses today in the Andalusian Parliament during the debate on the state of Andalusian autonomy.
She said “Ladies and Gentlemen, we are going to respond to the situation that affects thousands of families and that cannot be ignored by the Administration. You are aware that a significant number of buildings have been constructed, the majority some time ago, on non urbanizable land and that the proscription period allowed for the restoration of legality has now passed. We cannot allow them to remain in a limbo of legal uncertainty, and for this reason my Government is going to propose to Parliament a change to article 185 of the Planning Law of Andalucía which will make it possible to regularize thousands and thousands of houses in Andalucía”.
Maura Hillen, President of the association which campaigns against planning abuses known as “AUAN” gave a cautious welcome to the news and said “it appears to be a positive step and we are given hope by what the President has said. We only hope that the proposed change is appropriate and that it becomes law as soon as possible” adding “finally there seems to be political as well as social consensus regarding illegal houses in Andalucía. The facts are that there are at least 300,000 illegal houses in Andalucía. They cannot all be demolished and therefore solutions must be found. It is not acceptable to ignore these houses pretending that they do not exist because there are thousands of houses that may be affecting the environment that are currently not being recognised and regulated”.
According to Gerardo Vázquez, legal advisor to AUAN, “the change could be an important step. To coin a phrase this will not be end of the problem, nor the beginning of the end, but perhaps the end of the beginning. AUAN has campaigned for many years to bring about a change of this sort, even warning before what purported to be the regularization Decree was passed that it would not resolve the problem for the majority of houses because they were on illegal land divisions. We thank the politicians and officials who have embraced this assertion and promoted it. As one of them said to me recently “politicians have to be useful” and I sincerely believe that this measure if applied correctly, will benefit, not only many families in Andalucía, but also legal security, foreign investment and society as a whole”.
Si (
No(
