Business over Tapas Nº 550

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

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Editorial:

While we have been confused (or maybe hoodwinked) over the gender of that Algerian boxer at the Olympics, another longer trick has been played particularly on the Spanish. This is the Spanish journalist who had been held without charge in Poland for the past thirty months, while the foreign ministry apparently did nothing at all to help.

But maybe they knew something we didn’t.

The journo, known to us as the left-wing Pablo Gónzalez, but to the Russians as Pavel Alekseyevich Rubtsov, was released last week as part of a major prisoner swap between the USA and Russia.

In all, sixteen prisoners returned to the West, while another eight of them headed East.  

That’s right, Pablo was on the list of prisoners claimed by the Kremlin and he’s now in Moscow. We read that ‘Pablo's legal team has issued a statement stressing that the release was made possible thanks to Russia's "genuine interest" and "intense negotiations" between the parties involved. According to his lawyers, while Russia was working to resolve the situation, others were focused on criminalizing the journalist instead of protecting his rights’.

Now, his return to Russia raises new questions about his true identity and the reasons behind his detention and release. Was he one of ours unjustly held by the Poles for thirty months, as the Spanish press has claimed all along… or perhaps one of theirs?

The Americans at least aren’t in any doubt: ‘Foreign affairs journalist Anne Applebaum noted that “a group of brave journalists and democracy activists are being exchanged for a group of brutal spies”.

The exchange included no money or sanctions relief…’

Elsewhere, we read that ‘Poland's former foreign minister during most of Pablo González's imprisonment, Zbigniew Rau, said on Friday that this Spanish citizen is, in fact, a "senior officer of the Russian military intelligence", thereby justifying his confinement…’

In honour of these brave men returned to Mother Russia, Vladimir Putin has promised to dish out medals to all of them, which includes Pablo and also the notorious hit-man Vadim Krasikov, who was being held by the Germans.

A comment floating around underlines the Spanish disenchantment: ‘Full marks to Putin for caring about the plight of an innocent Spanish journalist. No doubt but that he will have done it simply to protect press freedom and not because he worked for the Russians’.

Will Pablo (Pavel) return to Spain? His wife certainly hopes so. See, he has double nationality, says the media (come to think of it, it’s odd that we Brits aren’t allowed the same privilege).

Anyway, Joe Biden got the Wall Street Journal journalist Even Gershkovich back (with several others held by the Russians), so everything worked out fine.

Except for that poor Algerian pugilist, who remains on the Facebook (s)hit-list.

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Housing:

From Majorca Daily Bulletin here: ‘Six of Spain's top ten most expensive coastal municipalities for property are in the Balearics. And prices keep rising’. The article says ‘An 80-square metre property in Marín (a coastal town in Pontevedra, Galicia), where prices have fallen, would cost 76,000 euros; in Ibiza 550,000 euros’.

Imagine - you divide up your 17,000 metres of land in Ibiza into small lots and rent out the spaces for camp-dwellers at 400€ a month.
That's a lot of moolah.
But then, the police arrive and turf everybody out.
Now, here's the thing: there are few available places to rent at a reasonable price in Ibiza, and most of those tenants, now on the street, were working in the local hospitality industry.

From elDiario.es here: ‘The devastating report that shows with figures that the Marina Alta does not have enough water for 500 luxury villas in Llíber, Alicante (or for many others). The allegations presented by Acció Ecologista-Agró warn that the new well that the developer will allocate to the urban complex should actually serve to ensure the current supply of the areas that already suffer restrictions. It shows the water deficit that, due to the climate crisis, threatens not only the groundwater of the Benissa Depression but the entire system of the region’. From À Punt (in Valenciano) here, we read that: ‘In the Marina Alta, in emergency due to drought, there is one swimming pool for every five inhabitants. Xàbia is the only town under 80,000 inhabitants which can be counted among the ten cities in the whole of Spain with the most swimming pools’. It notes that ‘The situation in the Marina Alta is particularly dramatic, where last week the Teulada-Moraira public health centre warned that the municipality is without a supply of drinking water until further notice’.

An owner is obliged to sell his apartment in Santa Eulària des Riu (Ibiza) to pay the fine for renting it to tourists illegally. El Huff Post has the story.

During the building ‘Boom’ which ended abruptly in 2008, the banks were left with many unfinished structures on their books. Around 13,000 of these belong to the ‘bad’ bank, the Sareb (‘the public entity that absorbed the toxic assets that were suffocating the banking system’). The quote comes from a short video from RTVE.

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Tourism:

From Infobae here: ‘Spain welcomed a total of 42.5 million international tourists during the first six months of the year, which is 13.3% more than in the same period last year’.

Forget hotels, says El País here, everybody wants to go luxury camping.

A poll from elDiario.es says that ‘80% of Spaniards demand stricter measures in the regulation of tourist apartments and 71% of the population considers that mass tourism has a negative impact on the quality of life of residents or the environment while just 15% say that they never travel’.

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Finance:

From Sur in English here: ‘The Spanish economy soars by 2.9% riding on the crest of the current tourism wave. Although the growth continues to be concentrated in all activity linked to tourism (travel, hotels, leisure, restaurants, transport, etc.), it is also spreading to many other parts of the economy’.

‘Unemployment falls by 10,830 people in July and approaches the barrier of 2.5 million unemployed. The drop in unemployment in July of this year is very similar to that of the same month in 2023, with services and agriculture leading the decline. By communities, unemployment is reduced in Asturias and Andalucía, while Catalonia and the Basque Country lead the areas where it has increased the most’. Onda Cero reporting here. Put another way, as El Mundo does: ‘Spain loses 9,783 jobs in the worst July in at least two decades. The hospitality industry is not doing as well as it did in the same month last year and is unable to offset the usual layoffs in education - due to the end of the school year - and in agriculture’.

El Huff Post speaks of ‘A historic agreement. Renfe has obtained a concession valued at 5,560 million euros to build what will be the first high-speed line in the United States and will connect the cities of Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston, in Texas, with a distance of 386 kilometres that will be covered in less than 90 minutes’. (There’s a Renfe video in English: ‘We have a dream’).

…...

Catalonia:

Things are moving (generally speaking) forward in Catalonia with a final decision from the ERC to support the PSE and Comuns in investing the new president of the region Thursday or Friday. Salvador Illa from the PSE (the local version of the PSOE) got the most deputies in the elections last May with 42. However, he has a wafer-slim majority with the support of 68 seats and, if the leader of the second-largest party, the exiled Carles Puigdemont from the Junts per Catalunya (35 seats) were to show up and be arrested, then the whole investiture would likely be postponed.  More at Catalan News and El Confidencial here and here (and on the BoT Facebook page here).  

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Gibraltar:

From EuropaSur here: ‘The British Labour Party has used the majority it won in the House of Commons in the last general election to dissolve the European Scrutiny Committee, a government oversight body that had taken a firm stand against the terms of the negotiations with the European Union on Gibraltar’. The removal of this apparent ‘Brexitero’ agency should now allow the border issue to be addressed positively.

From The Collector, an interesting review of Gibraltar’s back-story: ‘The Rock & the Ages uncovers the rich tapestry of Gibraltar's history, from Neanderthals to British rule. Explore its strategic significance and the ongoing dispute over sovereignty’.

From The Olive Press here: ‘Work begins to reclaim land off Gibraltar’s coast for new Eastside marina development – as Spanish protests claim all the waters around the Rock are theirs’.

Álvaro Morata y Rodrigo Hérnandez, the two football stars who sang ‘Gibraltar Español’ following the Eurocopa victory, have been sanctioned by the UEFA with one game apiece.  

…...

Health:

The Andalusian public health system is overstretched. The answer, apparently, is a public/private system where, uh, things will be much more efficient. A senior officer from KPMG is interviewed on the subject at the Diario de Sevilla here.

‘A hacker has accessed the personal data of 50,000 Andalusian health workers and demands ransom in bitcoin. The Andalusian Government acknowledges a security breach in the websites of the Andalusian Health Service in Granada, assures that no patient or banking information has been compromised and that it has not paid the (remarkably modest) ransom of 2,500 dollars in crypto-currencies’. Item from elDiario.es here.

How many people have died in Spain from the heat this summer? El Mundo says up to 771 for July. More disturbingly, DW says that ‘Heat causes 176,000 deaths a year in Europe, according to the World Health Organisation’.

The winter campaign 24-25 for flu and covid injections starts in late-September.  

…...

Corruption:

elDiario.es brings us ‘The list of companies that fed the millionaire black box of the PP of Valencia so that Rita Barberá could sweep the elections in 2007’. Mainly builders and real estate agencies (not that there’s much de be done now – with Rita Barberá dead of cirrhosis of the liver in November 2016).

…...

Courts:

Following the eventual agreement to reform the CGPJ after five years of overdue renewal, from elDiario.es (Monday) here. ‘The third day of unsuccessful voting in the new General Council of the Judiciary. The members who took office on July 24 still cannot agree on who should lead the governing body of judges, an election that requires the agreement of members of the two sectors (a balance of conservative and progressive judges) that make up the plenary. The councillors voted again this Monday without any of the seven candidates initially proposed obtaining the necessary 12 votes’. They’ve now decided to postpone the vote indefinitely. It’s clear that the CGPJ, equally divided as it is between the two camps, considers politics over jurisprudence and gamesmanship over impartiality.

‘The National High Court (Audiencia Nacional) supports the investigation into the police leadership of the Rajoy Government for spying on Podemos. The body has rejected the appeal presented by the former Secretary of State for Security, Francisco Martínez, against the investigation led by Judge Santiago Pedraz’, says Público here.

elDiario.es says that ‘Judge Peinado has exhausted the main avenues of investigation without finding any crime in the actions of Begoña Gómez.  The investigating magistrate of the case has launched a dozen proceedings that have so far resulted in exonerating reports from the Guardia Civil, witnesses turned into defendants who have denied irregularities and various unclear avenues of inquiry’.

‘The ultra-catholic Hazte Oír’ expands its complaint and asks the judge in the 'Begoña Gómez case' to summon former minister Reyes Maroto as a witness against her’ says elDiario.es here.

It’s curious how the legal problems for Alberto González Amador, the partner of Isabel Díaz Ayuso, have been quietly forgotten by the conservative media while they hammer the presumptive case against the partner of Pedro Sánchez.

Climbing onto the bandwagon of ludicrous court complaints as championed recently by Manos Limpias and Hazte Oír, the organisation known as La Fundación Española de Abogados Cristianos has denounced France (no less) for its blasphemous ‘Last Supper’ opening ceremony at the Olympics. El Huff Post has the story here.

…...

Various:

‘The resident population in Spain increased by 67,367 people in the second quarter and stood at 48,797,875 inhabitants as of July 1, 2024. This is the highest value in the historical series, according to provisional data from the Continuous Population Survey published this Wednesday by the National Institute of Statistics (INE). In annual terms, the estimated population growth was 415,369 people. While the number of foreigners increased by 45,128 people during the quarter, to 6.6 million people, the population of Spanish nationality increased by 22,239 people’. El Economista reports here.

There’s an unpleasant group that can be called on to remove squatters – it’s called Desokupa and is run by some toughs including their leader Daniel Esteve, who comes with some heavy far-right baggage (wiki). Now the group has been invited by a police union called the Sindicato Unificado de Policía to give them training in street violence. Público has the story with the title: ‘Nazis training police: all the keys to the agreement between Desokupa and the SUP police union. The content of the courses would consist of training the agents in "police grappling", "police baton" and "handcuffing" techniques. The Ministry of the Interior says that they are not comparable and is considering challenging the agreement’.  Here’s Daniel Esteve (video on Twitter):  "Spain is a failed state if the army doesn't come out to clean up and carry out mass deportations" (The British have a Tommy Robinson who sings the same tune). El País reports that the other mainstream police unions are against the proposal, saying that it will ‘prejudice the image of the police’. Sumar has called on the Ministry of the Interior for the illegalisation of Desokupa. 

From The Guardian here: ‘Can Lamine Yamal change attitudes towards immigrants in Spain? The youngest goal-scorer in the Euros put the spotlight on Rocafonda (a ‘working-class’ barrio of Mataró, Barcelona). Its residents hope it will bring change’.

The director of the National Historical Archives admits in an interview that "We don't know where the 23F summary is". The institution has 45 kilometres of shelves crammed with documents says EPE here, but somehow, the summary of the failed February 1991 coup d’état of Tejero is missing from the collection.

The mayor of Madrid has become famous for his zeal in cutting down any and all shade trees in the city. Making it hotter. In the Plaza de Santa Ana (a good place to go bar-hopping) the 47 trees there have been given a brief reprieve from the axe, says elDiario.es here, until September!

From El Huff Post here, we learn that the Spanish health minister has decreed that there will be no more tables, chairs, umbrellas and napkins featuring beer company logos. Non-alcoholic beers and the phrase ‘Consumo Responsable’ are also to be vetoed in certain circumstances. This is to encourage the nation's impressionable youth to stay away from the demon alcohol. It's the beer companies who give these things out free to bars and restaurants. Now, either Coca Cola is going to have to step up to the plate, or the bars will have to go buy their own furnishings.

‘Nine mind-blowing facts you didn’t know about the Spanish Royal Family’ – a piece from Fascinating Spain here. Interesting stuff!

How to make proper alioli (no eggs here, just oil and garlic, salt and vinegar). It’s all in the way you beat it says El País.

Nueva Tribuna looks at the early Tartessos civilization (from as early as 1,200 BC until around 500 BC) located around Cádiz in a major article here. Wiki sticks to the facts here.

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See Spain:

A post at Viajar shows us ‘a map with the best restaurant in each province in Spain’. I’ve never heard of ours…

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Letters:

From Gmail to me: ‘Turn on Enhanced Safe Browsing for your account. Get faster, more proactive protection against dangerous websites, downloads and extensions when you’re signed in. Help improve security for you and everyone on the web’.

Huh, will that help?

Reader John Deacon has sent me a full list of accent cheats for your PC (I’m OK, I use a Spanish keyboard). He also provides a regular free (right-wing) summary of British news from the media if you ask him nicely. You can write to him here.

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Finally:

Business over Tapas, bringing you musical oddities since 2014. Spanish gypsies in a French slum are assessed by a government inspector, or so goes the story at La Caravane Passe and Mala Reputación on YouTube here (muy bueno).

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