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WeeklyReport

Business Over Tapas (07th November, 2015)

By Lenox Napier and Andrew Brociner

sábado 07 de noviembre de 2015, 17:34h

A digest of this week's Spanish financial, political and social news aimed primarily at Foreign Property Owners: with Lenox Napier and Andrew Brociner - For subscriptions and other information about this site, go to businessovertapas.com - email: [email protected] - ***Now with Facebook Page (Like!)*** Note: Underlined words or phrases are links to the Internet. Right click and press 'Control' on your keyboard to access. Business over Tapas and its writers are not responsible for unauthorised copying or other improper use of this material.

Editorial:

In a sense, it’s almost a relief not to have The Vote in Spain’s General Election on December 20th, right before Christmas. At least we will have an extra day in bed before all that shopping. More seriously, as accusations of corruption, stupidity, inefficiency, incomprehension, cupidity, perversion and even treason are cast at the different candidates and their teams by their choleric opponents (and remember, politicians never lie), we shall rest in the certain knowledge that, however bad things will be looking in January, it won’t be thanks to our own active participation.

Now, roll on the Brexit vote.

Housing:

An article in Público bemoans the current policy of saving those ‘illegal homes’ from demolition ‘until the owners are given full compensation’ which translates as ‘few, very few constructions are demolished each year’. While most of us might celebrate this good and common sense attitude of the government and the judges, it is also the case that things could change after the elections in December... The ecologists, says the article, blame the administration’s change in the rules to ‘pressure from the voters’. Well Goodness! So, how many ‘illegal homes’ are there in Spain? Funny thing: nobody knows. Meanwhile – there has been no movement on the famous Hotel Algarrobico eyesore, which was going to be resolved last September...

The Supreme Court has annulled the 2010 General Plan for Marbella. This could mean that some 25,000 homes there could return to the status of ‘illegal’ with all that implies. The story is at Diario Sur.

‘House Hunting in ... Spain’ – well, Madrid anyway. An article from The New York Times.

Tourism:

Not that anyone should worry, but the Ministry of the Interior now keeps permanent records of all passengers who travel outside the Schengen area of the European Union in a secret register, according to an article in El Ideal.

‘Houses that are rented illegally make up a quarter of the entire offer, according to the CCOO union. The union believes that the use of irregular rentals of accommodation could be instrumental in creating situations of labour intrusion and unfair competition. The CCOO demands a specific regulation to address the supply of ‘alegal’ tourist rental homes’. The wordy headline comes from Agent Travel.

After causing a suitable amount of chaos and doubt, and with many hotels now obliged to close for the winter season, the question of the Imserso – the old people’s state aided holidays – has finally been resolved. The Islands holidays to go to the pretender: Mundoplan (a company controlled by Iberia and Alsa). El País reports.

Finance:

‘The infamous “ground clause” or “cláusula suelo” – a minimum interest rate that financial institutions applied to many mortgages in order to insulate themselves from possible declines in the Euribor – has caused loans taken before the crisis to increase, in some cases, from anywhere between 1,000 and 5,000 euros. During the era of the property boom, many home buyers were unaware this clause was included in their contract when they signed for a new mortgage. The nasty surprise for the mortgage holders came when the Euribor, the interest rate which 90% of mortgages in Spain are based on, started to decline in 2009 to below 2%, and these reductions were not reflected in the loan payments...’. From an article published in 2011 by Kyero. Recently, the European Court has deemed the Spanish ‘cláusula suelo’ to be illegal, and banks may find that they will be obliged to return important sums of money to anything up to two million customers. El Mundo says: ‘Two million people affected by the claúsulas suelo who signed mortgages almost a decade ago await a ruling that may allow them to review their contracts and eventually receive compensation. On average, if the judge decides that the ‘ground clauses’ are void from its inception and claimable in full, compensation could amount to as much as 15,000 euros.

This figure is the estimate of the association of users of banks and cajas called Adicae, which represents 15,000 individuals suing 101 entities for employing these improper criteria. The Bank of Spain is not commenting on the situation. Given the amount and average interest rate, 15,000 euros would be an average sum of what a customer has overpaid over the past five years for the purposes of this clause, designed to protect banks from offering cheaper credit when mortgage rates fall below a level...’ (Thanks to Per).

The ‘Ley de Wert’, named after an erstwhile Minister for Education, is a reform in Spain’s school system (these reforms come along every legislature). How successful it is, is down to anyone’s opinion, but the printer of many of Spain’s school books, Santillana (part of the El País group), is certainly happy, with sales this year up by 20%. Story here.

Politics:

The last journalist to be imprisoned in Spain for political reasons, Jabier Salutregi, the director of the banned Egin newspaper, was released last week after seven years ‘inside’. ‘It was hard’, he says, ‘but the nightmare is now over’. Story at Público.

General Elections 20D:

‘With 50 days to go before Spain holds a crucial general election, the campaign is increasingly looking like a three-horse race between the incumbent Popular Party (PP), the main opposition Socialist Party (PSOE) and the emerging Ciudadanos (Cs), a new survey shows. The latest survey by polling firm Metroscopia shows Ciudadanos ahead of the Socialists in voting intention, though not in parliamentary seats due to the Spanish voting system...’. Found at El País in English.

It must be hard organising a political debate between candidates. So much riding on a single evening: so much to lose – so much to win. El País has suggested such a debate, and has the affirmative from the candidates from three out of the four main parties (Mariano Rajoy has said ‘no’). Thus Albert Rivera, Pedro Sánchez and Pablo Iglesias will debate live on the news group’s website – at a date to be determined.

‘There is no argument on this issue: winning the vote of the middle class will be the main objective of the political parties in the forthcoming elections on 20 December. From Pablo Iglesias - "the poor middle class is the key to electoral future and Podemos" to Mariano Rajoy - "the Popular Party is the great party of the Spanish middle class" -, going by the leader of Ciudadanos - "the objective of our tax reform is to rebuild the working middle class "- and ending with the secretary general of the PSOE, Pedro Sanchez -" I claim the centre and the defence of the Spanish middle class "- all political leaders do not cease in their attempt to seduce the members of Spain’s middle layer, the largest and therefore also the most affected by the fallout caused by the recent economic crisis...’. From an opinion by Javier Castro-Villacañas, author of 'El expolio de las clases medias', in El Mundo.

Albert Rivera from Ciudadanos has suggested a three-way treaty with the PP and PSOE to ‘reform Spain’, says the Spanish news agency EFE. If a two-way post election pact is impossible after the elections, asks Rivera, then how about three?

An interesting independent news site called Bez has an analysis which suggests that the main field of battle between the parties in their electioneering is not the economy, but the situation in Catalonia – territoriality and constitutional reform.

‘Religious education could be a thing of the past if PSOE candidate Pedro Sánchez triumphs in December’s general election. If Sánchez is named prime minister he has vowed to pull religion courses form both public and private schools...’. From The Olive Press.

In Valencia, the two leftist groups, the Compromis coalition and Podemos, have agreed to join together as one for the General Election under the former’s name of Compromis.

There’s is a suspicion that those Spaniards who have gone abroad in search of work harbour a certain hostility towards the current Government. The lack of jobs in Spain, the high taxes and corruption... At any rate, they would normally vote for other choices, if only they could vote at all, as the Government has made it as hard as possible to vote from outside Spain. Ninety five per cent of emigrants will apparently be unable to vote. Here’s an article called ‘Electoral Engineering to Kill the Exterior Vote’ from El Salmon Contracorriente. Another view on this subject, from RTVE, shows that there are two million potential voters out there and says that the Foreign Ministry is trying to ease the problem...

Corruption:

Opening salvo from a post in Voto en Blanco (Francisco Rubiales): ‘They say that Jordi Pujol, the biggest and most corrupt thief ever known in Spain (so far), dares to "threaten" the State by warning that if he goes to jail, he will publish a dossier which will bring down our democracy. Clearly, the challenge of Pujol is only possible because the Spanish political class and even the political system itself are so utterly corrupt and consequently have made our very State itself fragile. What secrets are known to Jordi Pujol to allow him to threaten the Spanish State to publish information that would cause the collapse of democracy? The Nation speculates, as politicians are shaking in their sewers and decent people feel shame and disgust when contemplating the spectacle of this foul blackmail by bullies...’. The report of Pujol’s threat to democracy has not made the general media for some reason, but you can find it at Mil21 and repeated at Méditerraneo Digital and also at a Catalán website called Directe which says that the PP and PSOE are ‘horrified’ by the threat. Apparently Jordi Pujol, while president of Catalonia (1980 – 2003), had an intelligence agency called (or known as) ‘Pata Negra’, whose job was to collect information on all political rivals nationwide. As to how much money Mr Pujol and his family possesses, a report in OK Diario offers a glimpse by suggesting that the family has 2,400 million euros stashed just in Panama. Another site, Libertad Digital, estimates the family wealth at a healthy 3,300 million euros stashed offshore.

The Government’s much-lauded plan to stop corruption – a political ‘antifraud’ office called ‘la Oficina de Recuperación y Gestión de Activos’, and run by the Ministry of Justice – has just one director and her secretary labouring away within. Not much use? Story here.

Catalonia:

‘The Catalan declaration of independence will be voted on next Monday. A meeting of the board of the Catalan Parliament yesterday lifted the suspension on the breakaway resolution. This body of the Catalan Parliament is controlled by Junts pel Si (Together for yes) led by Artur Mas. It clears the way for the independence supporters to vote on their declaration of independence on Monday morning, hours before the investiture of the new president of the Catalan Generalitat Regional Government...’. From Typically Spanish. To complicate things further, the minority pro-Independence party, the anarchist CUP, said on Wednesday that they wouldn’t vote for Artur Mas as president. Perhaps Raül Romeva will get the job?

Courts:

‘Conned Brit pleads for property fraudsters to finally be jailed in Spain. British couple Neil and Caroline Riddoch’s Spanish plans quickly became a nightmare, after it turned out they had paid €92,000 to fraudsters for land in a village called Carataunas in the Alpujarras...’. Story at The Olive Press.

Brexit:

An editorial from Politico: ‘12 reasons why Cameron will lose on Brexit. The pundits have got it wrong: The Brits will vote themselves out of Europe’.

Various:

‘The 2008–15 Spanish financial crisis, also known as the Great Recession in Spain or the Great Spanish Depression began in 2008 during the world financial crisis of 2007–08. In 2012 it made Spain a late participant in the European sovereign debt crisis when the country was unable to bailout its financial sector and had to apply for a €100 billion rescue package provided by the European Stability Mechanism (ESM). The main cause of Spain's crisis was the collapse of an enormous housing bubble and the accompanying unsustainably high GDP growth rate...’. An interesting report from Wikipedia.

A European group called the Broadcasting Expert Group (BREG), part of the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ), has issued a report (PDF here) on government manipulation in the Spanish national broadcaster, RTVE. The report begins: ‘...the main problem seems to be the decreasing credibility from the public because of the lack of impartiality to the news. The conservative Government of the Partido Popular is ignoring all calls to refrain their political interference. This trend puts in danger the right perception of the viewers about the need for a neutral and independent public broadcaster...’. More at El Mundo here.

An article by the Malagueño writer José Antonio Sierra (who is a friend of the BoT) in Nueva Tribuna asks quite reasonably why they don’t teach Spain’s regional languages outside of the regions in question. At the same time, he says, we are lucky in Andalucía to just have one language (plus a Babel of foreign tongues on the coast). But, argues Sierra, if we had the chance to learn Catalán, or Euskera or Gallego, then those languages would in consequence lose their political overtones.

Your Will in Spain – after changes from the EU: “Unless otherwise provided for in this Regulation, the law applicable to the succession as a whole shall be the law of the State in which the deceased had his habitual residence at the time of death.” EU Directive 650/2012, Article 21. “A person may choose as the law to govern his succession as a whole the law of the State whose nationality he possesses at the time of making the choice or at the time of death.” Article 22. A law-firm called Davies Abogados analyzes and offers some advice (commercial link).

A review of the ‘Ley de Propiedad Intelectual’, better known as the ‘Google Tax’ or ‘Canon AEDE’, ten months after it was introduced. The tax has not yet been levied on any aggregator (Meneame, Yahoo! Noticias, Feedly or BoT for example), or blogger or user as it has no point to it whatsoever. The entity meant to collect the tax still hasn’t been set up – indeed, some major newspaper groups have now declared against it and the only effect, to date, has been to close down Google News España – the only country where this service has been withdrawn (together with its useful links and traffic to news sources).

Old-timers (like your BoT editor) will remember the No-Do News which preceded the feature film at the cinema. Franco’s way of informing the public. ‘...Now, the state broadcaster RTVE and the Filmoteca Española Spanish film archive have provided free online access to a trove of recordings and documentaries produced by No-Do. The searchable database contains 6,573 files and 1,719 hours of video footage...’. Story from El País in English.

Welcome to the old people’s home in Pinoso, Alicante. The fifty-room centre cost 3.3 million euros to build with public funds, was completed seven years ago... and, thanks to the apparent inertia of the regional government... still hasn’t been opened.

See Spain:

‘The clitoris: a gastronomic delight typical of Galician cuisine, according to a town that promoted its local festival after using Google Translate’. Funny (but true) story at The Local, and then, as the same source reports here, the town in question, As Pontes, decides that it is not amused (they were trying to promote a rather more mundane local leafy veg). It’s a rare town that doesn’t have a handy foreigner living locally, delighted to help with the translation, but it’s a rarer town still who would stoop to ask...

The five cities in Spain with the best climate, according to the weather page El Tiempo.

Letters

Thanks Lenox - the Buzzfeed piece reminds me of the tourists asked what they thought of their trip to Segovia: "it could have been such a beautiful town - but someone built an aqueduct right through the middle of it!".

Jake

Finally:

A (supposedly) drunken woman wanders around Madrid – asking for trouble. An experiment by the Centro Europeo Neurosalu

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