ARCHIVED - Murcia and Spanish news round-up week ending 20th May 2016

Summer heat turns on, mozzies, BBQ's and all change at Corvera airport again

The PP government of the Region of Murcia will undertake a forced ministerial reshuffle over the next few weeks, following the news on Tuesday that Francisco Bernabé, currently the minister for Development and Infrastructures, is to occupy second spot on the list of the party’s candidates in the Region for the national parliamentary election on 26^th June, a move up to Madrid and into the arena of national politics.

This effectively mean that the “hot potato” of Corvera airport will now be placed in the hands of yet another minister for Development and Infrastructure in the regional government, and the outgoing minister has recommended that someone who has worked closely with him be offered the post so that time is not wasted “learning the ropes”.

Meanwhile, other prominent Murcia politicians past and present are gaining unwanted exposure for their alleged involvement in irregularities at the controversial desalination plant in Escombreras , with searches for evidence at the plant itself and in lawyers’ offices in Murcia on Tuesday being followed on Wednesday morning by the unannounced arrival of the Guardia Civil to search the Town Hall of Cartagena for relevant documentation. Among those who have already made formal statements to the investigating judge are former regional presidents Ramón Luis Valcárcel and Alberto Garre, former national government delegate to Murcia Joaquín Bascuñana, former national government Minister Cristina Narbona and the ex-head of the Cartagena Port Authority Adrián Ángel Viudes.

Camposol

Members of the regional parliament and journalists this week accepted invitations to visit the Camposol residential development in the north of the municipality of Mazarrón in order to see some of the problems on the urbanization for themselves.

Among those visiting Camposol were the members of a regional parliamentary committee which is looking into the various issues on the development, including faulty infrastructures, land subsidence and the resulting damage to residential properties and roads. Opinion on the urbanisation is divided over whether the publicity campaign to highlight the issues is positive or negative, one headline published after the visit "Descent into hell on Camposol" stirring up debate between those who love their homes and lives on Camposol and don´t want bad publicity for the urbanisation and those who are affected by the structural deficiencies and are desperate to see a resolution to their problems.

Summer weather coincides with the start of the wild fire season

It may be just coincidence, but with the arrival of warmer weather this week – temperature is set to rise to 30 degrees in the city of Murcia over the weekend -  there have been a number of fire-related stories in the regional news.

A spectacular fire which broke out at a mattress factory on the road between Yecla and Jumilla on Monday morning was brought under control by the regional fire brigade, but although no-one was injured in the blaze the premises have been completely destroyed. A large pall of black smoke began to spread into the morning sky and within minutes it was visible from many kilometres away

Later in the week the firefighting services of the Region of Murcia were called out again to deal with a fire which broke out at a scrapyard on Calle San Roque in La Unión, in which two people had to be treated after suffering panic attacks and fainting.

Meanwhile, the two men accused of starting the forest fires which destroyed vegetation on 1,000 hectares of land in the Sierra del Molino and the Sierra del Puerto in Calasparra in September 2010 could face prison sentences of up to five years, and their bail was set by the Judge at 6.75 million euros on Tuesday. This amount has been calculated by taking into account the estimated damage caused by the fires (5 million euros), and on top of the damage the costs involved in putting out the blazes have been established at 176,000 euros. The men’s motive for setting fire to dry vegetation is believed to have been to distract attention away from a business from which they planned to steal copper cabling. 

Despite all this, though, the authorities in the Sierra Espuña have opted to delay the summer barbecue ban until the end of this month: ten days remain in which to take advantage of the barbecue areas specially designated for this purpose in the mountains so head to the hills with a bag of sausages and enjoy the magnificent weather!

Environmental news

Still in the Sierra Espuña, the mountains are one of the most popular destinations in the Region of Murcia for mountain bike enthusiasts, but the popularity of this activity is having a detrimental effect on the environment in the sense that footpaths are being unintentionally widened. In some cases new paths are even being created by riders who choose to take short cuts where the established paths follow a zig-zag course, and in the face of this the regional government is determined to take action. 

In the city of Murcia, meanwhile, the arrival of warm weather has heightened concern over the annual mosquito invasion, and the Town Hall is this year using methods both old and new to reduce the inconvenience caused by the insects as far as possible. Alongside the introduction of helicopters and drones to monitor the situation along the course of the river there are also plans to use bats in order to keep the mosquito population down.

Further east in the Mar Menor the proposed agreement between the regional government in Murcia and the Hippocampus association to protect the seahorses of the Mar Menor has been approved, providing an office in the visitors’ centre of the regional park of the salt flats of in San Pedro del Pinatar, while in the Region of Murcia as a whole the amount of glass recycled continues to rise and last year reached the equivalent of 60 bottles and jars per inhabitant.

It’s not all good news for the environment, though, and in Águilas Mayoress Mari Carmen Moreno has warned that the survival of the Playa de la Cola is under threat and the beach is in danger of disappearing altogether if nothing is done to prevent the continual loss of sand from this stretch of the coastline. An estimated 300,000 euros are needed to solve the problems at this “emblematic” location, and the Mayoress is adamant that this amount could be supplied without undue strain being placed on the government’s finances.

Pets and animals

The Town Hall of Murcia is preparing to launch two “paw patrols” in the city to impose fines on dog owners whose pets are not implanted with ID microchips. Before that a public awareness campaign in which dog owners will be reminded of the obligation to have their pets microchipped is to be carried out, and the intention is for the Policía Local in the municipality to begin fining those who fail to comply as of this September.

It is obligatory in Murcia for all dogs to have ID microchips implanted, but many owners see no need to do so and as a result many run the risk of not being notified if their dogs get lost and are then found. The same is also true when dogs are injured or killed in road accidents, and the law is also designed to ensure a complete register of all animals belonging to potentially dangerous breeds.

However, one pet who was microchipped was involved in a distressing incident last weekend in Beniaján, where a 70-year-old man living in Beniaján died on Saturday when he was attacked by his pet Belgian shepherd dog, who goes by the name of Rocky. This was not the first time that Rocky had bitten Sr Hernández, and despite the Belgian shepherd not being classified as a dangerous breed he was described as an aggressive animal.

Tourism news

In general terms the tourism sector of the Region of Murcia’s economy is performing well, with the number of people employed in hotels, hostelries and travel agencies in the month of April reaching 38,372 following an increase during the month of 5.6%. This is the third most significant rise in the seventeen regions of Spain, only behind those recorded in the Balearic islands and Andalucía.

Work continues to bring in more tourists and following the agreement by which Aer Lingus are offering direct flights between Dublin and the airport of Murcia-San Javier, efforts are now being made to promote package holidays in the Costa Cálida to the general public of the Republic of Ireland. To this end representatives of the Irish tour operator Click&Go.com have recently been visiting the coastline of the Region of Murcia, where they saw hotels and regulated tourist apartment establishments in the area of La Manga del Mar Menor, San Pedro del Pinatar and Los Alcázares.

Inland, meanwhile, the Town Hall of Blanca has officially opened a new Nature Interpretation Centre (CIN) where guided walks, fairs and educational workshops are among the events and attractions which will be organized, enhancing the municipality as a destination for nature tourism, and in the northern outskirts of the city of Murcia plans have been unveiled for a new parking area with space for 42 motor homes.

The facility will offer campers drinking water, street lighting, waste water disposal facilities and, equally importantly, shade provided by trees, is close to shops and petrol stations, and at the same time offers easy and comfortable public transport into the city centre of Murcia by tram and bus.

Every year 200,000 motor homes flock to Spain from abroad, mostly northern Europe, bringing around half a million people to Spain and generating spending of approximately 280 million euros. In the city of Murcia an opportunity to capture a share of this economic activity has been recognized, as it has in Lorquí and rural communities in the Ricote valley, although in coastal areas a satisfactory way of keeping both campers and residents happy has not been found in all areas.

Crime

Among crime-related news items this week is a man who was arrested by the Policía Nacional in the municipality of Librilla in connection with two robberies, one in an industrial warehouse and the other from a motor vehicle, and in whose home 632 items of clothing worth 20,445 euros were found.

Elsewhere, though, the focus is on crime prevention. In San Pedro del Pinatar an agreement has been reached with the local police forces of Pilar de la Horadada, Orihuela and Torrevieja in the province of Alicante to pool their resources in an attempt to clamp down on street vendors or “top manta” salesmen who proliferate on the coast during the summer.

The four Policía Local groups will embark on a joint campaign to prevent this kind of unauthorized trading and to warn members of the public of the risks inherent in buying certain kinds of product, including sub-standard sunglasses and suspect alcoholic drinks.

Also in San Pedro, the Town Hall is sharing a specially equipped traffic policing vehicle with the authorities in Los Alcázares and San Javier, allowing them to tighten up on speeding offences and improve road safety.

The three municipalities will report to the Traffic authorities on the use made of the Fiat Ulysse, which is equipped with a speed gun device, a police radio transmitter and even a small office area for dealing with any cases detected. 

Heritage

One of the men in the news this week was British archaeologist Michael Walker, who has done more than anyone to explore the Sima de las Palomas archaeological site on the mountain of Cabezo Gordo, an area where the remains of hominids dating from up to 150,000 years ago have been found. Professor Michael Walker will be named an “Hijo Adoptivo” of Torre Pacheco, where the site is located, a title which translates as “adopted son” and equates to giving him the freedom of the town.

In Murcia, meanwhile, when the construction of an underground car park beneath the Plaza de San Esteban was abruptly halted in 2009 by the discovery of the remains of a whole district of the old Moorish city the area was hastily fenced off and covered in protective sheeting, and now, seven years later, the residents of the area have decided that they have waited long enough to be able to enjoy the square again.

If, as seems likely, funds are not available for a full makeover of the Plaza de San Esteban, then they propose that it be temporarily covered so that the square can be brought back into use in the interim period.

Having arrived in Cartagena last week by boat, the new figure representing San Ginés de la Jara has now been installed in its home in the church which is named after the saint, having spent a week in the Basílica de La Caridad, and also in Cartagena the first monument in the whole of Spain to pay homage to the soldiers of the marine infantry division was unveiled on Saturday in the Plaza del Rey in Cartagena, opposite the entrance to the Arsenal, responding to a proposal which was made by the veterans’ association of the division.

In Lorca, meanwhile, a new church has been consecrated after the old Iglesia de La Viña was demolished following the 2011 earthquakes. The new church of Cristo el Rey is the first Catholic place of worship to be built in Lorca in the 21st century.

Is your Town Hall a big spender or a scrimper and saver?

Data published recently by the Ministry of Hacienda and Public Administration in Madrid show that the most indebted Town Halls in the Region of Murcia, in terms of debt per inhabitant, are two of the smallest.

In Aledo, which is home to around 1,000 people, if the debt of the Town Hall were to be shared by all of the inhabitants they would each owe 3,341 euros, while in Villanueva del Río Segura (population 2,500) the equivalent figure is 3,238€. 

At the other end of the scale are Águilas, Alhama de Murcia and Fortuna, where inhabitants would have to stump up under 100 euros each, but the best performer in this respect, though, is the small municipality of Ulea, where the Town Hall has no debt at all and in fact has 300,000 euros in its “rainy day fund”. That equates to a surplus of approximately 300 euros per person, and Mayor Víctor Manuel López attributes his administration’s financial good health to the spending cuts which were implemented in 2011.

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Spanish news

It makes a change this week not to concentrate first on the uncertain political situation in Spain, but instead on the regional government of Castilla y León, where on Thursday a decree was passed which which could mark the end of one of the most reviled of the many festival activities in Spain featuring bulls.

The new regional law forbids the death of the bull in the annual Toro de la Vega event in Tordesillas (province of Valladolid), a tournament in which for around 500 years armed horsemen and thousands of onlookers have driven a bull out of the village and into the meadows beyond where it is killed with lances. The person who eventually kills it receives the dual honour of parading the animal’s testicles through the town on the tip of his spear and receiving a gold medal and commemorative iron spear from the Town Hall.

The decree passed in Valladolid on Thursday does not actually prevent the Toro de la Vega from being held, but it is hard to imagine how it can take place if there is a legal obligation for the bull to survive.

Reaction in Spain to this decision has in many quarters been one of relief that a barbaric 500-year tradition appears to have finally been brought to an end, but in Tordesillas itself this opinion is far from universal. The talk in the town on Friday is of little else, as numerous residents attempt to defend the tournament as an indispensable manifestation of their cultural identity.

The reaction of animal rights party Pacma was to describe it as “a historic step” towards the abolition of festivities involving the suffering of animals in Spain, while at the same time reiterating that there is still a lot of work to do in order for animals to gain the respect they deserve in this country, for example at the “Rainfer” Primate Recovery Centre in the mountains of the region of Madrid.

A further illustration that the battle to ban cruelty to bulls still has a long way to go was provided last weekend by former king Juan Carlos I, who attended one of the most important bullfighting festivals in Spain at the bull ring of Las Ventas in Madrid on the feast day of San Isidro, demonstrating that although King Felipe VI does not share his passion for the “sport” (at least in public) it is still attractive to many Spaniards.

One animal which not even Pacma could help this week was the whale which was a found dead on the beach of Matalascaña on Tuesday. This is the second whale to be washed up on the Atlantic coast of Huelva in a week, but the Department of the Environment in the regional government reports that there is no reason to conclude that there is any relation between the two deaths.

Politics and the economy

Meanwhile, the Spanish political parties are preparing for another election general campaign, and this week an interview with Mariano Rajoy was been published in the Financial Times during which the acting President promises further tax cuts if he is re-elected in June. The PP leader risks a clash with Brussels if he implements such a policy, with the news breaking on Wednesday that the EU is demanding a further set of “adjustments” to restore equilibrium in the national economy and that Spain's national debt is now higher than its GDP for the first time since 1909.

With regard to the June election, Sr Rajoy also defends the idea of a “Grand Coalition” if it is needed after 26^th June in order to consolidate Spain’s economic recovery. Until now the PP has not engaged in serious talks with any other party in an attempt to form any alliance.

On the subject of politics, last Sunday marked the fifth anniversary of a demonstration which seemed insignificant at the time when it took place but has since at least partly succeeded in changing the face of the Spanish political scene. On 15th May 2011 an “anti-austerity” protest was called, and over the days that followed demonstrators stayed in the Puerta del Sol in Madrid, camping out in a continuing gesture of protest. The movement, which soon spread and acquired the name of “Los Indignados” (the indignant ones), is now referred to in Spain as “15-M”, and is associated with the emergence of the new political parties, particularly Podemos, which have broken down the two-party system in Spain.

To commemorate the anniversary of the 15-M protest marches were held all over Spain this Sunday, the largest of them being once again in the Puerta del Sol in Madrid.

The effect of the parliamentary deadlock on the economy is still hard to quantify. On the plus side Peugeot has announced this week that it is to invest another 700 million euros in its operations in Spain between now and 2020, indicating confidence in the country, but the downside is being felt by workers in other sectors. One of the most striking cases this week was that of the employees at the Altadis cigarette factory in Agoncillo (La Rioja), where the plant is scheduled to close this year. 138 of those made redundant will be offered relocation packages in Atladis factories in Germany and Poland, meaning that their new workplaces will be over 2,000 kilometres from where they live at the moment, in a language and culture which are alien to them.

This underlines a point made on Tuesday by Juan Rosell, the president of the Spanish Confederation of Employers’ Organizations which represents the business community, when he warned that the concept of a steady job is one which belongs to the 19th century. In the future, according to Sr Rosell, people will have to learn to adapt to new and different working situations, earning the right to paid employment on a day-to-day basis as best they can without the guarantee of a steady job for life.

In a country where over 4 million people are registered as unemployed, his opinion will strike a chord with many.

Basque and Catalan separatism

Once again the issue of flags has been to the fore in terms of regional separatism in Spain this week. Reaction to the decision to ban the Catalan nationalist “Estelada” flag from the Vicente Calderón stadium in Madrid at the final of football’s Copa del Rey on Sunday has been swift and indignant in many quarters, with opposition to the move coming from some unlikely quarters.

Even Xavier García Albiol, the leader of the PP party in the region of Catalunya, has expressed his unease with the move, stating that although he himself doesn’t like the Estelada he respects the right of others to wave it at football matches.

Among fans themselves the response has been one of indignation and, in some cases, imaginative alternatives. On social network sites suggestions have been made that different flags should be carried in order to express the dissatisfaction with the ban, including a blue and red Estelada.

Also in Catalunya, Ada Colau, the Mayoress of Barcelona, who has announced that she will not attend Sunday’s match in protest at the flag ban, was once again in hot water on account of the local government of the city offending the major institutions of the Spanish “establishment”, the latest incident to have caused controversy involving a poem by American writer Charles Bukowski.

The regional government of the Balearic islands entered the debate over Catalan nationalism on Thursday, when it was announced that it hopes to re-name the islands’ airports in the Catalan language rather than in Castilian Spanish as is currently the case.

Later in the week the Catalan parliament controversially welcomed Arnaldo Otegi, the secretary general of the Sortu Basque Independence party, when he visited Barcelona as a guest of the regional government of Catalunya. The former member of the ETA political military group met Carme Forcadell, the Speaker of the regional parliament of Catalunya, and members of the Junts pel Sí, CUP and Sí que es Pot parties, and during the day he also visited the Sant Andreu district, where an ETA bombing at the Hipercor supermarket claimed the lives of 21 people in 1987, and made a speech in which he admitted that the attack “should never have happened”.

This followed the news that eight people who were to stand trial on Tuesday in the national courts of Spain for belonging to Ekin, the political wing of banned Basque separatist terrorist group ETA, escaped imprisonment by publicly renouncing violence. As a result of their gesture the prosecution, which had originally planned to request prison terms of between nine years, has agreed to settle for a guilty verdict and suspended sentences of between 21 and 24 months.

Accidents

Two unfortunate accidents claimed the lives of five people this week, three in Navarra and two in León.

In León two cyclists drowned on Saturday while attempting to cross from the River Curueño to the reservoir of Porma in the north of the province. The river and the reservoir are linked by an underground tunnel, and although access is theoretically forbidden local residents report that cases of cyclists and walkers taking this short cut are frequent. On this occasion, though, the recent rain led to the water in the tunnel suddenly reaching a depth of two metres, and the cyclists paid for their reckless decision with their lives. 

The headline-making incident in Navarra occurred on Thursday afternoon, when two men and one woman, all of them French, are reported to have died on in Arbizu when the light aircraft in which they were travelling crashed on the main street of the small town. Locals including the Mayoress have attributed the fact that none of those on the ground were injured to the skill and bravery of the pilot.

Environmental news

Six Greenpeace activists embarked on a hair-raising protest mission on Tuesday morning, scaling the Kio Towers in Madrid in order to unfurl a banner expressing their rejection of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership which is being negotiated between the EU and the USA.

In the province of Toledo it is now a week since a fire broke out at the massive tyre dump in Seseña, but although the flames are now under control the controversy over how the incident is being handled and whether it is safe to breathe the smoke from the smouldering rubber shows no signs of dying down.

On Thursday there was some optimism that the situation in Seseña might be returning to normal as the El Quiñón primary school reopened its doors to pupils, but this hope proved to be unfounded when only 105 of the 772 pupils registered there turned up.

Crime

The police have been called in to investigate the theft of a diamond worth 300,000 euros from the Cartier jewelry outlet on Calle Serrano in the “Golden Mile” in Madrid, while in Alicante a very different robbery was aborted as four greedy thieves were arrested for stealing a ton and a half of oranges from an orchard in San Miguel de Salinas after they attracted the attention of traffic police by overloading the car and van in which they were making their getaway from the scene of the crime.

In Málaga the trial began on Monday of 43-year-old Miguel Ángel G., who has admitted stabbing his former partner and suffocating their five-year-old son Aarón, with the accused reiterating his guilt and assuring the court that he regrets his actions. The murderer’s apparent repentance has angered residents of the La Luz district of the city, the suspicion being that he is engaging in hypocritical plea bargaining in an attempt to reduce his eventual prison sentence.

On the roads, a 40-year-old man from La Rioja has been arrested by the Guardia Civil on the AP-2 motorway near Casetas, in the province of Zaragoza, after he was found to be driving without a valid licence and a sniffer dog helped to discover half a kilogram of cocaine inside his car, but the most unusual drugs story this week was the news that the Policía Nacional had intercepted 171 kilograms of cocaine at the port of Algeciras after finding the drugs concealed inside fake plastic bananas which were on their way to a fruit company in Lepe, in the neighbouring province of Huelva. 

Finally it has been confirmed by no less an authority than the Supreme Court that the Town Hall of Valladolid is justified in declaring it illegal to go naked in public places in the city, rejecting the allegation from members of the Spanish Naturism Federation that this represents an infringement of their rights under Article 16 of the Constitution. However, the Court has also ruled that a clause prohibiting people from being “semi-naked” in public in Valladolid is annulled, on the grounds that it is insufficiently clear, and those who dispose of their t-shirts in hot weather are therefore NOT committing an offence.

Smoking

The campaign to discourage people from smoking in Spain moves up another gear on Friday, with the introduction of new rules concerning the unpleasant images which are featured on cigarette packets.

The existing pictures are to be supplemented by others showing graphically unpleasant effects of smoking, including a lung cancer operation, and the size of the picture is to be increased to cover 65% of the front of the packet rather than the current 40%. Rolling tobacco is also affected, and packets containing less than 30 grams of tobacco will be discontinued.

Terrorism

Five young people have been arrested by the Policía Nacional after they caused panic at a cinema complex in a shopping centre in Fuenlabrada, in the region of Madrid, by breaking in wearing balaclavas, shouting and throwing firecrackers as if they were carrying out a terrorist attack.

As for genuine terrorist actions, it has been reported in the Turkish press that the release of three Spanish journalists who had been held captive in Syria for ten months was achieved only by the payment of a ten-million-euro ransom.

Spanish property news

The main property news this week concerned the March figures published by Spain’s notaries, who report that sales were 5.8% higher than in the same month last year at 38,674 while the average price paid per square metre rose by 1.9% to 1,261 euros.

These figures appear to confirm that the general optimism which pervades the market at the moment has been relatively unaffected by the uncertainty over Spain’s political future, and that while demand continues to increase gradually prices are also rising, albeit timidly.

At the same time, unsurprisingly, the number of mortgages constituted on residential properties during March rose by 17.1%, while the average loan capital also increased by 2.7% to 125,265 euros. It is hard to discern whether low interest rates and increased mortgage availability stimulate demand, or whether increased demand stimulates more mortgage activity: it’s something of a chicken and egg situation, but either way it spells good news for the real estate market in Spain as a whole.

As for how much of the market is accounted for by non-Spanish buyers, last week it was reported by the notaries that during 2015 there were over 76,000 sales made to non-Spanish nationals, but the data released by the country’s property registrars this week suggests that the proportion is rather smaller. The registrars inform that sales to buyers from abroad accounted for 12.93% of all transactions in the first quarter of 2016, with the most active buyers being those from the UK, with 22.35% of all sales to non-Spaniards. The next largest shares are those of France (8.18%), Germany (7.14%), Sweden (6.09%) and Belgium (5.95%). 

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