Editorial:
There are essentially two different types of property regularly placed under discussion, the ‘new build’ apartment blocks on the edge of the cities (favoured particularly by Spanish first-time buyers) and then the new or ‘used’ homes on or near the coast snapped up by foreigners. Articles on property sometimes concentrate on just one of these, and the conclusions drawn may jar with other figures or opinions which circulate on the Internet or in print. Generally, we see the demand for homes (and the price) is slowly rising, as the Government releases fresh and positive figures. But, politically, there are still a couple of difficult times ahead, notably the September Catalonian and year-end General Elections.
Housing:
‘The real estate market is continuing to show clear signs of recovery. According to the Sociedad de Tasación, the average price of new housing rose by 1.8% in the first half of 2015 – the first increase since 2007 – and by 1.4% in the last year. However, in real terms, prices have registered a decline of 38.7% on average since the maximum values recorded, with prices at the level of May 2002...’. From Kyero.
‘Tinsa says Spanish Mediterranean property has fallen by 48.6% in value since 2007’. But now ‘The Mediterranean and the Islands lead the way in the Spanish property market’. Story at Spanish News Today.
‘The owners of illegal homes will be compensated before demolition. The modification affects the owners who purchased in good faith and who face a firm sentence for demolition’ (Costa del Sol). The headline comes from Typically Spanish.
‘La Ley de Montes’, the proposal to re-zone woodland destroyed by fire ‘for the common good’, has passed in Parliament (What could possibly go wrong?). Story at Diagonal Global here.
‘Billionaires David and Simon Reuben have purchased 6.3 kilometres of central beachfront property in Ibiza. Obtained for the bargain price of €3.5 million from local family Gallart Sans, the properties acquired include Port des Torrent, Cala Conta and Cala Bassa. The Reuben brothers have expressed their intention to renew the planning licences for the area, which had lapsed under the area’s previous owners, and plan to build luxury beachfront developments...’. Found at The Olive Press.
‘Just half of holiday rentals in Spain have a licence to operate legally, according to new research by Esade business school. ... According to the Esade report, 14 per cent of tourists who come to Spain every year stay in holiday lets and spend €2,685 million whilst on holiday in Spain. Of this spending, €921.9 million goes on accommodation (€249 per person) while €1,763 million is spent on shopping, restaurants and leisure...’. From Mark Stüklin’s Spanish Property Insight.
‘Taxes on Buying Spanish Property’. An article by Raymundo Larraín Nesbitt for Spanish Property Insight here.
Tourism:
The United Kingdom is alerting their citizens of the high risk of terror attacks in Spain, says Ideal indignantly.
‘Both the president of the Canary Islands and the government of the Balearic Islands have said they are considering putting limits on the number of tourists flocking to the balmy getaways this summer...’. From The Local.
‘The last section of the A-7 motorway inside Granada province will open in September. Known as the Motorway of the Mediterranean once the last section is open you can drive from Cádiz to the French border along the Mediterranean coast. The news was given this morning by the Deputy Prime Minister, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, who was in Málaga at the investiture of the new Provincial Government...’. From Typically Spanish.
Finance:
Spain is far from being ‘out of the woods’ quite yet, as we read in La Celosia which says that the highest unemployment rate in the world’s leading 34 countries (according to the OCDE – 296 pages in English here) for the over 55s (20%) and the under 25s (53.2%) both correspond to Spain.
The owners of Spain’s Corte Inglés department stores have sold 10% of the company to an investor from Qatar. El País in English has the report here.
Editorial from Kyero: ‘...With figures now available for the first five months of 2015, growth this year has been even stronger. So much so, that the real estate sector has experienced the largest increase in new businesses out of all industries in Spain. Unemployment is expected to drop below 20 percent next year and, though there's no hiding from the fact that this is still much higher than the European average, the rate is falling at an encouraging rate and the number of new companies and people working in the housing industry is leading the recuperation...’.
Saudi Arabia has cancelled a contract with Talgo for six AVE trains, and the company has taken a bath on the Madrid stock exchange, losing 10.6% of its value. Story here.
Politics:
Good Government? The confidence in national government and its change since 2007. A graphic (from the OECD) shows that Spain is third last out of forty countries with just 21% approval (2014 figures). But this article at El Confidencial has more to say – claiming that Podemos was born out of the general dissatisfaction with governance here. ‘...Trust in Government represents the confidence of citizens and businesses in the actions of governments to do what is right and perceived as fair...’.
The Partido Popular is to present a new plan to give power, in the event of no clear leader in a local election, to the largest group, so long as it takes over 35% of the vote. Story here.
Hyperbole from El País in English: ‘Spanish diplomacy was dealt an unmitigated blow on Monday with the re-election of Jeroen Dijsselbloem to preside the Eurogroup, the name given to meetings of euro-zone finance ministers. The Dutch finance minister had been challenged by Spanish Economy Minister Luis de Guindos...’.
Another party, or rather coalition, rises to the struggle. This is an attempt at a unified left union called Ahora en Común. The party, which includes support from disgruntled members of Podemos, IU and Equo, supports the philosophies of the maverick parties that currently run the town halls of Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Cádiz. Alberto Garzón, an ex-communist and IU heavyweight, is their leader. See report and video at El Mundo here.
Headline from El País in English: ‘Why Spain has resisted the rise of the far right. Country's history of dictatorship and emigration may be stopping rise of the xenophobes’.
Spain is at the bottom of the developed world when it comes to controlling pressure groups (‘lobbies’) in Government and also in the protection of ‘whistle-blowers’ says El Diario.
Catalonia:
The parties in favour of independence have made a breakthrough agreement prior to the Catalonian regional elections on September 27th. It’s an interesting agreement – the first three people on the coalition list will be independents (headed up byRaül Romeva – an ex-MEP for the ICV Greens), with Artur Mas (CDC, also known as Convergència) as fourth and Oriol Junqueras (ERC) as fifth. The sixth and seventh are again independents and a spread of 60% members of the CDC and 40% ERC fills the rest of the list. Other minor groups that have subscribed to the deal include the Moviment d'Esquerres (MES), Democràtes de Catalunya, la Assemblea Nacional Catalana (ANC), Òmnium Cultural and the Associació de Municipis per la Independència (AMI). In the event of a win for the coalition, Artur Mas would return as President of the Generalitat de Catalunya. More at Público here and here.
Tortoises:
La locura sigue... The ecologists, who ignore the environmental damage of the almost 30,000 hectares of plastic farms, the prickly pear issue and who seemingly delight in the demolition of the 'illegal homes' in Andalucía, have now persuaded the Junta de Andalucía to make owning a tortoise illegal, with anything up to two years prison. So far in Almería, the police say they have had over 2000 tortoises 'handed in' and the creatures will now be sent to the tortoise gulags in Velez Blanco and María (both above the snow-line) where they will be checked for disease before ‘being returned to the hills’. The third gulag, in Bédar, was never completed, despite a reported 1,500,000€ spent. The ecologists admit that they have been swamped by the number of ejemplares handed in (two years prison, you say?) and that around 25% of the reptiles are in fact a Moroccan sub-species which must be returned, so says the Voz de Almería with a straight face, to their country of origin! Madre mía!
Greece:
‘Following Alex Tsipras’ humiliating capitulation to the Troika this Monday, one can imagine governments across Europe breathing a collective sigh of relief, tinged no doubt with a little schadenfreude. The loudest sigh was probably not in Berlin, as one might suspect, but in Madrid where the scandal-tarnished Rajoy government arguably had most to lose from a Syriza triumph (or even half-triumph), with general elections lurking just around the corner...’. From the always interesting Wolf Street.
‘...Varoufakis was reluctant to name individuals, but added that the governments that might have been expected to be the most sympathetic towards Greece were actually their “most energetic enemies”. He said that the “greatest nightmare” of those with large debts – the governments of countries like Portugal, Spain, Italy and Ireland – “was our success”. “Were we to succeed in negotiating a better deal, that would obliterate them politically: they would have to answer to their own people why they didn’t negotiate like we were doing.”...’. From The New Statesman.
‘Spain’s Podemos have led the criticism of European powers, accusing them of staging a "coup d’état" against Greece and popularizing the Twitter hashtag #ThisIsACoup. While the leaders of key eurozone countries expressed relief at the proposed deal, parties from Britain's right-wing UKIP to Spain's radical left Podemos said Greece had been stitched up...’. From The Local.
Various:
‘Accessing public healthcare in Spain’ a useful guide from Living in Spain.
‘While Spain in general is losing population through a combination of low birth rates and the effects of the crisis, in Málaga the number of inhabitants continues to grow. It has not ceased to do so in recent years, but in 2014 it became the province with the highest population gain by far in the whole country, followed by the Balearic Islands and Santa Cruz de Tenerife. The latest figures from the National Institute of Statistics show that there were 1,632,949 people living in Málaga last year. This is 13,236 more than in 2013: a remarkable increase, especially when one considers that Spain lost 72,335 inhabitants during the same period. In fact, the province gained more residents than the rest of Andalucía combined...’. From Sur in English.
The August bullfight in La Coruña has been cancelled by the Town Hall of that city, presided by Marea Atlántica (another Podemos clone). Manuel Díaz El Córdobes, who was to fight there, has this to say – ‘the bulls are the second most popular spectacle in Spain. The minority should not want to dominate the majority. They seek power without the support of those in favour of the bullfight. Besides the culture, there is the tradition, the poetry, the art, and the jobs connected to the world of bullfights. Those in Podemos are specialists in screwing up things and aggravating problems’. More at Libertad Digital.
Fake news about Madrid and its new mayor Manuela Carmena put out there by detractors? There’s plenty to be found. Indeed, the Madrid Town Hall has a new website called Versión Original here whose sole function is to find and correct any inaccurate claims on the Internet or in print. The story at El Mundo.
The liberty of the press in Spain – an interesting essay at Cuadernos de Periodistas. ‘...Economic interests, together with banks and corporations, exercise an ever greater pressure over the communication media, thanks to the huge debts these organisations have as a result of the economic crisis...’. Meanwhile, the political use of ‘institutional advertising’, described here as ‘indirect censorship’, is on the rise. Finally, a figure: between 2008 and 2014, a total of 11,875 jobs were lost in the Spanish communications industry.
Canal Plus and Movistar have fused into one. Cable TV, Internet, phone calls and all. Story here.
So what happened to the Digital Canon in Spain, asks MIT Technology Review here. Meanwhile, and as expected, the European Parliament have turned down a similar Google Tax and also squashed the idea of paying architects for having their buildings appear in a photo. Story here.
Another article on Government control over what we read: ‘1984 Comes to Europe - The End of Freedom of Speech in Spain’. A list of the new rules from The Civil Protection Act.
‘Those of us who live in the Costas call it The Great Escape. For the uninitiated, I’m talking about the annual expat exodus from Spain to the warm, wet UK during the months of July and August...’. Found at The View.
See Spain
‘A Master of Reinvention: What Artists Can Learn from Joan Miró Today’. Found at The Guardian.
‘Xàtiva castle - Valencia's Millennial Treasure’ From Eye on Spain here.
Some pretty towns in the province of Sevilla. Photos from ABC.
More on the Greek Crisis
by Andrew Brociner
A lot of things have been happening in Greece in a short space of time. The polls went in favour of the government, the Finance Minister left the bargaining table and the government backed down on some of its conditions to get a bailout. The IMF as well decided it was time to distance itself from the other players. So, what is going on?
The one term we did not hear in all of these discussions is the most relevant: debt write-off. Greece's debt is now 177% of GDP and is forecast to reach 200% of GDP in the next two years, which puts it on an unsustainable path. Behind the scenes, the Greeks wanted some of the debt to be exonerated, but the creditors led by Germany refused and that is why the talks reached a deadlock. The Greeks knew they could not pay back all of that debt, but the Germans did not want to consider debt relief. The IMF was watching this political process which it did not condone, but neither did it want to get in the way of saving the euro-zone. Now the IMF has finally come out and said that Greece needs debt relief, effectively detaching itself from the European creditors. It has its own rules on loans and debts – that loans have conditions, but that debt needs to be on a sustainable path – and it has stood by quietly for long enough. Greece has already missed the deadline on its IMF loan and as more time goes by, the IMF sees itself further in a position it does not want to be in. By speaking out, the IMF returns to its principles and perhaps can influence the bargaining process in Europe on the sticking point of debt relief.
Now that the Greek government has accepted the conditions attached to the bailout, it is seen as going against its own mandate for anti-austerity. The Greek people who voted for it are disgruntled and there is rebellion among the government's own ranks with some ministers already having left. There are also anti-austerity protests in the streets in front of the Greek parliament. Understandably, the Greeks seem to have had enough and certainly do not want more austerity.
That the government accepted the conditions despite its own anti-establishment convictions shows how up against a wall it was. Greece's budget surplus turned to deficit and could not run without further financing. The ECB refused more liquidity to Greek banks and they are to remain shut for some time. Things got very close to having no money to run the economy.
But now that the IMF has made its position clear, if the creditor countries will take this lead, it will result in what the Greek government was seeking all along: debt relief which could at least take the form of restructuring. If this happens, the euro-zone stays intact and the Greek government will come home with not only short-term financing through the bailout, but a way back to a more stable path in the long run.
Letters
Lenox,
The comment below from BoT is utter nonsense, why would lenders want to wreck the country and risk their loans to Greece. The Germans and French are the Greece’s largest creditors. They borrowed the money and now don’t want to pay it back.
‘According to mainstream media, the current economic crisis in Greece is due to the government spending so much money on its people that it went broke. This claim however, is a lie. It was the banks that wrecked the country so oligarchs and international corporations could benefit...’. An explanation from Nation of Change. Over at Media-tics (a page that discusses the media), a similar claim: ‘Greece: the world’s most influential newspapers ally themselves to the Troika...
Unemployment in Greece is over 30%, (not as high as Almería!), youth unemployment is over 50% so young people are not going to be able to pay their grandparents’ pensions any time soon.
Greece is an unsustainable basket case. Loopholes enable certain job categories to retire early at 50 due to “hazardous working conditions” - trombone players, musicians playing wind instruments and pastry chefs get to retire as early as 50 on the grounds their work causes breathing problems. Hairdressers enjoy the same perks thanks to the dyes and other chemicals they rub into people’s hair. The Greek government has identified 580 job categories deemed to be hazardous enough to merit early retirement. The law includes jobs like coal mining and bomb disposal. But it also covers radio and TV presenters who are thought to be at risk from bacteria on their microphones.
Nobody pays taxes and they refuse to increase VAT. Olive oil, tourism and shipping are not enough to support the population. Instead of investing in education and business development they borrowed and spent the money on themselves. The eurocrats are scared shitless because that commie prime minister is apparently blackmailing the EU and threatening to open the flood gates to migrants from North Africa who would fan out across Europe because there are no opportunities for work in Greece.
Greek society has a dependency on pensioners. One in two households relies on pensions to make ends meet so you could say half of them are retired. What a fuck up!
They have been getting bailed out for the past five years and have the arrogance to demand the ECB pump more money into the banking system to keep the show on the road.
They should never have been in the Euro in the first place.
Ian
Hello Lenox,
Firstly I do enjoy reading Business Over Tapas.
This weeks (No 120) editorial, regarding a United Europe, however did push me into writing. I’m referring mainly to your text “On Sunday, Greece voted ‘no’. By which they mean, they voted ‘yes’ for Europe: not for the bankers but for the people. If this works, we may have a better and fairer and a more united Europe: which must be a good thing.”
As per Open Source, BIS, IMF and ECB the BBC published a graphic on the BBC News web site.
As you can see the great majority of the money that Greece owes is to the governments (citizens) of Germany, France (me), Italy and even Spain, not to the banks as you referred to in your editorial. Even Italy and Spain have cautioned loans for Greece despite their own precarious situation.
Regards,
Paul
Ha! I love the Roman quote! Vivere, bibere, I am going to use that one time and time again!
Thanks for all your hard work Lenox,
Best, Jackie
Finally:
Some amazing modern Flamenco dance by Israel Galván and Akram Khan here.
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