Editorial:
The horrid story of the gang-rape by the self-named La Manada (a gang of five friends from Seville) against an 18 year old girl in the Pamplona fiestas two years ago, and the subsequent court ruling of just ‘sexual abuse’ is reported in the final two paragraphs of Tim Parfitt’s angry post on Spain’s current reputation abroad here. Certainly, the sentence has not gone down well, either in Spain or elsewhere.
The blurred TV photos of the five ‘aggressors’, now in perfect detail, can be found by searching Google photos for ‘yo también voy a divulger la foto’. Facebook and Twitter users have been busy making sure that they are remembered for a long time to come.
But, there is more to recall.
The sentence is considered ‘light’ by the Public, and so too, by the Minister of Justice Rafael Catalá, who has made the point very publically live on radio COPE by criticising one of the judges. The sentence was a majority ruling of two out of the three magistrates, with the third looking for absolution, claiming that it was a case of high-jinks, nothing more (‘jolgorio y regocijo’: ‘boisterous frolic and merriment’, says the Business over Tapas Cassel’s dictionary). We can only agree with the Minister’s opinion of this toga’d twerp, but, unlike the Minister, we are allowed to criticise the judiciary (well, sort of), while he most emphatically is not. The separation of Estado and Derecho should be sacred (Wiki). With these remarks, ‘...he has cleaned his shoes with our togas’, as a judge writes in an opinion piece here. Indeed, the minister is facing calls to resign – including a united front on the subject by all the various judicial associations!
In the street, there has been a huge backlash against the sentence of nine years for the five young men. A million signatures were collected in less than 24 hours calling for a harsher sentence. Of the five, one is a Guardia Civil and another is a soldier. Incredibly, both are receiving 75% of their pay while this whole thing goes on!
The final (and perhaps inevitable) point: both sides are appealing. This ugly story still has time to run.
Housing:
The Isla de Valdecañas, a luxury urbanised 133 hectare resort located on an island in a major reservoir in Cácares, known as ‘the Marbella of Extremadura’ (video here), is under threat from the supreme court which has ordered its demolition. More at El Confidencial here.
Agent Travel says that the powerful hoteliers lobby Cehat considers that it is the job of the Government ‘to control the building and sale of illegal homes’. They say ‘...that no matter how much legislation is carried out, whether regional or national, and no matter how much municipal control there may be over the persecution of illegal homes; if there is no control over who sells and buys these homes, then we are going nowhere". The Cehat considers that the central government, and specifically Hacienda, "has the greatest responsibility".
Headline from Sur in English: ‘The price of luxury properties in Marbella has doubled since 2011. The demand for high-end properties in exclusive areas of the town is outweighing supply due to the lack of land’.
Tourism:
The struggle against mass tourism: ‘Neighbourhood associations and activist groups from 14 southern European cities formed a network to join forces in their fight against mass tourism which was presented Thursday in Barcelona. The "SET network" of cities of southern Europe against tourism plans to stage joint protest actions to pressure governments to "establish limits to the tourist industry" and even promote its "decrease"...’. Item from The Local here.
And here, inspired by the new Palma short-term house rental rules, Airbnb becomes unpopular with residents. An excerpt from Wolf Street: ‘...Spain is the firm’s fourth biggest market in terms of listings, after the U.S., France and Italy. But the company is losing the battle for hearts and minds. Many local residents of tourist-saturated towns and cities no longer feel the benefits provided by unfettered tourism — namely money and jobs — are sufficient compensation for the toxic mix of externalities it leaves in its wake, including sky-high prices and rents, overcrowding, noise, overstretched public services and infrastructure, and the erosion of the town or city’s distinctive character...’.
Finance:
Unemployment unexpectedly rose in the first quarter of 2018, says La Vanguardia here. The EPA figure for Spain is now 3,796,100 unemployed, or 16.74% – two-tenths of a point rise over the same time last year. Catalonia, says the Barcelona-based paper with some satisfaction, had the country’s highest rise in jobs found (the region now stands at 12.19% unemployment). Andalucía on the other hand has an unemployment rate of 24.74%, it says here, with Cádiz at a gloomy 31.25% unemployment rate.
From Yahoo Finance: ‘Spanish banks Banco Sabadell and Bankinter exceeded first quarter forecasts on Thursday on lower loan-loss provisions, although their lending businesses remained under pressure from low interest rates. Both managed to keep their non-performing loans under control and reduced the amount of money they set aside against soured property loans at a time when the European Central Bank is pushing banks to reduce bad loans. The Sabadell nevertheless continues with its IT problems over at its British TSB bank which, as Wolf Street explains, is ‘...a clusterfuck in the making’.
More taxes, less spent on education and the health service and 1,800 million euros to buy the toll-routes. More at El Mundo here.
Cristóbal Montoro, the Minister for Finance, is to grant Melilla and Ceuta special offshore status for their online gaming industry. The idea, says El Confidencial, ‘...is to attract to these territories the giants of the sector now installed in the Rock of Gibraltar who are currently under threat by the situation they will face in relation to Europe as a result of Brexit and by the upward changes in taxation that the United Kingdom has applied to network betting and endorsed by the courts a few months ago...’.
Trade analysis from The Corner: ‘In this post, we are going to comment on two papers, published over the last few months in the ICE’s Economic Bulletin. This is an excellent publication with a long tradition. The first one is by Juan José Otamendi, “The transformation of Spain’s export sector over the last decade”. The second was prepared by the Subdirectorate General for the Research and Evaluation of Trade Policy Instruments and is entitled “The trend in foreign trade by the characteristics of companies)”...’.
What with the tax on a litre of petrol, what will happen when we all have electric cars, asks Meneame here. ‘...In 2016, the hydrocarbon tax collected 10,556 million euros. To give the Reader an idea of its weight, let's say that the electricity tax collected 1,290 million, the spirits tax 783 million the same year, the beer excise tax 303 million, and the tobacco tax 6,677 million. Corporate Income Tax, i.e. the amount paid by all companies in Spain, amounted to 21,678 million...’. In other words, and calculation on the cost of a kilometre driven with an electric vehicle fails to add in the new taxes which will need to be designed to cover the above shortfall...
Politics:
ETA has sent out a letter to various news sites and agencies to say that they have dissolved themselves ‘completely’ and that their ‘historical function’ is over. The letter adds that while this chapter is now over, ‘the struggle with Spain’ continues because ‘it did not begin with ETA and won’t end with the dissolution of ETA’. Well, at least they have gone. More here.
El País in English opinion piece on ‘the resignation of Cristina Cifuentes: too little, and too late’. The piece looks at ‘The scandal that has engulfed the Madrid regional premier which has exposed new depths of corruption within the Popular Party’.
El Confidencial in an opinion piece thinks that ‘the end is nigh’ for Mariano Rajoy. ‘...The paradox is that the problems of the PP, stuck in the midst of an identity crisis, coincide with a more fundamental phenomenon that has to do with the progressive right-wing movement of Spanish society, and that, curiously enough, is capitalizing on a party that presented itself as centre-left, such as Ciudadanos, and that today is the favourite of the Ibex (Rajoy has always despised the company and the minions of the powerful, unlike Rivera). In other words, even in its natural environment, the PP is not capable of winning votes and making a profit from the crisis. There is no ideological swing. A right-wing party is likely to replace a right-wing party, leaving the left in an unprecedented position...’.
La Información has a similar view: ‘The 'Cifuentes case' damages the PP in Madrid and brings about a national disaster. The bleeding of votes towards Ciudadanos, the lack of decision-making and the conflict in Catalonia are the cause of an unprecedented division in the party’ (headline). El Mundo publishes a poll showing that the regional Madrid PP support has fallen from 33% to 22% since the elections of 2015 (mostly going to Ciudadanos).
The Izquierda Unida (itself a coalition of a number of radical parties) is considering disbanding and moving under the full umbrella of Podemos. A previous leader of the group, Gaspar Llamazares, writes a piece for El Mundo here called El Suicidio del IU in which he strongly criticises the idea.
The meaning of the word ‘terrorismo’ is blurring in Spain. Now Unidos Podemos calls for a penal reform in order to stop describing citizen protests as terrorism. Público reports here.
From the El Cano Royal Institute think tank: ‘Institutional initiatives for a solid and participatory European democracy’.
Catalonia and the Basque Country:
‘With the Basque Country and Catalonia going their different ways, the Spanish government has avoided the nightmare of a joint independence front between the two wealthy regions...’. The Local looks at the reasons why.
Courts:
The ex Vice-president of the Generalitat and current political prisoner Oriol Junqueras compares himself to Nelson Mandela (at least, according to El Huff Post) and wants to be moved to a prison nearer to his family. Junqueras has now been in a Madrid prison for more than six months. Spain often moves political prisoners to far-away penitentiaries (for better or for worse), with the evident deleterious effect on their families.
Companies with more than 50 employees or with an annual turnover of more than €10m will have to set up an internal procedure to handle whistleblowers' reports says La Ser here. The new European-wide proposal will become law within two years.
‘The killing of thousands of animals at the notorious Parque Animal shelter had financial motives, a Málaga judge has confirmed. As first revealed by an Olive Press investigation five years ago, the non-profit refuge, in Torremolinos, was used as a way to generate cash for boss Carmen Marín and her family. While Marín is now in prison for animal cruelty and falsifying documents – thousand of animals died painful deaths without the correct amounts of drugs – as the inquiry moves onto her two children, her son-in-law and her assistant at the shelter...’. The story at The Olive Press here.
Brexit:
The Diario de Almería looks at the ‘towns threatened by Brexit’. It says that ‘On 29 March 2019, the British settled in any corner of the European Union will become non-EU citizens. It is the appointed day to execute the Brexit. And that will lead to a loss of social rights. They will no longer participate in political life and will see their health care almost cancelled. In Almería, this process will affect more than 14,000 (registered) Brits. They will neither be able to vote nor stand for office and their health care, for example, will be put in jeopardy. What is more, a Briton who has been living abroad for more than 15 years will have no right to vote in England (for example) or Spain. In short, they will lose their most basic democratic right. There are municipalities where they are practically the majority, such as Bédar, Partaloa or Arboleas. In them, social and political life depends in a good way on the British residents, as in others such as Los Gallardos, Albanchez, Zurgena or Mojácar. In fact, there are currently more than a dozen British councillors distributed among the municipalities of Almeria...’. How can their local parties prepare for the elections of May 2019 when no one knows for sure what will happen then? Here is the Mayor of Zurgena on the local Brits: ‘They organise collections to donate to our schools, they contribute with their taxes a quarter of the entire municipal budget, including more than 400,000 euros for the years of retroactivity that were applied to them on the IBI, they always join in town life and have generated a lot of wealth and welfare. We must not take advantage of them but must show that they are just another citizen. They are part of our people. They have their businesses set up: their bars, their restaurants, and they are our neighbours and our friends.’
The very active Vice-mayor of Zurgena is Jim Simpson. He has a blog here.
‘Bremain in Spain, a group campaigning for the rights of British citizens in Spain and the EU, supports the March for a #PeoplesVote scheduled for 23 June, 2018, in London...’. Found at Typically Spanish here.
Media:
May 3rd is the World Day of the Freedom of the Press.
The OJD figures (ABC) for the first quarter of 2018 show that newspapers are continuing to decline in copies printed. The Andalusian figures are studied here in more detail.
Traditionally, Spanish families watch the 3.00pm and 9.00pm national news while having their two main meals of the day. It's patriarchal news which they know they can trust. Based on what they see on their TVs, they make up their opinions and they cast, when asked, their votes. But what if the RTVE is manipulated by powerful forces and interests... what if is sometimes stretches the truth, or smothers some items in favour of others? TV workers tell of their experiences in El Diario here. Another example of manipulation from Público here. An interesting video comment on the subject comes from journalist Olga Rodríguez here. She says ‘...we have seen how orders sometimes come from above telling us not to continue with subjects which are bothersome, how some advertisers are un-touch-able, we have seen how certain politicians call the newspaper bosses almost daily to influence, underline, dictate and even intimidate...’. Then there’s this... and a whole long list here...
‘Various Spanish journalist associations warn of the decline in press freedom in Spain, with special emphasis on Catalonia, where a climate of hostility towards journalists from the national and Catalan media has developed as a result of the conflict for independence...’. An official view from the FAPE (union of press and journalist groups and associations) here.
An advert on the front page costs double as any restaurant or bar will know. But, how much would a full front page in all of the main Spanish daily newspapers cost? Only the bean counters at Audi could answer that one.
Ecology:
The Supreme Court has halted the planned construction of 6,000 homes in Aranjuez. The constructor has successfully sued the town hall of Aranjuez as a consequence. More here.
‘Ciudadanos join the PP to maintain the 'sun tax'. The Constitution allows the Government to paralyse the parliamentary process of any initiative that it considers would alter the budgets in course. The Government considers that the end of the self-consumption tax would deprive the State of 162 million euros in income’. The report is at InfoLibre here.
The ‘olive tree plague’, Xylella fastidiosa, is here and now Andalucía is officially in quarantine. Details at Almería 360 here.
Various:
Saving face, or re-writing the history books? Who knows, but here is The Guardian on ‘Spain’s fight to dispel legend of Inquisition and imperial atrocities’. Heh.
The councillor for tourism in Carboneras (Almería) has found a peculiar person to help promote his resort – a hit-man for the late Pablo Escobar called Popeye. The story is at Spanish Shilling here.
The DGT (traffic police) are using drones these days, possibly with some fellow bounding about after them on the ground below. These drones, as sophisticated as they doubtless are, may not be used to fine motorists for speeding – as there appears to be ‘a legal vacuum’ on the subject... El Mundo has the story here.
‘Mallorca’s health inspectors are getting tough. In an island-wide crackdown, they will be undertaking hundreds more random inspections this year. In a bid to increase food standards, a massive 1,400 in-depth inspections are to be carried out in restaurants and bars...’. Story at The Olive Press here.
From Lifestyle Magazine comes ‘Wine Industry buzzing with release of first Spanish canned wine’. It’s a rosado.
Don Quixote and The Essence of What It Is to Be Spanish: Republic Standard has a good article on the book and the character here.
The Business over Tapas Facebook page is growing in readership. Have you ‘liked’ it yet?
See Spain:
A young Frenchman called Jean-Paul Margnac hitchhiked across Spain in 1955. He took a collection of fifty wonderful photographs which you can see on Flickr here.
Finally:
‘"Inside Fascist Spain" is an episode of the American series "The March of Time" produced by Time magazine. This report was produced in 1943. The authors were two French reporters employed by Time in Paris: Marcel Reviere and Jean Pages. The US Army acquired it for use as propaganda training material for its soldiers, at a time when they were seriously considering the invasion of Spanish Morocco and the South of the Iberian Peninsula (Operation Backbone)’. Video on Vimeo here.
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