ARCHIVED - Murcia and Spanish news round-up, week ending 4th March 2016

The battle of the breakwaters ends in victory for the residents of Los Urrutias

45 million euros of European funds have been earmarked for improvements in and around the Mar Menor, one of the key issues being to protect the marine environment and water quality in the lagoon itself, and this week saw a successful conclusion to the campaign to have the breakwaters removed from the beach in Los Urrutias.

After prolonged and at times vociferous lobbying by members of the public and, in recent months, the Mayor of Cartagena, the bulldozers and diggers finally began work on Wednesday to remove the breakwaters, an initiative which was agreed upon last year but which the Departamento de Costas had been slow in putting into practice. As a result a protest in the city of Murcia which had been scheduled for this week was first postponed and then cancelled, as work finally got underway to clear the offending breakwaters.

Although the visual effects of the works will not be as dramatic as might be expected, these breakwaters have been preventing water from flowing freely along this part of the coastline, and it is anticipated that their removal will bring about a significant reduction in the amount of debris which accumulates in this little corner of the Mar Menor. Although this is one major victory won by residents, there are still further topics which the neighbours would like to see resolved, including the need to ensure that floodwater runoff channels such as the Rambla del Albujón no longer bring agricultural chemicals used in the Campo de Cartagena into the Mar Menor in times of heavy rain, but an important step has been taken.

Cartagena news

For the Town Hall of Cartagena this is another sign of the greater importance now being placed on outlying districts in the municipality, following the announcement at the end of last week that OMITA council offices are to be opened in Los Belones and Los Urrutias, and it has also now been confirmed that councilors are to visit La Manga del Mar Menor once a week to meet local residents and answer questions in person. 

In Cartagena itself, meanwhile, the Year of Modernism was to the fore on Monday when the Gran Hotel, one of the most emblematic buildings dating from the city’s Modernist golden age in the early 20th century, celebrated the centenary of its opening with a partial re-enactment of the original opening ceremony in 1916. Mayor José López played his part by taking the role of José García Vaso, who presided over the inauguration of the building 100 years ago, and arrived in a vintage car sporting a dashing cape along with a top hat and tails before addressing the public from the balcony. 

Before leaving Cartagena, last week a warning was issued that the motorway on the eastern edge of the city would be subject to closure for repairs as of this Wednesday, but the start of the work has now been postponed until after Easter and the most immediate traffic warning at present is that drivers should avoid the city centre on Sunday morning, when the half-marathon event will necessitate the closure of many central thoroughfares.

Corvera airport and tourism

After a remarkably quiet period regarding the new airport at Corvera it was back in the news this week, with the courts backing the decision to rescind the previous management contract of the unopened facility and effectively delivering its ownership to the regional government. There is still no timeframe for the putting out to tender of a new contract and the eventual opening of the airport, but at least that outcome is inching closer.

When the airport does open, Alhama de Murcia intends to be ready. Alhama is just a 25-minute drive from Corvera, and for many months the Mayor, Diego Conesa, has been backing the initiative to re-invent the thermal spa resort which gave the town its name. The old Arab baths in Alhama have dried up but the thermal waters can still be accessed at various locations, and on Wednesday a team from the Universidad Complutense in Madrid visited to take samples of the water from the well in the Las Menas area of the town. The water extracted was at a temperature of 39.6ºC, and the mineral analysis to be carried out in Madrid will determine what properties it possesses and, by implication, its potential therapeutic uses. 

The city of Murcia

In the city of Murcia, meanwhile, the efforts of the tourist office to attract more visitors have been attracting a good deal of attention, with the two Huertano figures outside the office in Plaza Belluga being at the centre of much of it. This week it was decided that the happy rustic couple, who are proving a popular photo opportunity, are to be named Fuensanta and Pencho, with alternatives such as Perete and Remedios provided little competition in the eyes of the members of the public who voted.

The regional capital was also in the news through the new municipal Graffiti Office, the first of its kind in Spain, with the completion of the latest artwork on a 24-metre wall outside the Hotel Nelva in the east of the city. In just three months the office has carried out over 120 actions in both public and private places in Murcia, removing unwanted tags and supporting the creation of more acceptable urban artworks and is proving to be one of the most popular initiatives by the new local government.

Environmental issues

Murcia and the other towns along the River Segura are also to be congratulated on winning the European Riverprize, an accolade awarded by the International River Foundation to rivers which have been restored and de-contaminated. From being one of the most contaminated rivers in Europe at the start of the millennium the Segura has now become one of the cleanest, with the level of pollution among the lowest in the whole of the continent. 

In the city of Murcia anglers can now be seen on the banks of the Segura, a sight which would have caused ironic laughter 15 years ago when very few fish were present in the river. At that time the Segura was little more than an exposed sewer, but after fighting off the challenges of the River Aragón in northern Spain and the Trent in the UK those responsible for its transformation are now delighted by the recognition given to their efforts and the repopulation of the river by species which favour cleaner water.

Other issues related to the environment include the imminent end to the campaign to save the rare Tallante pea-flower, an initiative which has cost 1.2 million euros over a period of four years. The plant only grows in the wild in the municipality of Cartagena and was believed extinct until an example of it was stumbled upon in 2003, and now a special body has been created to ensure that the campaign to save the plant does not end with the Life+ project.

Environmentalists were also celebrating in Yecla this week when the 1,065-metre mountain of Monte Arabi was declared a protected area by the regional government. The protected area, which is now a categorized as a “natural monument”, occupies an area of approximately 600 hectares, and the mountain is one of the most easily recognizable features of the Altiplano area in the north of the Region of Murcia, with its unusual rock formations and Karst landscapes. Marine fossils found there include shark’s teeth and various other sea creatures, and seams of red quartz are of special interest to geologists.

Crime in the news

As usual crime made headlines in Murcia during the week, the most notable offence perhaps being that of a Polish lorry driver who over-indulged in cartons of wine after making a delivery to a Jumilla winery. The 36-year-old caused a minor accident by colliding with another lorry and the Guardia Civil observed his vehicle zig-zagging perilously as it progressed along the N-344 before halting it at the roadside, where breathalyser tests showed him to be seven times over the legal limit for alcohol consumption. This is almost a carbon copy of a similar incident last month, when a Hungarian lorry driver was found to have eight times the legal limit of alcohol in his bloodstream when he was stopped, also on the N-344, in the municipality of Yecla.

One major drugs bust was reported in Murcia this week, involving the arrests of three Dutch nationals, two Spaniards and one Belgian who were connected with the cultivation of up to 5,000 marijuana plants per year in two warehouses in Torre Pacheco and were distributing their products in both Spain and the Netherlands. Other crimes of note include an international internet phishing scam which was busted in Murcia, bringing about the arrests of 17 Spaniards and Nigerians, and a failed cat burglary in Cieza which ended in disaster when the thief lost his life in falling off the roof of the building he had attempted to enter.

Winter is still with us........but spring is knocking down the door

And finally, as news summaries tend to say, the weather. Last weekend the temperatures fell dramatically throughout the Region and snowploughs were called into operation in the north-west on Saturday to clear five main roads in the municipalities of Caravaca de la Cruz and Moratalla. However, by Sunday afternoon the weather had eased and local bar and restaurant owners were relishing the brisk trade brought by visitors travelling from the rest of the Region to enjoy a day out in the winter countryside. Farmers, on the other hand, anxiously surveyed their crops for signs of damage. 

This has been followed during the week by beautiful spring weather with daytime temperatures of over 20ºC, but winter is not over yet in the Costa Cálida and this weekend will again bring a sharp fall in the temperature, although not by as much as a week ago. Not much precipitation is forecast, but it could fall as snow at altitudes of over 900 metres above sea level in the very highest parts of northern Murcia. For the rest of us, sunny days and a chilly wind.

Murcia property news

Unfortunately the statistical information released this week by property valuation firm Tinsa (see below) is not specific to the 17 regions and 50 provinces of Spain, but owners and potential buyers will be interested in the fact that their latest bulletin reports a 6.1% rise over the last twelve months in the value of property in Mediterranean coastal areas.

This comes in spite of a minimal depreciation of 0.1% in the first two months of this year, and in Mediterranean coastal areas the year-on-year comparison has now shown an increase in average value for five months in a row. Anyone doubting that the market recovery is under way will find it difficult to contradict such evidence. 

See a wide range of properties for sale or rent in Murcia:

Currency Exchange Rate this week

It's important to keep an eye on the exchange rate if buying a property or transferring your pension

Anyone exchanging their pension from Pound Sterling to Euros or buying a property will be aware of just how much difference the rate can make to the amount they will have to spend and for major purchases, such as a property, transferring cash at the right moment can make a difference of several thousand Euros.

Currency rates went into freefall last week as the markets were unsettled by the prospect of a possible BRexit, with fears that the UK could leave Europe adversely affecting the Sterling-Euro exchange rate.

This week, currency markets have started to recover and the exchange rate for those converting Sterling to Euros has improved.

Spanish news round-up: still without a government after two and a half months

The Spanish news this week has predictably been dominated by the political situation, where the parliamentary presidential investiture debate ended, as forecast, in an impasse and as a result the country remains without a government two and a half months after the general election.

The coalition plan of PSOE leader Pedro Sánchez stumbled at the first hurdle on Wednesday evening as rivals on both the left and the right voted against it in parliament, potentially setting in motion a two-month countdown to another election. A second vote on Friday evening also failed, leaving Spain without a working government.

There is now speculation that Mariano Rajoy of the PP will seek a “grand coalition” with the PSOE, but such has been the bitterness of the inter-party criticisms made during the week that at the moment any such alliance looks implausible, and in the eyes of many observers the main priority for the parties is to begin a pre-election campaign with a view to the nation going to the polls again on 26th June. 

On Wednesday the party leaders, including Pablo Iglesias of Podemos and Albert Rivera of Ciudadanos, skimmed over policy issues with a volley of recriminations over who was to blame for the deadlock. All four of the main parties are standing their ground on key policy issues such as the issue of Catalan independence, and while such insistence on being faithful to their principles could be seen as admirable, at the same time it is preventing any workable agreements being forged.

On the subject of Catalunya, while the focus is on events in the national parliament in Madrid relatively little attention is being paid to the developments in the Catalan capital of Catalunya, but this week the regional government led by Carles Puigdemont gave the go-ahead to the laws which are intended to lay the basis for an independent State, despite the warnings received from legal experts. The ruling JxSí and CUP parties are of the opinion that the risk involved is minimal, and this is almost bound to cause a head-on conflict with the government in Madrid whenever one if formed.

In the meantime, it is likely that the getaway Catalan government will introduce a few more initiatives while Spain remains without a government to stop it.

Economic news

The lack of a central government is beginning to have a noticeable effect on the general public, as is shown by a sharp decrease in consumer confidence since the December election, but at the same time most of the main economic indicators are still performing well. Perhaps crucially for the credibility of Mariano Rajoy, still acting President, the latest unemployment figures show that there are now 360,000 fewer people out of work than a year ago, bringing the total down to 4.15 million. The decrease has been of 10% or more in the Balearics, Aragón, Catalunya and La Rioja, and several other regions are not far short of this improvement.

More good news for the economy is that Spain is now the eighth biggest automobile producer in the world, with production of 2.7 million motor vehicles in 2015 marking a return to the pre-crisis figures of 2007, according to the International Organization of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers (OICA). The tourism sector is also booming, with an 11.2% increase in the number of visitors to this country during January bringing the total for the first month of the year up to 3.51 million on the back of a 16.2% rise in the number of visitors from the UK during the month. British tourists thus accounted for 20.14% of the total.

As the consumer confidence figures show, not all is well in the Spanish economy, but data such as these will add credibility to Sr Rajoy’s attempts to secure a second term in office, with an 8% fall in live plant and flower export figures unlikely to make a serious dent in his efforts.

Drugs and crime

Plants of another nature were in the news this week in Granada, where the police are searching for the source of 200 bags full of discarded marijuana plants which were found in the La Azulejera district of the city. It is assumed that the rubbish was discarded from an illegal plantation, and it has since emerged that numerous similar bags have been found in the nearby municipality of Jun.

Other drug-related crimes hitting the headlines this week include the large trafficking ring which was busted in Albacete, where 25 people were arrested, and the 130 kilos of cocaine which were confiscated from an agricultural warehouse in Serra, in the province of Valencia. Eight men and four women were arrested in connection with the raid, all of them of Spanish or Colombian nationality. 

A princess in court and a celebrity out of jail

In a nation as obsessed with celebrity as Spain, the long-awaited appearance of Princess Cristina in court on Friday received massive coverage in all of the media. The King’s sister, the first member of the Spanish royal family ever to stand trial, maintained the same stance she had taken at the preliminary hearings in February last year: that she had no knowledge of financial matters and her husband handled all their accounts.

She also expressed her confidence in the innocence of her husband, Iñaki Urdangarín, adding that she had no role in the couple's Aizoon company and that she simply signed papers when asked to without questioning how it was managed. Earlier in the week Sr Urdangarín pointed the finger at the Spanish royal household, claiming, like his former business partner Diego Torres, that he did nothing without consulting Carlos García Revenga, who was secretary to Cristina and her sister Elena.

According to Sr Urdangarín, the idea of setting up Aizóon, which allegedly listed fictitious employees as a means of laundering money, was that of Miguel Tejeiro, the brother-in-law of Diego Torres and financial secretary of Nóos. The former Duke of Palma could face a maximum sentence of over 19 years in prison if found guilty of all the charges leveled at him, and although his wife Cristina is not due to reappear in court until the end of the trial the proceedings will doubtless continue to receive extensive coverage.

So great has the interest been in Princess Cristina that even the release of Isabel Pantoja from prison was pushed off the front pages. The popular singer has been in the spotlight of the media for well over three decades as the widow of legendary bullfighter Francisco Rivera Pérez, alias Paquirri, who died in the ring in 1984. At that point she became Spain’s favourite widow, but in more recent years her romantic association with the former Mayor of Marbella Julián Muñoz saw her embroiled in corruption, and on 21st November she began serving a two-year sentence in the prison of Alcalá de Guadaira (Sevilla) after being convicted of money-laundering.

The Basque issue

Another recurring topic in the Spanish news is that of the Basque independence movement and the ETA terrorist group which for many years used violence in supporting it. This week three high-profile stories have been in the news, each of them highlighting different aspects of attitudes towards ETA and the separatists, arguably the most important being the release of Arnaldo Otegi from the prison of Logroño on Tuesday.

Sr Otegi completed a six-and-a-half-year sentence after being convicted of attempting to reconstitute the banned Batasuna political party, which was held by the Spanish courts to be a thinly disguised political wing of ETA, and while behind bars has received support from widely respected international figures such as Desmond Tutu. In February 2013, despite still being in jail, he was elected Secretary General of the pro-independence Basque party Sortu.

On emerging from prison on Tuesday morning he declared “Today a political prisoner is leaving a Spanish jail” before adding that if he went into jail a Basque, a separatist and a socialist, he comes out again exactly the same. In the opinion of Hasier Arraiz, the president of Sortu, though, one thing has changed: Sr Otegi may have entered jail as a prominent politician, but his imprisonment has converted him into “a myth”.

Two days prior to the release of Arnaldo Otegi another prominent Basque separatist was released from jail, namely José Luis Urrusolo Sistiaga. Urrusolo had served nineteen of the 449 years to which he was sentenced for his role in at least sixteen murders during a career of violence which lasted from 1981 to 1992, and reaction to his being granted his freedom was somewhat mixed.

However, the wintry weather which hit northern Spain last weekend provided proof that time can heal even the most serious of wounds. Various ex-ETA convicts were among those heard to shout “Viva la Guardia Civil!” after being rescued from a snowdrift in the Navarra town of Beruete on Saturday: quite some turnaround, bearing in mind that for decades the terrorists of ETA attempted to use violence as a means of removing the Guardia Civil from the Basque Country. Never mind gritting the roads, the Guardias could possibly be forgiven for gritting their teeth while rescuing those who in the past carried out bomb attacks against them, but by all accounts the atmosphere was cordial rather than tense. 

Winter weather

The weather provided some spectacular images last weekend, with picturesque snow-covered landscapes in Galicia and the rest of the north, but at the same time there was misery for drivers all over the north of Spain as roads became impassable. In coastal areas waves of five metres and winds of up to 100 kilometres per hour meant that practically none of the north remained unaffected - in Cantabria flood alerts were activated – and further south in Sierra Nevada almost all of the pistes in the ski resort of Granada are now open. The winter weather even claimed two lives in Castellón, where two walkers died in the north of the province after getting lost in a snowstorm.

During the week the weather improved markedly, but another cold front will arrive on the north on Friday, bringing a repeat of last weekend’s wintry conditions over the next couple of days. 

Of goats and olive oil...

Elsewhere in the country the authorities in the Sierra de Guadarrama in Madrid have given the green light for 2,700 mountain goats to be culled over the next four years, a decision which meets with the approval of environmentalists, and the ecologists are also anxious to see demolition work begin at the hotel in El Algarrobico (Almería) which was finally declared illegal last week.

In Málaga efforts are being made to end a rubbish collectors’ strike before the Easter Week celebrations begin, and in Ciudad Real (Castilla-La Mancha) there are renewed hopes that the auction to sell off the airport which has not been used since 2012 could finally result in the facility being put to some use. The latest bid of 200 million euros is 20,000 times higher than the one which originally looked as though it had been successful last summer!

Other stories include a reminder that Spain has so much history (and pre-history) that it’s hard to know where to put it all was unearthed during the week in Huelva, where a stele menhir was unearthed during a routine archaeological survey in Beas, and in Andalucía a Huelva lawyer plans to take the government to court in an effort to rid Spanish society of the scourge of smoking once and for all.

In the Costa del Sol, meanwhile, a local olive oil producer has come up with some innovative variations to the standard product. Aceites de Málaga is producing aromatic olive oils tinged with flavours such as orange and chocolate, and for those who really like their salads with a little razzamattazz there is even a variety containing granules of 22-carat gold. The good news is that this is an eminently affordable luxury at under 30 euros per bottle, but, on the downside, unfortunately it cannot be marketed in Spain due to the rules concerning adulteration and quality of olive oil.

Spanish property news

The beginning of March has seen yet more statistical evidence produced by various sources to show that the situation in the Spanish residential property market is improving noticeably, the main indicator being that prices are on their way back up after the prolonged slump which began in 2008.

This week leading Spanish property valuation firm Tinsa published its monthly summary for February on Thursday, reporting a 2.7 per cent increase in the average value of residential property in the country over the last twelve months. This is the most encouraging result for over 8 years, ending market price falls which have resulted in residential property values falling in Spain by over 40%.

The drop in property value over the last few years has been sharpest along the Mediterranean coastal regions, but at the same time the latest Tinsa bulletin suggests that the bounce-back effect is also strongest in these areas. Over the twelve months ending in February the increase reported along the Mediterranean coast is a healthy 6.1%, making this the stand-out result among the broad categories defined by Tinsa. 

In Spain’s regional capitals and other major cities the inter-annual price rise is reported to have been 4.6%, and increases are also reported in the Balearics and the Canaries (2.5%) and metropolitan areas (1.5%), while the only area in which a year-on-year decrease is reported is the catch-all category of “other municipalities”, where values are reported to have fallen by just 0.7% since February 2015. 

Meanwhile, figures released on Thursday by Spain’s central statistics unit show that during last year the number of mortgage loans which were foreclosed due to non-payment was 101.820, a decrease of 15.5% compared to 2014, and at the same time, the figure of 30,334 foreclosures related to main residences was 13% down in comparison to the year before.

The reasons for the decrease in the number of loans being foreclosed are various, but prime among them are low interest rates, increased confidence in the market value of properties and, in all probability, the fact that many of those who faced problems in paying mortgages which were contracted at over-estimated market value have already been foreclosed in previous years. At the same time, the trend also reflects a greater willingness on the part of Spain’s banks to renegotiate mortgage terms rather than initiating repossession and possible eviction proceedings.

Other property news includes the proposed re-development of Madrid’s emblematic Edificio España building, which was built under the regime of General Franco in 1957, and stands as a monument to the stark architecture in Spain of that time. Its 28 floors reach a height of 117 metres, and in 2014 it was acquired for 265 million euros by Wanda, the giant Chinese corporation.

However, Wanda is now threatening to put the emblematic Edificio España in the centre of Madrid back up for sale if disagreements with the Town Hall over the renovation project are not resolved, placing Manuel Carmena, the city’s Mayoress, under pressure to soften the council’s stance on protecting the façade of the building. It is also believed that negotiations are ongoing between Wanda and the Spanish authorities regarding the possibility of building a huge leisure and residential complex on an area of 2.1 million square metres in the south-west of Madrid, and Sr Carmena will be aware of the need not to jeopardize this project.

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