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Weekly Report

Business over Tapas (Nº 308)

Business over Tapas (Nº 308)

  • A digest of this week's Spanish financial, political and social news aimed primarily at Foreign Property Owners: Prepared by Lenox Napier. Consultant: José Antonio Sierra

viernes 21 de junio de 2019, 20:18h

21JUN19.- 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. Subscription and e-mail information in our archives is never released to third parties.

Editorial:

The town halls have now been occupied by the victors from the elections last month. Usually the party most voted, but sometimes an agreement between two or more groups sealed the deal – or in some cases, an arrangement was made by the party leaders in a quiet office in Madrid: you take x and we’ll have y.

The most remarked on deal happened in Spain’s capital city, where Manuela Carmena’s Ahora Madrid was the most voted, but Manuela has gone – ‘now I’m just another madrileña, she says. In her place, a coalition between the PP and the C’s with the Vox for the moment in dubious support. The new mayor is the PP candidate José Luis Martínez-Almeida, wants to close down the low-pollution ‘Madrid Centro’ scheme and to make (another) attempt to win the Olympic Games for the city, this time for 2032 (Madrid’s bid lost out in 2012, 2016 and 2020). The new mayor for Madrid has recognised that Manuela’s government has lowered the city debt and says he hopes to lower taxes accordingly. The new vice-mayor is Begoña Villacís from Ciudadanos.

In Barcelona, Ada Colau managed to hold on as mayoress.

Vox meanwhile has been instrumental in bringing right-wing corporations to six capital cities: Madrid, Zaragoza, Granada, Palencia, Teruel and Badajoz. What do they get in return? The party says they may release the secret document signed by them with the PP if they feel that they haven’t got whatever it was the PP had agreed to.

One party, even more extreme than Vox, namely España 2000 (Wiki), has taken Los Santos de la Humosa: a town in the Madrid Region.

Finally, there are fifteen cities where the so-called ‘Columbus Trio’ couldn’t agree, allowing rather the election of more centrist mayors. These cities include Burgos, Huesca, Jaén and Cáceres.

In the smaller towns and villages, where everybody knows everyone, the town halls are more to do with local personalities than with far-off leaders and politics. Spain remains a practical country at heart.

Housing:

‘...Every year since 2009 the Spanish Ministry of Public Works (Fomento) has been counting the number of never-sold new homes in Spain in an effort to quantify the new build inventory that has such big implications for the Spanish housing market, banking system, and economy. All those homes tie up a lot of capital that reduces bank landing and increases risks in all sorts of ways. You can understand why the Government wants to keep an eye on it. The latest figures just published by Fomento for 2018 reveal that the Spanish new homes glut shrank by just 4% last year, from 476,938 to 459,876, a decline of just 17,000 new homes sold...’. Item from Spanish Property Insight here.

SOHA demands that the Junta de Andalucía respects the status of ‘Legal without Planning’ for all houses with building permits. The home-owners association based in Eastern Málaga asks that the new Andalusian Urban Law does not leave out the owners of irregular houses that have fulfilled all the formalities’. Found at Diario Sur here.

‘The formula chosen by Zurgena, in Almería, to regularize its illegal housing will cost 12.5 million to those affected’, says Almería Hoy here. ‘The government team chose to do this by including the 973 affected homes within the local General Urban Plan (PGOU) instead of the subdivision "that could declare those properties as Out-of-Ordination Settlements (AFO) and cost less than 800,000 euros in total".’. The solution has been roundly criticised by the AUAN.

Rentals are not cheap in Ibiza, with a mattress in a parked van apparently on offer this summer at 4,500€ per month. La Información says that Ibiza is ‘...A territory of just 517 square kilometres with a registered population of 130,000 people, which in summer increases fivefold. The result: there are not enough houses for everyone and the rents go through the roof...’.

Tourism:

Azora (‘Owners of 4- and 5-star hotels in Spain, Europe and North America’. Here), also known in Spain as a vulture fund (here), is ‘...seeking investors to create a giant of low cost tourism that will compete with hostels. The group is working on raising a fund to invest 1,300 million euros in a brand that will offer accommodation of between 20 and 30 euros per night...’ says El Español here.

From The New Yorker here: ‘The Airbnb Invasion of Barcelona. In the tourist-clogged city, some locals see the service as a pestilence’. We read ‘...Currently, one and a half million visitors stay in Airbnbs in Barcelona annually, and although five times as many people book rooms in traditional hotels, the company is influencing what the city feels like, especially for permanent residents. There are almost twenty thousand active Airbnb listings in Barcelona. Even in residential neighbourhoods, the sounds of dozens of wheelie suitcases rattling over the cobblestones after an 11 a.m. checkout—and of late-night revellers sampling the bars that have sprung up to cater to them—have become as reliable as the bells of the Sagrada Familia, Gaudí’s unfinished drip-castle cathedral...’.

From the nearest thing the UK has to a comic, The Express: ‘Holiday warning: Britons urged to be ‘vigilant’ visiting Spain, France or Greece. UK holidaymakers have been warned by the Foreign Office they could face riots, terrorism threats and viral diseases if they travel to some of their favourite holiday destinations this summer’. The Olive Press contradicts the item, saying that ‘the UK Government has denied issuing a fresh warning over a supposed increase in Spain’s terror threat level’.

Finance:

From The Corner here: ‘Spanish labour costs grow sharply in Q1: social security contributions +3.6% and wages +1.7%’.

From El País comes ‘The double life of the Spanish economy. While the aggregate indicators continue to smile, alarms soar in the industry’. The article begins ‘Much has been written about whether the economy has entered a phase of slowdown or if, on the contrary, the expansion continues, albeit more moderately after the initial rebound of the recovery. The macroeconomic data, with an estimated growth still around 0.6% during the second quarter, or 2.3% per year - more than doubles the European average, yet is lower than the result of 2018 - lend themselves to both readings. However, this could be a false debate because the facts seem to support both these points at the same time, which complicates the task of economic policy...’.

Politics:

The investiture for Pedro Sánchez should go ahead in the first two weeks of July, says ElDiario.es here, despite not having the appropriate agreements in place. The first vote will certainly not give the PSOE an absolute majority, so a maximum of two months will then be allowed before a second vote, in search of a simple majority. It’s Pedro, or another election.

The alliance between the PP and Vox is making Ciudadanos uneasy. From El Español comes ‘Just forty-eight hours after the pacts of the PP with Ciudadanos and Vox took several city-halls from the PSOE and Podemos, C’s insist that the contracts they have signed only links them to the PP. If Pablo Casado puts Vox councillors into some municipal executives, Rivera will give an order: to abandon those same corporations...’. Casado evidently promised one thing to Vox, and quite another to C’s.

ElDiario.es says that the Ciudadanos leader Albert Rivera is coming under fire from his supporters because of his ‘pro-Vox anti-PSOE’ policies (!). Le Monde takes a crack at Rivera saying ‘The Liberals multiply local agreements with Vox and the Conservatives’. Indeed, France’s Emmanuel Macron is not happy with his Spanish colleagues, says Forbes here. VozPópuli reports here that the erstwhile Ciudadanos champion Manuel Valls now attacks his former associates: ‘"They are no longer liberal or progressive". The former French prime minister has accused the 'Orange Party' of going from being "a liberal, progressive, pro-European and centred party" to becoming "something very different"...’.

El País shows which party-candidate is governing in each of Spain’s eighty largest cities. It says that Vox has been key in ten of them. The PSOE controls 42 cities and the PP has 16.

The Guardian reports that ‘The PP and C’s enlist support of Vox to control Madrid. The new mayor shrugs off criticism, saying nothing illegal about decision to work with Vox’.

A fuss in Melilla after the one councillor for Ciudadanos took the job of mayor, with support from various groups, including the Muslim-controlled Coalición por Melilla. The losing PP mayor (13 – 12) took the defeat ungracefully (“traidor”) says El País here.

From LaSexta (with video) here, trouble in Torremolinos (Málaga). A councillor for Vox was ejected from the party for being present at a local Gay Pride meeting. In the vote for the mayor of the town, she gave her support (and the crown) to the PSOE candidate.

But wait, Ciudadanos is liberal after all (see their pro ‘LGTBI orgullo’ video!).

From Sur in English here: ‘...In Alcaucín (Málaga), acting mayor Mario Blancke's Ciudadanos pacted with the Socialists with Agata González taking over as mayor...’.

Over in Brussels, things are a bit convoluted, with the three new Vox MEPs joining the Euro-sceptic European Conservatives and Reformists Group (Wiki), the same group as the British Conservatives, the Polish Law and Justice Party and the Belgian New Flemish Alliance - who support the political aspirations of Carles Puigdemont - and others. The story is at 20 Minutos here.

From El País in English comes ‘Catalan separatist denied permission to take seat in European Parliament. The Supreme Court said that letting Oriol Junqueras leave prison before a verdict is handed down in the recently concluded trial poses a risk, as it would mean letting him go to Brussels’.

Catalonia:

La Vanguardia reports that ‘Spain falls three places in the ranking of world peace due to the Catalan crisis’. The results come from the Institute of Economics and Peace (here). The Global Peace Index 2019 can be referenced here.

Open Democracy is highly critical of the recent trial here. The headline: ‘Spain’s politicised legal system on trial’. It says: ‘The degree to which the law is used and abused for political purposes in Spain is directly descended from the Franco regime’. It makes the irrefutable point that ‘...One of the most chilling features of this trial is that the far-right Vox party are inside the court and are formally part of the prosecution. Indeed, Vox stands shoulder to shoulder with the Spanish public prosecutor. This is the result of a unique Spanish legal procedure which allows for a ‘popular prosecutor’ to lay charges...’.

El País in English thinks it was a fair trial. ‘The Catalan separatist leaders on trial for their involvement in the 2017 secession bid have been given all the guarantees necessary for a fair verdict’.

Courts:

The ABC looks at the Andalusian ERE case: ‘Five years of the ERE: 275 imputed and not a céntimo of the money defrauded has been recovered’. From El Confidencial, we discover that the current judge in the massive case has had enough and has thrown in the towel. ‘The judge of the ERE that took over from Mercedes Alaya, is sunk by the immense pressure on the inquiry. Judge María Ángeles Núñez Bolaños quits in the middle of a hard struggle with the PP and the Anticorruption Prosecutor's Office at her heels, during a crucial moment for the cases of alleged socialist corruption’.

Brexit:

‘EU officials are discussing how to fast-track an independent Scotland's entry. Two MPs from Germany's governing parties told BuzzFeed News they have talked to high-ranking EU officials about how to speed up an independent Scotland's entry’. Here.

Media:

The Trust Project (here): seen on the best news-sites. ‘The Trust Project, a consortium of top news companies led by award-winning journalist Sally Lehrman, is developing transparency standards that help you easily assess the quality and credibility of journalism.

Our original launch partners include the dpa news agency, The Economist, The Globe and Mail, Hearst Television, the Independent Journal Review, Haymarket Media, Institute for Nonprofit News, Italy’s La Repubblica and La Stampa, Reach Plc and The Washington Post...’. We also find the guarantee for honest reporting present in El País, El Mundo and other Spanish media. However, El Salto Diario is not so sure: ‘The Trust Project: the corporate media and Silicon Valley unite to become weapons to silence dissent. Given the impact of the Trust Project in making the rich richer in the internet news scene, it is not surprising to find that it is funded by a confluence of technology oligarchs and powerful forces with a clear interest in controlling the flow of news...’.

ElDiario.es is the most read and credible digital native media in Spain, according to the Reuters Institute (here).

YouTube has apparently had enough of hate-groups, including Vox, whose videos have all been removed, says Hard Waresfera here. The Vox people are understandably upset (here).

The Emerald Connection produces radio programmes including Live on Eire, Spain’s only dedicated Irish radio programme. This is broadcast on Talk Radio Europe on Monday evenings from 6pm CET’. Web-page here.

Ecology:

The EU obliges Spain to have at least 36% of its public vehicles running on clean energy.

‘Saving Madrid Central. Getting rid of a measure just because it was introduced by an administration led by a different political party is a short-sighted way of understanding politics’. The editorial comes from El País in English here.

‘3% of deaths that occur each year in our country are caused by factors associated with air pollution, which causes around 10,000 premature deaths each year. These are data from the National Institute of Statistics and the Ministry of the Environment...’. La Marea says that 93,000 Spaniards have died in the past decade from atmospheric contamination.

Imagine eating the equivalent in plastic to a credit card each and every week. Well, you do.

The tourists from Iceland become the first people to be infected in Spain by the mosquito-borne chikungunya (here) says El Confidencial here.

Last Saturday, Queen Sofia joined a garbage collection campaign organised by SEO/BirdLife, picking up trash outside Colmenarejo (Madrid). El País reports that ‘Felipe VI's mother joined more than 13,000 volunteers throughout Spain’.

Various:

The RTVE has noticed that foreigners are not getting their Spanish naturalisation papers very fast. According to them, it is down to ‘bureaucratic difficulties leaving more than 360,000 people waiting to obtain Spanish nationality’; whereas most petitioners think that it is more likely a sterling public disinterest in the exercise. ‘...So far, the authorities have explained that the delays in the processing of files are due to computer difficulties and the lack of personnel. According to a notification from the General Directorate of Registries and Notaries, at the beginning of 2017 "the migration of the computer application used for the processing of nationality files to a new tool was carried out", which entailed a "complex" technological process that slowed down the work...’. So, in short, they got a new program which was worse than the old program.

From El País here: ‘Births fall 40% in Spain in the last decade to just 1.25 per mother. The average age to have the first child increases and now stands at 31 years’.

Who was Abderraman III and why has a local Vox councillor in charge of planning removed his statue from Cadrete in Zaragoza? “We want a united town and we think that in the Plaza Aragón should be placed symbols with which all the neighbours can feel identified” says the councillor. ElDiario.es reports here. Abd al-Rahman III (in English) ‘...was an Arab Emir and the Caliph of Córdoba (912–961) of the Umayyad dynasty in al-Andalus. Called al-Nasir li-Din Allah ("the Defender of God's Faith"), he ascended the throne in his early 20s and reigned for half a century as the most powerful prince of Iberia...’ (Wiki). Among other things, he built the castle in Cadrete in 935AD (Wiki). He was of course (and don’t tell the Voxers) 4th generation Spanish-born (here).

From The BBC here: ‘Is this the birthplace of written Spanish? More than 1,000 years ago in Spain’s La Rioja region, monks made notes in the margins of Latin texts. These are believed to be the Spanish language’s first steps onto the page’. (Thanks Andy)

The only official document that confirms the trip of Columbus to America has been found in Toledo. The document is a letter from the Portuguese king Juan II to Fernando of Aragon.

‘A short guide about the tanks used during the Spanish Civil War’: from War Thunder here.

El Confidencial makes the case for traffic fines being (as often as not) money collections first and foremost. Who would have guessed?

Público is annoyed: ‘Felipe VI shows his support for bullfighting and criticism is not long in coming’. We are treated to a series of critical Tweets from readers.

El País in English brings us ‘How to use English to sound more Spanish. What may have started as a tongue-in-cheek joke among Spaniards has now infected the language: Anglicisms are everywhere. ¡Me da el feeling que va a ser todo muy crazy, bro!’.

See Spain:

The only Roman wall in the world whose perimeter remains intact is in Lugo. More here.

The Guardian road-trip from Madrid to Seville: ‘Extremadura takes a little bit more effort to get to than many other parts of Spain. And because there is no beach, few of the 82.8 million people who visited Spain last year went to the region. Yet it is home to some of the country’s finest medieval towns and Roman architecture – and all the people who created Spain (Romans, Goths, Jews, Arabs) have made their mark here...’.

From Eye on Spain here: ‘The largest Art Nouveau complex in the world is a Barcelona hospital with a 600-year-long history...’.

Mike Arkus brings us ‘Little Ávila is one of the most outstanding mediaeval towns still standing in Spain, thanks in large part to its complete 11th to 14th century walls, all 1.6 miles of them - 88 circular towers, eight monumental gates, and some 2,500 battlement turrets...’. Great photographs as well! As always, readers must copy and paste (for some reason). https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/bolero-ing-round-spain-looney-front-part-8-%C3%A1vila-its-saint-mike-arkus/?published=t

Finally:

Camerón de la Isla’s record La leyenda del tiempo was released 40 years ago this week to the combined horror of both the gypsy community and flamenco enthusiasts. It’s now considered as genius, says ElDiario.es here. The title song is on YouTube here.

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