Editorial:
Mariano Rajoy has been to Washington to meet President Obama, who gave him a box of M&Ms. Then someone in the White House muddled up Mexico and Spain. Rajoy told Obama about the thrills of soccer. These are the stories that get told by the Media, rather than the useful (if rather belated) bilateral talks held between the two leaders.
Housing:
How to buy property in Spain, information provided by the British Government. Here.
'Spain's property market is showing more green shoots of recovery, with the country's House Price Index reporting the smallest decline in prices since the end of 2010, according to the National Institute of Statistics.
House prices still fell overall - but Majorca bucks the trend, reporting property price rises of 4.8 per cent in the third quarter of last year, compared with the same period of 2012, according to the Spanish development ministry'... From The Telegraph.
'Just a day after Economy Minister Luis de Guindos said that the housing market was beginning to touch bottom in a recovery that is gathering pace, the National Statistics Institute (INE) on Tuesday announced that home sales plunged in November of last year to their second-lowest level since the crisis began around the start of 2008.
The INE said housing transactions in the month shrank by 15.7 percent to 21,847, a figure only above that of April 2012, which coincided with that year’s Easter holidays and therefore had fewer working days...' Found at El País in English.
From a Q&A with Ramón Dávila, President of Andalucía's Promotur, interviewed in La Razón:
- And what is the value of residential tourism to the Andalucian gross domestic product? Is their weight sufficiently recognized?
-Some statistics speak of this segment in the Costa del Sol as representing 12% of the GDP; Which at an Andalucian level is between four and five per cent. So there is no doubt that there is no recognition whatsoever of the importance of this segment in the GDP. Without residential tourism there is no tourist destination that can stay competitive and that can withstand the tremendous problem of seasonality...'.
Finance:
'Under the slogan “Spain: back to growth, ready for jobs,” Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy on Tuesday told the US Chamber of Commerce that the Spanish economy, as well as Europe as a whole, is well on its way to recovery.
After two years of intense reforms, Rajoy said that Spain is “is undergoing a change of cycle,” passing from recession to growth, although he did admit that dealing with the country’s high unemployment rate is still going to be a challenge'.. From El País in English.
El Mundo reports that JP Morgan has raised its economic forecast for Spain by 0.3% higher than the Government's own figures, giving Spain a growth forecast of 1.0% for 2014. This as a result of recent figures 'which confirm the rise in exports, the fall in labour costs and the improvement in Public Debt'. The newspaper notes with some relish that 'Spain is Back'. More here.
However, we read in The Local that - 'Spanish banks, alarmed by multiple bankruptcies and mass unemployment, are keeping a tight rein on loans and potentially choking off the lifeblood of a longed-for economic recovery, analysts say.
Insufficient credit threatens to throttle Spain's fragile recovery, they warn, after a double-dip recession triggered by a 2008 property crash, which left banks awash with bad loans.
Last year, Spain shored up its tottering banks' balance sheets with a €41.3-billion ($56 billion) programme financed by its euro-zone partners...'.
'Sacyr, the Spanish building company leading a consortium to expand the Panama Canal, said it risks losing $574 million in guarantees and advance payments if a spat over cost overruns at the multi-billion dollar project is not resolved.
In an 8-page document sent on Friday to Spain's stock market regulator but which had not been made public until Saturday, the firm also detailed for the first time its claims of $1.6 billion in extra costs and said the canal extension would not be completed until June 30, 2015 at the earliest'... Story at Reuters.
Tax:
'The Spanish Social Security system plans to take in an estimated billion euros more a year by including a series of non-wage remunerations provided by companies to employees such as contributions to pension plans and meal tickets that were previously exempt, or partly exempt, in the computation of contributions to the system'... From El País in English. Another source, El Economista, is even more gloomy, saying in an opinion piece that 'Spaniards are fiscal slaves to a political/economic system that just can't continue'. Yorokobu's take on this is titled: 'How to wipe out the self-employed once and for all'. Which begins: 'It happened in a Decree issued over Christmas, with darkness and treachery, on the sly, hidden between the innermost pages of the newspapers. The monthly minimum fee for an autonomous worker goes from the already abusive 261 euros to the unacceptable rate of 314€. This is around 630 euros per year more, a rise of 20%!...'. After comparing the rates in other European countries, the blog notes that 'If that wasn't enough, Spain has also frozen the national minimum wage at six hundred and forty-five euros (in France, for example, it's at one thousand, four hundred and thirty euros)'...
Politics:
'The great leadership of Rajoy' as described by Barack Obama during the Spanish President's visit to the White House on Monday, was not reflected by the American media, apparently, causing some offence to the Spanish Media. The M&M story is at El Comercio.
The 'austere social package suffered by the People', says Gaspar Llamazares, a senior politician from the Izquierda Unida, 'is causing social unrest, like for example what is happening in Melilla and Burgos'. Demonstrations and baton charges in those cities due to local issues. The question is – will this unrest extend to other cities?
Meanwhile, back in Europe, From David Eade's Looking to the Left: - 'Spain’s right wing Partido Popular leader and Prime Minister, Mariano Rajoy, has achieved a notable feat. He has managed to have all the socialist parties in Europe declare war on his government.
The subject that is stoking anger across the continent is the decision of the PP Government to repeal PSOE’s abortion legislation and to introduce its own bill that is seen as being discriminatory against women. The European socialists under Party of European Socialists (PES) have answered the call from PSOE to support them in fighting this legislation...'.
Courts
'Eight months ago Spanish examining magistrate Elpidio Jose Silva was investigating a sensational corruption case that briefly landed politically connected former bank boss Miguel Blesa in jail. Now Silva, whose job combines the roles of prosecutor and judge, is organizing his own criminal defence after Blesa, president of savings bank Caja Madrid from 1996 to 2009, complained he was being persecuted'... From Reuters.
Corruption:
Andalucía: 'The ERE corruption case – involving the theft of up to a billion euros of public money – has rumbled on since 2011. Yet it is now 2014, only two of those responsible are in prison, and none of the money has yet been paid back. The Olive Press takes a look at the key players involved in the biggest public money corruption case in Spanish history...' Here.
'In a report published today, the Council of Europe anti-corruption group (GRECO) expresses concern about the proliferation of corruption scandals tainting the credibility of political institutions in Spain. It advises that the central Parliament lead by example by putting in place a comprehensive integrity package with clear ethical standards, matched with greater transparency of MPs’ financial interests and a robust enforcement mechanism to sanction wrongdoing. GRECO also identifies some structural flaws in the justice system and calls for additional guarantees to avoid politicisation of Spain´s overburdened courts '... More on this at El Mundo.
'The Public Prosecutor has accused the Judge who is bringing the prosecution against Princess Cristina of being part of a “conspiracy theory” against the Royal Family, and of being duped by Tax Inspectors who have a grudge against their Institution.
It’s a bizarre move which leaves everyone in no doubt that the State is 100% on the side of the Royal Family, without bothering to ask if they have been emptying the public coffers into their little Swiss bank accounts.
One of the issues revolves around three fake invoices from the company of the Infanta which bear her signature, for a total of €69.900'... From David Jackson.
Various:
Felipe González has said that he is leaving the board of Gas Natural because 'it's very boring'. Story at El Mundo.
The 'Guido Fawkes' of Spanish politics is Un Espía en el Congreso. Here talking about the supposed wealth of Felipe González: '...Almost everyone believes in Spain that the former President Felipe González is a millionaire and the current crisis does not affect him. Urban legend? An evil rumour put out by his political opponents? Envy? After an exhaustive investigation the Espía en el Congreso has been able to prove this: more than 20 sources attest that Felipe González has become immensely rich, that he sometimes mixes with despots, kings, dictators and Latin American millionaires, that he has acquired many luxury properties and that he hopes that his Minister Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, known for his docility, malleability and self-righteousness, continues to hold the reins until the party splits into the 'old guard', the 'historic PSOE' and their opponents, the PSOE Renovador ('renewal')'... A partial list of his friends in high places, as well as his properties, can be found in the article.
In January 1966, a USAF B-52 crashed while attempting an airborne re-fuelling over Palomares in Almería. It was carrying four nuclear warheads. El País recalls the events (here from El País in English).
'Lanzarote's Volcanic Vinyards', found at Kuriositas. A sample: 'When volcanic activity caused the emergence of the Spanish island of Lanzarote 15 million years ago it was a desolate, lifeless place. Settled only three thousand years ago, the island's volcano could still erupt again.
Although the last major eruptions started in 1730 over a period of six whole years and the volcano has been dormant since 1824, even today agricultural exploitation of the island is a difficult process.
Yet in the La Geria region of the island, farmers have come up with an ingenious way to grow their grapes...'
Spain out of step? El País in English discusses drugs. The headline: 'Spain takes a prohibition view on substance use. While the UN and a growing number of countries recognize that the war on drugs is lost, the government is set to introduce tougher sanctions'.
Where are Spain's biggest ex-pat enclaves, asks The Local? Well, it's a conversation starter, if not perhaps too accurate...
Finally:
An essay comparing Barcelona's position in Spain to Manchester's position in England: '...In 1845 Richard Ford wrote in his highly influential travel book A Handbook for Travellers in Spain that “Catalonia is the Lancashire of Spain and Barcelona is its Manchester”'... Found at Trans-Iberian (blog at El País in English) – I'm a Madrid man myself...
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