Business over Tapas Nº 554

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:

One of the questions now being asked, now the local fiestas, celebrations, concerts, rallies, expositions and sporting events are largely over, is this:

Who exactly do they benefit?

There’s an apocryphal story from the mid-sixties of my mother stomping down to the main square from our apartment by the church wearing her slippers, dressing gown and a hand bag – with which she slugged the mayor shouting ‘turn the music down, I’m trying to get some sleep’.

In those days, there’d be a few strings of bunting, a local pop band, the bar doing a brisk trade, and the old deaf-and-dumb lady, la muda, selling cigarettes (single, or a half- or full pack), along with Bazooka Joe bubble-gum and wax matches, cerillas, from a tray hanging from her shoulders.

The families would dance together – small children up to the oldest grannies, all holding hands and bobbing around. There were songs like La Chica Ye Ye or the grisly Las flechas del Amor…

Brandy was the equivalent of three cents a tot. A small glass of a kind of red wine which would make one’s teeth rot was even cheaper.

They were different times. The only visitors would be those who had emigrated to Barcelona or France or Germany. I remember a family known as los marseilleses, who would come for a few days around that time in their Citröen Ami, look down their noses at their country-cousins, and then disappear again. 

There’s the World Day of the Tourist coming up in late September (when they’ve all gone home again), but in our town, neither this nor the non-existent Day of the Foreign Resident are pencilled in. No celebration as such, even if we are here all year long putting money into the economy. Mind you – I think there’s another saint’s day which pops up around then.

These days, as we’ve all seen (only too vividly) the fiestas are a joy for the shop-keepers who will obligingly stay open until late, but there’s not much pleasure for the locals. Even if one does attend, and has a pricey beer at the metal chiringuito raised in the square (next to the deafening dance-band), who ya gonna talk too? Who ya gonna dance with? So, what with the visitors all enjoying their last few days of the holidays, the instant traditions taking up the usual parking spaces (medieval market anyone?), the far-from cheap drinks and tapas or the ride on the roundabout, I’ll take vanilla.

They’ve even extended them an extra day or two, since one can never have enough fun.

In the old days, maybe a neighbour owned a black and white TV and would kindly leave his window open for the curious, at least for the football game, but now everyone has a huge flat-screen with a hundred channels and a fridge full of beer. Why go out, say the vecinos, when one can be dazzled at home for free?

It comes down to this – a local event can be for the local people, or, if it’s the summer and you are in one of Spain’s ‘Most Beautiful Villages’, then it’s for the business-folk and the tourists. The visitors will all have to sleep somewhere – and for that we have the Airbnb hosts and the hotels, all rubbing their hands with glee.

The residents don’t stay in them; and for that matter, they don’t buy souvenirs either – making us very disappointing as customers.

And if we do need to drive into the centre to join the festivities and see the fireworks, where can we park that's not a half-hour walk away?

So if something is a bit expensive, yet perceived as cheap by the tourists, then that’s the price of a fiesta without the people it is meant to be for (and, one way or another, who paid for the music and the bunting).

Or who knows? Perhaps we are just getting old.

Meanwhile, and sad to relate, there’s no one left prepared to stomp down to the fiesta at three in the morning, waving her handbag, to tell the mayor to go and pull the effing plug.

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Housing:

From Spanish Property Insight here: ‘Spanish house prices are rising whichever data source you look at, by between 3.4% in Q2 according to the notaries, and by 7.2% in the case of asking prices according to the property portal Idealista. Prices rise when demand exceeds supply, and demand for housing comes from population growth and household formation. A recent report from CaixaBank research shows how immigration is now driving almost all Spain’s population growth, and how that is pushing up Spanish house prices…’

From Ábaco Advisers here: ‘The Spanish Notary: What it is, role and fees’.

There’s an interesting, if horrible, site on Telegram called ‘Inversión de alquiler de habitaciones’, which – with over 2,000 members, discusses ways of increasing rents, avoiding inspections and roomer’s rights. A selection of comments rounds out the article.

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Tourism:

From Travel Biz here: ‘New EU hand luggage rules came in to effect from September 1, affecting the rules on liquids and the size and weight of carry-on bags. Passengers must follow stricter guidelines for liquids and adhere to standardized size and weight limits to avoid complications at airport security’.

From Schengen Info here: ‘Non-EU citizens with long-stay visas will not have to register in the Entry/Exit System, Normandy Ports director explains’. They’ll still have to queue in the Non-EU lines though.

A jolly excursion for tourists in Valencia – where they are equipped with headphones and encouraged to dance and gyrate through the streets of the city en masse – has earned the disapproval of that city’s straight-laced neighbours, says La Vanguardia here. C’mon amigos, it’s better than a boom-box!

Over in Santiago de Compostela… the number of pilgrims is ‘up’. From 20Minutos here: ‘The Camino de Santiago is in fashion: the number of pilgrims is growing amid criticism of the tourist overcrowding at their destination. So far in 2024, 340,466 walkers have stamped their ‘compostela card’, 13% more than last year in the same time period’.

Interviewed at LaSexta here, ‘Carlos Abella, secretary of the Mesa de Turismo (a private body here), reacts to the protests that have taken place during the summer against mass tourism, recalling that this is the "first economic sector" of our country. Abella believes that "we are making a mistake" in this matter, pointing out that "you don't play with your food".

"The tourist is not to blame, we are all tourists," he stressed, indicating that we cannot commit the hypocrisy of saying that we do not want them to come but then go to other destinations ourselves. "Let's not be hypocrites," he says. In this way, he emphasized that the tourist is the one who "feeds us".’ With video.

‘Ibiza, the elite's paradise for making money at the expense of the precariousness of the working classes. The island grew up in the heat of the 'hippie' myth, but soon became a destination for rich tourists. "The solution is to limit the arrival of tourists and put limits on entry," experts acknowledge’. Público takes a look here.

The blue pueblo of Andalucía, Juzcar, is looking for new ways of bringing in visitors, after the Pitufo copyright owners dropped their contract with the village back in 2017. The story is at Diario Sur.

From El Huff Post here, some click-bait one just has to open: ‘Bottled water banned on flights to Spain after they discover what some passengers have been doing. “Ibiza is by far the worst destination for this”.’ It seems that Ryanair discovered that the Brits were filling up empty water-bottles with vodka to refresh themselves during the tiresome flight to Spain.

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Finance:

From 20Minutos here: ‘Inflation falls to 2.2% in August, marking its lowest level in a year. The Consumers’ Price Index (IPC) has dropped six-tenths in a single month and is now 1.6 points below the annual maximum in May’.

“No matter how much they try to twist the narrative of the grievances, all the autonomous communities, regardless of their political colour, have received the largest resources in their history under Pedro Sánchez.” The Minister of Hacienda María Jesús Montero was speaking – at the invitation of the PP – in the Senate on Wednesday. “In seven full years”, she continued, “they will receive 300,000 million more than in the previous seven years when the PP governed.” The story is at elDiario.es here.

‘The Government will appoint the Minister of Digital Transformation and the Civil Service José Luis Escrivá (Wiki) as the new governor of the Bank of Spain’, says the ABC here. ‘He will replace Pablo Hernández de Cos, who finished his term in office this June, and will be elected without the traditional consensus with the PP’.

From The Business Times here: ‘Spain’s crackdown on holiday rentals bodes well for luxury hotels. The country has surpassed Britain as Europe’s top market for hotel investment, particularly upscale’.

…...

Politics:

From elDiario.es here: ‘Spain is angry: the success of pessimism and the politics of fear are winning out over economic achievements. In a country that leads the growth figures in the European Union or that reduces crime rates year after year, the political climate is stifling and more and more citizens are pessimistic about the future, according to surveys’. And why is this? Resentment, distrust, fear and plenty of manipulation, apparently. The Opposition, notes the article pointedly, knows to never talk about the economy…

Pedro Sánchez gives a "positive" evaluation of his recent trip to Africa says 20Minutos here. Accepting that we need immigrants (for those menial jobs, plus those useful social security payments), the proposal is to allow in a controlled number while insisting on local (African) control of illegals with Somalia, Mauretania and The Gambia. Furthermore, the plan is to allow a circular immigrant system as well as an enforced repatriation system for irregulars. The Government website La Moncloa explains the plan in English here. Currently, eyes are on The Canary Isles which are receiving for more immigrants that they can handle, especially unaccompanied minors (known as menas).  

From El País here: ‘Madrid Regional President Isabel Díaz Ayuso: “One type of immigration is not the same as another”. The regional president advocates integration, but suggests that achieving this is easier with Latin American migrants than with Africans’. Fair enough – Latin Americans speak Spanish and are mostly raised as Catholics. The article however suggests that the PP are courting the LatAm vote (where available). A reader sends me this item – and wonders what Ayuso thinks of us guiris.

‘The PSOE will hold its 41st Federal Congress on November 29 and 30 and December 1 in the city of Seville, a congress to which the current general secretary of the PSOE, Pedro Sánchez, will stand to renew his leadership, as announced this Monday by the party spokesperson Esther Peña at the national headquarters in Madrid’. Item from RTVE here.

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Catalonia:

The Supreme Court has dropped the case of ‘terrorism’ in the Caso Tsunami against Carles Puigdemont says 20Minutos here. No word so far on whether he can now return home.

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Gibraltar:

‘The Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares will travel to London this month to meet with David Lammy and Fabian Picardo in a final attempt to save the Gibraltar deal.

Spain and the United Kingdom will attempt a final three-way meeting with the European Commission before the college of commissioners changes says El País, also indignantly noting that Gibraltar had just issued a postage stamp commemorating the 320 years under British rule. The items are here and here (both pay-wall).

…...

Middle East:

From 20Minutos here: ‘Sánchez announces a bilateral summit between Spain and Palestine to be held before the end of the year’.

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Health:

Antena3 reports that ‘A judge orders the withdrawal of a generic drug that saves the public health system 380,000 euros a day. The Barcelona Court issued the measure only four months after the launch of the drug, something unprecedented for a drug of such importance’. The drug in question is Apixaban, an oral anticoagulant.

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Courts:

After five and a half years blocking the changes in the CGPJ, and several months of stalemate, the conservative judges have finally agreed to a ‘progressive’ president of both the council and the Supreme Court. Not only that – she is the first woman to ever hold these posts. Isabel Perelló is the new judicial supremo. The details at 20Minutos here.

…

La Fundación Española de Abogados Cristianos have made a hundred denuncias in the past 15 years, says TV journalist Cristina Gallego on El Intermediario (LaSexta) here. The latest is against a book called ‘El niño Jesús no odia a los mariquitas’. She says of this unpleasant group: “They are very strange Christians, instead of turning the other cheek they would rather make another complaint”. Almost all of their complaints fail in the court-room (or before). A video shows some of their more ludicrous denuncias.

Judge Peinado is irritated with a YouTube lawyer called Aitor Guisasola (he represents another far-right accuser of Begoña Gómez called Movimiento por la Regeneración Democrática de España and wants to put Pedro Sánchez in jail) and threatens to fine him for revealing ‘secrets’ about the case on his video-blog. The story at Infobae here.  

Sánchez expands the complaint for malfeasance against Judge Peinado in the case involving his wife Begoña Gómez. The State Attorney's Office presents a document in which it considers that the magistrate practices an "intrinsic injustice". On August 22, Peinado had stated in a ruling that "conclusions" can be drawn from the silence of the president when he refused to testify as a witness’ (as is his right). RTVE has the story here.

The far-right OKDiario spins the story here: ‘The new attack by Sánchez on Judge Peinado: he now accuses him of "artificial interpretations"’.

The Olive Press explains here the background to the Begoña Gómez case. 

...

One of Spain’s more colourful judges, Manuel García-Castellón, the National Court judge who identified ‘terrorism’ against Puigdemont in the Caso Tsunami and who investigated the endless cases against Podemos, has been ‘forcibly retired’ after reaching the age of 72.

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Media:

A far-right TV-channel had its hand slapped after reporting last year that a PSOE minister had been to a pop concert with a young underage girl. The child was of course his daughter, but for a mere 5,000€ fine, the channel must have thought it was worth it to make the insinuation. The story is at Público here and the minister’s indignant reaction is here. 

…...

Ecology:

From Infobae here: ‘El parque natural del Montgó, the natural park that is slowly dying in Alicante: the Generalitat is already calling the drying up of thousands of Montgó pines a “disaster”. The lack of rain for a year is condemning this unique ecosystem in Spain, where more than 650 species grow. “Currently, the driest and warmest period since records have existed is being recorded in the Valencian territory,” says the regional government which is preparing a declaration of emergency’.

‘The number of forest fires in Spain is down by a third and the burned surface area is down by 50%’, says 20Minutos here. ‘This is a positive balance compared to the average over the last decade. The reasons: greater awareness, a wet and cold June and fewer heat waves’.

…...

Various:

From El País in English here: ‘Support for democracy is declining among Spain’s young adults. One in four men (25.9%) aged between 18 and 26, known as Generation Z, believes that “in some circumstances” authoritarianism may be preferable to the democratic system, compared with 18.3% of women. In the next generation up, the millennials (who are now between 27 and 42 years old) there is a wider gap: 22.9% of men see an authoritarian regime as acceptable, compared to 12.7% of women…’

Hugh Elliott, the departing British ambassador to Spain, gives an interview to El Español here (pay-wall).

Since they include my favourite Huevos a la Flamenca, here are ‘eight typical dishes’ from Andalucía – one from each province. The item comes from Fascinating Spain here.

From Diario As here: ‘The two pueblos in Almería where almost as many English people live as Spaniards. Partaloa and Bédar, two towns in Almería, went from being on the verge of extinction to forming a population of around 1,000 people, becoming a “British paradise”’ says the article. Several other pueblos locally, including Mojácar, Turre, Albox and Zurgena are also home to many Brits.

From The Olive Press here: ‘The first ever British Legacy Fair comes to Andalucía this month as Huelva celebrates its little-known connection to the United Kingdom’. The fair from September 16 to 22 will present ‘over 30 British-themed activities during the week, ranging from open-air exhibitions and guided tours to period-costumed events’.

Rude names for tourists. I remember a curt English one was ‘grockle’ (wiki). Here, we Brits might call them ‘trippers’. In Galicia, we see that Spaniards may call their fellow visitors fodechinchos (which is rude), while in Cantabria, they are apparently called papardos (a kind of voracious fish that only can be found off the coast during the summer months).

We love them really.

Torrevieja Translation tells us how to obtain Spanish citizenship here (commercial site). Andacucía Información also covers the rules here.  

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See Spain:

Talamanca del Jarama, a small municipality on the outskirts of Madrid, was once the capital city of Spain, holding this title (along with various other towns and cities) until Philip II decided to install the Court in Madrid in 1561.

Some provinces receive few visitors, but are worth getting to know, says El Mundo here, like Palencia, Soria, Zamora, Guadalajara, Cuenca, Ávila and Orense. Even El Mundo seems to baulk at Albacete and Ciudad Real…

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Finally:

Natalia Lafourcade - Pajarito colibrí (Live from Walt Disney Concert Hall, Los Angeles) On YouTube here.

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