Business over Tapas Nº 590

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 Business over Tapas:

The two main parties in Spain both had a busy weekend with the PP having a three-day congress (they called it a conclave for some reason) and the PSOE reduced to a single Saturday Federal Committee to determine who is to remain on the bridge.

"I am fully aware that these are difficult days for everyone", Pedro Sánchez began… They certainly are, with the senior ex-companion Santos Cerdán now in preventative prison (the judiciary can act fast when they want to).

The Partido Popular is riding a wave at the present time. They can’t say much about the Government’s efforts to improve the economy (since they’ve been most successful while keeping faith with the workers and the retired). But now, look, they’ve got the PSOE where they want them – caught with a massive finger in the till.

While the PSOE tends to eject from their ranks any trespasser (another one went on Saturday – as Franciso Salazar was accused of inappropriate behaviour with his female staff) – the PP is known to have a more laid-back attitude, with several barons (Ayuso, Mazón and Moreno for example) conspicuously failing to keep their house in proper order.

Alberto Núñez Feijóo was supported on the first day of the conclave by both José Maria Aznar and Mariano Rajoy – as they talked about the desperate corruption within the PSOE (the pots calling the kettle black – voters luckily have short memories).

We remember the photo of Aznar with his cabinet, twelve of whom ended up in trouble.

1. Rajoy, whose Interior Minister is on trial in 2026 for Operation Kitchen.

The president whose police illegally investigated Podemos leaders with fake accusations and claims, as if they were the political police of an authoritarian regime.

The same Rajoy who enjoyed the comforts of the refurbished Calle Génova party headquarters, financed as it was with dirty money.

Indeed, the pair of them were positively Trumpian – give the enemy no quarter. Oddly, the forgotten PP leader Pablo Casado appears to have been airbrushed from the nostalgic photo.

Feijóo in his speech to the party faithful stated that when it came to ‘lies, concessions, manoeuvres, propaganda, or opposing the Spanish people, then the PSOE have all the cards. But when it comes to values, convictions, projects, service, and democracy, then our solid project is going to crush them!’ La Vanguardia reported on Sunday that ‘Feijóo is already launching his presidential campaign and, without rejecting Vox, he hopes to govern alone’. Two things there – first, the next elections are pencilled in for 2027 (yes, and with fingers crossed); and secondly, the likelihood of a majority of seats going to the PP, without recourse to the far-right, is disappearingly small.

To say that the PP did worse things while they were in power than anything that could have come from the PSOE is, of course, a mistake. All this does is undermine people’s confidence in their leaders and, with angry or careless voters ready to support the hungry and be-fanged little fishies lurking in the shadows of the coral reefs, we could still be in for some desperate times to come.

Indeed, it turns out that one of those little fishies is a shark. El País reports that ‘Vox openly advocates deporting eight million immigrants and their children. "It will be a complex process, but we have the right to survive as a people," argues Rocío de Meer, spokesperson for the far-right party.

In Spain, including us foreign residents, there are around nine million of us. Maybe those of us who are white enough will be allowed to stay.

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Housing:

Under the heading ‘Foreign buyers drive up prices’, El Confidencial says that ‘Home purchases by foreigners in Spain have tripled, while those by young people have plummeted. Spain has a housing problem caused by a multitude of factors. One of them being the pressure exerted by non-resident foreign investment in the residential sector’.

Todo Alicante says: ‘Foreigners account for almost half of all home purchases in Alicante. The province is third in this category, surpassed only by Madrid and Barcelona’.

From El Economista here: ‘The Germans conquer the island of Mallorca and housing prices there now exceed those in Germany’. Some 24,000 Germans live in Mallorca.

From Ara (in English) here: ‘Housing and productivity: how rising property prices impoverish the economy. A recent study shows that rising housing prices distort access to the credit needed for companies to invest’.

Across Europe, the financial sector has pushed up house prices. It’s a political timebomb says The Guardian here. This interesting article warns that ‘…housing lies at the heart of surging political disfranchisement across mainland Europe’. The article also explores the sinister and destructive presence of international vulture funds.

From The Olive Press here: ‘Access to housing has proved to be very difficult for many Spanish people in recent years, particularly in the country’s main cities. Rental prices are on an unstoppable rise … the answer as to why Spain has taken such an extreme hit may be found when looking at the role foreign buyers have played in recent years, who have bet on the Spanish real estate market.

Large US investment fund firms such as Blackstone (they own about 20,000 homes in Spain) and Goldman Sachs invested here when access to housing was only just starting to become a problem…’.

‘The court closes ten tourist apartments in a building in Madrid to protect a family's well-being. Four companies must pay €55,000 in compensation to a couple and their two children for the "noise and serious health problems" caused’. From El País here.

‘The departure of the major investment funds from the rental market in Catalonia is growing. Following Patrizia's move, which began selling its portfolio of more than 500 homes in the Barcelona metropolitan area months ago, Blackstone and Azora have now begun divesting their rental properties in the region. Both companies are opting for unitary sales of their properties in a context marked by rental price caps, rising housing taxes, and legal uncertainty…’ Item from Idealista here.

From Idealista (in English) here: ‘Rural houses already registered on regional tourism registries are exempt from the new Single Register of Short-Term Rentals which started in July. This was confirmed by the Spanish Rural Tourism Association (Asetur) after meetings with the Ministry of Housing and Urban Agenda. Properly regulated rural accommodations are not classified as holiday homes or occasional rentals and do not need to register under the new national procedure…’

Idealista again: ‘How to get planning permission for a container home in Spain’.

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Tourism:

From The Majorca Daily Bulletin here: ‘British tourists defy anti-tourism protests. Loyalty to Mallorca shines as visitor numbers climb. Increase in British tourism in May, German market down’.

The Corner has ‘Spain received 9.4 million international tourists in May, 1.5% more than in the same month last year, whose total expenditure reached €12,254 million, an increase of 4.9%, according to data published by the National Statistics Institute (INE)…’

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Finance:

The Olive Press says that ‘Spain flies past both South Korea and Japan in GDP rankings as her service economy is now king. Spain’s GDP per head now sits at approximately €33,666, while South Korea trails on €32,178 and Japan on €31,620.

Video in English from Al Jazeera here: ‘Spain bets on migrant workforce to power its booming economy amid EU decline. Spain plans to legalise 900,000 undocumented migrants over three years to boost its workforce’.

Take a look at the graph the FT published on Monday. Spain has had the second-highest hourly productivity growth among major economies over the past two decades. With two graphics here.

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Politics:

From 20Minutos here: ‘A fresh scandal for Sánchez in the PSOE Committee: Francisco Salazar resigns after reports of "inappropriate" behaviour’.

On Wednesday, Pedro Sánchez spoke in the Cortes about the Government’s determination to strike out corruption. From elDiario.es here: ‘More penalties for corrupt officials and a Public Integrity Agency: Sánchez announces an anti-corruption plan in response to the Santos Cerdán scandal. The Prime Minister asserts that the strategy, designed jointly with the OECD, "will represent the greatest boost to the prevention and redress" of corruption and will place Spain "at the forefront" of the EU’. The Vox deputies left their seats en masse during the President’s speech. From El País here, a breakdown of the day’s session plus the fifteen point plan against corruption. Spain in English is here with a quote from Sánchez during Wednesday’s debate: ‘‘I will not throw in the towel and we will continue,’ Sánchez said, admitting that he had contemplated resignation over the involvement of the two ex-party heavyweights. ‘Because I’m a clean politician,’ he said. ‘Because I aspire to regain the trust of the majority of this chamber, and because this political project goes far beyond me and is not yet complete’.

Les mots justes: Sánchez to Feijóo: "You have been condoning and sponsoring your party's corruption cases for 25 years". The story is at El HuffPost here.

El País reckons that ‘It's now or never. The consensus within the PP is absolute: Alberto Núñez Feijóo is facing his last chance to become Prime Minister. He has one last chance: the next general election, whenever it may be. Neither the party nor he, the 63-year-old leader, contemplates any other scenario…’

Perhaps, after all, we are in pre-election times. The new spokesperson for the PP is Ester Muñoz. From elDiario.es here: ‘Ester Muñoz doesn't rule out Santiago Abascal becoming Feijóo's vice president: "We'll wait for the elections and see how many deputies we have"’. The PP is prepared to talk with any of the other parties as necessary. Well, that’s to say, ‘any party except EH Bildu’. Público quotes Feijóo on reaching a possible agreement with Vox after the next elections: "Their voters deserve respect".

The PP however may have cooled its jets slightly after La Vanguardia reported on the Vox plan to deport us all: ‘Vox calls for the expulsion of eight million immigrants and their children. The far-right party advocates for "remigration," citing security reasons and a lack of cultural integration’. The Government called the announcement ‘vomitivo’.

El HuffPost reports that Santiago Abascal later walked back the ‘eight million’ figure, denying knowing the number of migrants being asked to be deported. "We don't know how many there are. We'll know when we come to power," he says, while the PP reiterates that there will be no coalition with the Voxxers and distances itself on migration and centralism’.

From El Plural, Vox is the only political group that appears to be growing in support. ‘Santiago Abascal intensifies his crusade against Islam: no halal meat, no Eid al-Adha (Lamb Festival), and no veils to be worn in classrooms. Vox's radical agenda against immigration is quietly advancing beneath the headlines of the PP and PSOE daily’.

From The Times here: ‘I’ll clean up Spanish politics using British ethics, says Miriam González. The wife of Nick Clegg is using lessons learnt while Clegg was deputy PM to tackle corruption in Madrid’. Or something.

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Europe:

A survey shows that 82% of Spaniards describe Israel's actions in Gaza as genocide. ‘The number of citizens who describe Israel's actions as genocide has risen by almost 20% in one year, according to the Elcano Royal Institute's Barometer’. More at elDiario.es here.

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Corruption:

El Plural gives us: ‘Update: 32 legal cases surround Feijóo and Ayuso's PP’. it says: Slowly but surely, some of the most significant legal cases linked to the People's Party (PP) continue to advance’. It’s quite a long article.

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Courts:

Various stories about Judge Peinado who appears to be something of a character. LaSexta interviews Baltasar Garzón regarding the case of Begoña Gómez and Judge Peinado: "It's maddening. There are legal actions that lead to nothing". He adds “Judge Peinado likes to go out fishing to see what he can find". The judge’s daughter by the way is a PP councillor in Pozuelo. One last thing: the bureaucrat in charge of the Economic Service of Public Companies in the Madrid City Hall… that’s Peinado’s wife.

Crime, if you can believe it, is down in Spain, standing in the first quarter at 40.6 crimes per 1,000 people, a fall of 2.8%. Compared with last year (January through March), homicides fell by 11% and robberies by 14%. The information comes from the Interior Ministry here.

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Media:

A piece from InfoLibre makes the point (paywall) that ‘The right-wing media ecosystem dominates the information received by most Spaniards. The left-wing press (digital and print) accounts for less than 20% of the audience in Spain’.

From Público here: ‘Journalism under threat: the far-right endangers the right to information with total impunity. The intimidation of journalists investigating extremists, threats to reporters covering their demonstrations, Vox's veto of non-aligned media outlets from its headquarters or at its events, and agitators disguised as professionals form a magma that endangers citizens' right to be informed’.

On Tuesday, Congress was on course to vote, despite attempts from the PP and Vox, on the   removal of permissions for those far-right agitators accredited as journalists but merely active as propagandists (Vito Quiles, Bertrand Ndongo, Javier Negre etc). The story here.

One of the sites on Facebook that amuses me is something called Yo Soy Rojo. They post pithy texts such as – ‘The PP were at a meeting all weekend to insult the president, tell jokes and sell tee-shirts. Not a single proposal to improve the life of our citizens’. Or ‘In any civilized country, a judge whose wife works for the mayor of Madrid and whose daughter is a councillor for the PP would not be allowed to judge people from another political party’, or ‘The court calls for eight years in prison for Francisco Serrano, the ex-leader of Vox in Andalucía. Serrano, an ex-judge, will be tried next year for his alleged fraud of 2,5 million euros’. Yo Soy Rojo, on Facebook, here.

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Ecology:

From El Tiempo here: ‘No, the heat we're experiencing isn't normal: Ten uncomfortable truths about the current summer. Extreme heat is no longer exceptional: longer heatwaves, torrid nights, and unprecedented records confirm the impact of climate change in Spain’.

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Various:

From The Guardian, a Spanish editor writes: ‘Like English, Spanish is constantly evolving. Unlike some English speakers, we welcome that. Purists’ attempts to police our global languages are doomed – there’s joy and inspiration in new expressions from all over the world’. Latin-American Spanish, slang, and Spanglish in all its glory…

Apparently, says El Confidencial, the prison where Santos Cerdán (and so many other ex-politicians in the past) isn’t very cushy at all. ‘Cerdán's life in Soto del Real according to the inmates: "There's a pool, but it's disgusting". Former residents of the penitentiary explain that, despite being one of the best prisons in Spain, the living conditions don't come close to those of a hotel, as many believe’.

It looks like Carlos Mazón isn’t the only one to have failed his parishioners at the wrong moment. From Twitter here, ‘As the Texas flood death toll reaches 70, including 21 children, the Kerrville City Manager refuses to answer about why campers weren’t warned’ (later reports give 111 dead and 160 or more missing).

Melilla reports that Morocco has closed the customs office six months after reopening it. For the time being (Tuesday), the local representative of the Spanish Government has not provided official information on the matter’. The item comes from El HuffPost here.

ReMix News, (a conservative site), brings us: ‘Spain sees 650% surge in residency permits through family ties since 2020 under the Socialist government. The rapid increase in family-based immigration coincides with the left-wing government's amnesty plan and public concern over mass migration and fraud’.

From The Jerusalem Post here: ‘Archaeologist says Atlantis ruins found near Cádiz; giant tsunami likely caused its destruction. Michael Donnellan presented scans showing circular structures submerged on the ocean floor, aligning with Plato's descriptions’.

The young immigrants – known as menas – stuck in camps in the Canary Isles, are now being sent to various cities on the mainland to, hopefully, help insert them into society. One person who will be working with 400 of these young people is our friend Judge Peinado’s daughter, a councillor for the wealthy town of Pozuelo de Alarcón (Madrid).

From Al Jazeera here: ‘Pamplona’s iconic bull run opens in Spain. Runners in traditional red and white sprint inches from bulls’ horns, embracing risk in Pamplona’s San Fermin festival’. The fiesta continues through Monday.

The theft of copper wire that caused the cancelation of a number of trains a couple of months ago has now been solved, and two fellows from Toledo have now been arrested.

From Forbes here: ‘US tourism will lose up to $29,000 million as visitors plummet amid Trump policies’.

An enjoyable blog post from Vince Picton about the animals one is likely to find in their Southern Spanish garden.

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Letters:

“Happy hols” indeed, but be sure to spare a thought for those poor sods who will need something done at government offices such as permits, permissions or registrations. We have just been told that a letter we are waiting for from Madrid, may take up to a month to arrive.

Salmon

Spot on, Lenox.

I'm amazed that the PP can only roll out two corrupt and incompetent former prime ministers in Aznar and Rajoy. Don't they have any better ideas?

And Sanchez continues to bestride the European stage, looking confident and true to his people. It helps that he's tall, young, good-looking and speaks good English (although not as good as King Felipe IV, whose accent is amazing).

I'm all for the monarch of a country being head of state. Look how Charles has surprised us all - he's also no mug at foreign languages, speaking both French and German fluently.

Pablo

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Finally:

Hay amores (Nina´s cover) on YouTube here.