Editorial:
It has been five hundred weeks of gamely tapping out the news (plus some opinion) here at Business over Tapas, holidays and sickness notwithstanding. Last January this bulletin was ten years old.
I suppose I should recall some of my best reports for you, like some of the English-language newspapers do at Christmas, but who needs old news and, at around a million and a half words resting quietly back in the archives, I can’t be bothered to go through it all anyway.
Today Facebook reminded me that I should tune in to the elections here in Spain, and maybe send in a postal vote. Kind of them, but since I’m a foreign resident, I can’t vote and my only hope, politically speaking, is that some people will see my posts warning against the far-right (who traditionally don’t like immigrants) and vote accordingly.
One way or another, we shall know in a couple of weeks. If the PP/Vox combo wins, it’ll provide a heap of material to criticise the new government, making life a lot harder for most people, while a lot easier for comics, editorialists, cartoonists and a foreigner writing the news about Spain (until I get declared as ‘not wanted on voyage’ by some functionary and sent to live in lonely exile in Rabat).
Before BoT came along, a Norwegian called Per Svensson (he ran his Institute of Foreign Property Owners during the eighties and nineties) wrote his Weekly Report with the same mixture of useful news for foreign residents, investors and those who love Spain. Back in 1993 together with journalist José María Martínez de Haro, and a Dutch resident in Alfas del Pi called Egbert Gieskes, the four of us started Ciudadanos Europeos, a political group looking to get the vote for the foreign residents. Beyond some column inches in the ABC, a splash in Época and a presentation at the Complutense University in Madrid, I don’t know if we achieved much, as the vote was finally granted to the foreign EU citizens by Felipe González in 1995, but promptly taken away again by his minister Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba (worried perhaps that we would vote conservative). We thus voted (or of course didn’t bother) in the European elections of 1995, but only got the vote in the municipal elections – with the Spanish Constitution incidentally suffering its first textual change – in 1999.
I of course, voted for me. To explain that slightly, I started a local party with some friends in my town, to be called Mojácar 2000, and our candidate, a Valencian architect, ended up as mayor. The truth was that he was no better or more honest than the fellows who either preceded him, or those who came later.
You learn a lot when you go into politics.
Now here we are in 2023: some of us no longer with full-rights as European citizens – Brexit having brought us Brits out of the European Union, and as far as Spain was concerned, into the ‘third-class citizens’ pot. But, we can still vote in local elections, or of course take out Spanish nationality if we have the patience. So, it’s not all so bad.
Back in 1995 with the EU elections, I earned the right to vote for the very first time in my life. It wasn’t going to make any difference to Europe, but it made a big difference to me.
Housing:
From Levante here: ‘Foreigners buy 18.7% of all homes sold in Spain (the majority on the coast). The Balearic Islands, the Canary Islands and the Valencian Community are the regions with the highest percentage of the market while Galicia, Cantabria or Extremadura with the least’.
Speaking in Jávea this week, the new PP President of the Generalitat Carlos Mazón said of the Ley de Costas ‘“This Coastal Law is regressive, it goes against the environment and against private property, all at the same time. And from the PPCV we defend that the sustainability of the coast and the beaches, of private property and of the tourism model is compatible”, he stated’. He insisted that the PP would be changing the law once they won the national elections and formed a government. The story at Levante here.
Tourism:
Some of the five star ‘Grand Luxury’ hotels on the Costa del Sol – there are ten of them concentrated around Marbella and Estepona, plus another eleven five star hotels in the region – can cost anything from 320€ up to a juicy 3,000€ for top-end accommodation says The Olive Press here.
And staying with Málaga, From VoxPópuli here: ‘The city of Málaga has always been one of the most touristy in Spain, but, since the return to activity after the stoppage caused by the pandemic, it is receiving more and more "drunken tourism". This typology is characterized by attracting young people, usually foreigners, and offering them parties at very low prices…’. The noise, the vandalism and, well, that one drunken fellow who got trapped inside a trash container and the firemen had to come and rescue him… City Hall has released a leaflet called ‘Love and Respect Málaga’, basically saying: ‘Behave yourself!’
If a motorhome only touches the ground with its tyres, doesn’t drip and the engine is switched off, then it’s considered to be parked and not camping. A useful distinction provided by Tráfico for operators of these vehicles says Infobae here.
Finance:
From The Financial Times here: ‘Spanish election favourite Alberto Núñez Feijóo vows to overhaul the windfall tax. The PP leader disappoints banks and energy groups by not pledging to scrap levy’. It says ‘…He pledged to “talk to the electricity companies and banks about how we can ask for their solidarity and contributions to overcome the deep public debt and deficit, before taking any decisions”…’. That’ll work.
The Modelo 720 busted. From Expansión here (or here): ‘Created in 2012 by Cristóbal Montoro, the Finance Minister of the Government of Mariano Rajoy, the system was denounced by the European Commission, which described the system of fines as "disproportionate" and limiting the free movement of capital. The associated system of fines for the non-declaration of assets abroad was overturned, specifically, a year ago by the Court of Justice of the European Union. Following the setbacks of national and European justice, the Ministry has admitted their "absolute nullity" and is open to general returns without hindrance’. The bottom line: ‘Any person who at the time was affected by a formal sanction of the 720 model, whatever its amount, can now request a refund’.
Politics:
General Elections July 23rd.
The programs for the four main parties at PSOE, PP, Vox and Sumar as reported through the filter of elDiario.es, plus an interview with Pedro Sánchez here, titled ‘It’s not about one party leaving and another entering: it’s about the threat to democracy itself’ (with video).
20Minutos has an interview with the campaign spokesman for the Partido Popular Borja Semper here. The headline: ‘With 160 seats we will be able to govern without conditions’.
The TV debate between Sánchez and Feijóo went off as planned on Monday night, both teams happy that their candidate had out-shouted the other. From Juanlu Sánchez (newsletter) here, ‘…Feijóo was solid, yes, although he never tired of giving false information. And that is the key: the debate at times seemed like a cascade of arguments from Feijóo, almost all of them with some lie to which Pedro Sánchez could not help but react indignantly...’. El Mundo agrees that the debate was ‘rough’, and gives the victory to Feijóo. The Minuto de Oro from each of the two candidates is on YouTube here. What was true and what was false, with Maldita here. ECD was there and brings some behind-the-scenes details (such as, a bus from the fascist Hazte Oir was driving around outside with the slogan ‘PSOE, PP: Two Sides of the Same Coin’).
In all, the two moderators from Atresmedia utterly failed to control the debate.
‘The left claims economic management and social advances while the right entrusts everything to "finishing off el sanchismo". Opinion at elDiario.es here.
An interesting article from Politico here: ‘Pedro Sánchez, the high-stakes gambler, seeks to defy the odds again’.
An election promise by the PP to remove okupas from the padrón receives criticism in an article at elDiario.es. If you are not on the padrón, you can’t vote, or enrol in the local school, or use the national health system if you get sick.
From La Vanguardia here, whatever happens and whoever wins – a large proportion of Spaniards – over 60% – are concerned about a possible PP/Vox pact with some far-right ministers taking the country forwards (or indeed backwards, perhaps).
These lonas, or giant canvas billboards, that cover an entire building in some choice barrio in Madrid or elsewhere may be unsightly, but they do offer shade at least to those who live behind them, and the material is semi-transparent so as not to leave the poor apartment-dweller totally in the dark. The latest one to attract attention from the media is on La Gran Vía and comes from the PSOE. It reads ‘Forwards with us, or backwards with them’.
El Periódico seems a trifle indignant to learn from Vox’s Santiago Abascal that ‘the voters of the PSOE will be "rapists, paedophiles, coup leaders, ETA supporters and Mohamed" (With video).
Who can vote, and who can’t, with Catalan News here.
Meanwhile, in the (unlikely) event that the PP doesn’t win the election, the party is already preparing itself to cry ‘foul’ over the postal vote says elDiario.es here.
Europe:
From Valencia Plaza, where somebody came down to see the expats – ‘The implicit difficulties of Brexit have come true. The British community, the majority in Alicante, refuses to lose their rights as European citizens’. It says ‘British residents in the Valencian Community have been trickling back to the United Kingdom since the implicit difficulties of Brexit became a reality. The leading residential areas of the Costa Blanca, where the British were in the majority, are switching to new Dutch, Belgian and German residents. The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has just dismissed the appeals of some British citizens who were challenging the loss of their rights as European citizens as a result of Brexit…’. After looking at the current difficulties for the Brits in Spain, the article ends with ‘Long gone are the times of the ambassador's visits to the towns of Alicante warning of the advisability of registering to maintain permanent residence and protect "almost" all their rights as European citizens’.
Health:
Last year, over 11,300 deaths in Spain can be put down to the excessive summer heat. This season looks to be even hotter. Compare your average provincial temperature (1980 – 2010) with yesterday’s heat here (in Almería on Monday we were 9.1ºC above the average).
Media:
Miguel Charisteas gives his take on the debate here on YouTube: ‘Lo de Feijóo fue bochornoso. De cada cuatro datos que daba, Feijóo mentía en cinco’.
From ECD here: ‘Political parties and candidates tend to give more and more importance to the media, particularly television, to carry out their campaign activities. Therefore, they seek to appear in them as much as possible. Looking ahead to July 23, will the TV channels be key to win the general elections?’. Most probably.
The Election Board was in some doubt as to whether the Falange advert (with the banned Cara al Sol song) could be shown on national TV. But now they’ve allowed it. It’s here in case you wanted to see it.
As we have seen before, institutional advertising helps those news-sites who agree with the politics of the parties in power. From El Salto Diario here, the Castilla y León advertising bill has risen steeply for both OKDiario (Eduardo Inda) ‘the parsley in all the sauces of the institutional advertising of the right-wing governments’, and Estado de Alarma TV (Javier Negre), both notorious for their production of bulos and fake news. From Así Va España here, we read that Castilla y León also favours placing its institutional adverts in El Mundo (884,775€ in 2022) and La Razón (421,870€) over El País (44,286€).
El Debate, a right-wing site, has an editorial about how the lefties shouldn’t complain about the media titled: ‘Attacking the press and the journalists is not a good strategy’. It says: ‘Cease, Sr. Sánchez, wrapped up by your ministers and your sycophants, your criticisms of the free press that we have and the journalists of all levels who inform us, and stop questioning their way of reporting and transmitting information. We may or may not agree with the editorial lines or with their articles, but trying to silence them for what they say, solely because they leave your lies and promises out for all to see, seems to me to be an unpresentable position…’.
Mediaset – the company that brings us Telecinco and La Cuatro TV (wiki) – is looking to buy the Cadena Ser radio platform says El Economista here. The Cadena Ser is not for sale, says its owner Prisa here.
A number of magazines in Catalán have been banned in the local library of Borriana in Castellón. The new Councillor for Culture from Vox doesn’t approve of the mags in question, saying that ‘We won’t be promoting Catalonian separatism with public money’. More at Segre here.
Ecology:
‘The Government closes another 25 pirate wells in Doñana right in the area where the PP wants to pardon the irregular irrigation’ says elDiario.es here.
From Reddit here: ‘Vox proposes a demolition of most of the measures promoted by the Government to fight against global warming, starting with the Climate Change Law. But the far-right party goes further: it questions European policy and defends abandoning the Paris Agreement (imitating what Donald Trump did in his day). All the members of the EU are adhered to this pact against climate change, compliance with which Europe has set as one of its priorities for this century. Vox also promises "the immediate suspension and review of the entire European Green Deal", the development framework promoted by the European Commission that seeks to decarbonise the continent's economy’. In Murcia, where the party is currently at loggerheads with the PP over forming a new government, The Vox program includes increasing irrigation in the farms around the Mar Menor and removing protections on the troubled lagoon.
An interesting title from Sur in English here: ‘Hunters protest solar farm project in Almargen due to fears it could be harmful to threatened bird species’. Unlike, uh, hunters.
Various:
Last week’s editorial looked at some of the wage-increases for the mayors of predominantly PP or Vox controlled towns. Since then, several more wage-hikes have been reported, but one in particular takes the biscuit. This is the small town of Jalance in Valencia (Pop 788) which the new PP mayor has claimed his emolument to be increased from the hitherto annual sum of 0€ to the peculiar figure of 34,848.05€. The story with video here.
Following from the censorship of certain plays, films and concerts by the far-right, the actress Marisa Paredes joined a presentation of Sumar in Galicia last week: ‘How can they have so much fear of liberty’, she asks. The Partido Popular, for its part, makes the point that several popular authors have been removed from view because of ‘woke-politics’: J.K Rowling, Woody Allen and C. Tangana for example…
Spain’s fifteen ugliest buildings, from Arquitectura y Diseño here.
‘The Skeletons of Spain’s Fascist Past’, a video from Vice News at YouTube here. The introduction says: ‘During and after the Spanish Civil War, Fascist forces under Francisco Franco murdered tens of thousands of Republicans and buried them in anonymous graves throughout the country. Almost a century later, those bodies are still being exhumed — and the question of how to deal with Franco’s brutal legacy is more sensitive than ever’.
From Science Alert here: ‘The identity of a copper age ruler in ancient Spain isn't at all who we expected’.
See Spain:
Cáceres, the heart of Extremadura at Eye on Spain here.
Finally:
Tahures Zurdos (wiki) with a version of Murray Head’s magnificent ‘Say It Ain’t So’. ‘Dime Que No’ on YouTube here.
Si (
No(
