ARCHIVED - Murcia and Spanish news round-up, week ending 8th July 2016

Temperatures started to climb this week and in spite of uncharacteristically strong winds and even a storm or two, the region started to settle into the normal pattern of mid 30's temperatures by the weekend as summer began in earnest.

Visitors are now arriving in droves, continuing the positive trends of the year so far, further confirmation of which was released this week with the latest international tourist expenditure figures for the whole of Spain.

The Region of Murcia delivered encoraging results, showing a far sharper increase than Spain as a whole during May, with the total of 94.2 million euros representing an increase of 33.2 per cent and setting a new record for the fifth month of the year. 

At the same time, there has been a trend towards reducing the dependency on visitors from the UK, although the British still account for the largest share of the overall spending figure. Between 1st January and 31st May UK tourists spent 107.9 million euros in the Region of Murcia, but the proportion of the overall figure dropped from 41.3% last year to 34.2% this year due to far more significant increases in spending by other nationalities. 

Other tourism news: In Águilas tourists can now visit a new museum where the intention is to provide another attraction for those visiting the municipality and also to pay homage to all of the fishermen who for decades were the pillar of the local economy, and to a certain extent still are. The exhibition on display in the port is entitled “Historia de la Pesca en Águilas” (the history of fishing in Águilas), and this will provide an informative “side show” as business is conducted as usual in the “lonja” market.

The Mar Menor

One of the main tourist attractions of the Murcia Region is its vast offering of beaches, many of those with the highest density of visitors being around the shores of the Mar Menor.

Maintaining a balanced ecosystem in Europe's largest saltwater lake has always been a sensitive issue, but this spring there has been a concerted campaign by ecologists to highlight the use of fertilisers in the agricultural countryside of the Campo de Cartagena and the effects this is having on the Mar Menor, in particular the increased presence of algae in areas where there is less water movement.

Over the last few months the regional government of Murcia has continued work to implement measures which will help to minimise the leaching of agricultural run-off into the lagoon in future, but the press coverage which this subject has generated has provoked substantial comment of the subject on social media, particularly amongst Spanish second home owners, who have been inundating tourist offices with enquiries as to whether it is safe to bathe in the Mar Menor.

The answer to these questions is simple: yes, the beaches of the Mar Menor are safe. The fortnightly water quality tests which are carried out at over 80 locations in the Costa Cálida show that there is no additional health risk for bathers in the Mar Menor compared to the beaches on the Mediterranean coast and although the colour of the water in some areas is more pronounced, this does not implicate any health risk for holidaymakers or locals. 

Surprisingly, the arrival of jellyfish in the area this week was pronounced to be good news for the lagoon.

For many years the jellyfish were seen merely as a nuisance to bathers, but this summer there is a sense of relief at the news that they are following their usual migration patterns and returning to the Mar Menor. Jellyfish play an important role in consuming the phytoplankton which live in the water of the Mar Menor, and it is partly their reduced presence last year which is thought to be partly responsible for the greenish colour of the water at present. 

Other beaches news: Thsi week the tourist season began in earnest and overseeing beaches this year are staff of the 2016 “Plan Copla”, which encompasses lifeguard posts and maritime rescue services during the summer and provides for 250 people to be on duty at 121 vigilance points on 72 beaches all along the Costa Cálida. Thirteen rescue craft are provided, as are 13 jet-skis, 19 canoes and kayaks, 56 quad bikes, 5 ambulances and one off-road vehicle. At the same time there are 27 specially adapted bathing chairs for use by those of limited mobility,spread across the region at various points.

Other environmental and agricultural news

Relief was again the order of the day on Friday, this time for the agricultural sector of the Region of Murcia, when it was announced that the national Ministry of Agriculture has authorized the transfer via the Tajo-Segura water supply canal of 60 cubic hectometers of water to the Segura basin in the south-east of Spain. 

40% of the water will be set aside for use by the general population rather than by agriculture and industry, and any shortfall in the domestic the water supply will be covered by the water from desalination plants.

Much of the agricultural water used in Murcia is transferred to the south of Spain via this canal network from the north of the country, and a number of farmers have elected not to plant summer crops which require additional irrigation water amidst fears that the volume of water required for this summer might not be available for transfer and would be supplemented by the use of desalinated water, which is more expensive to buy. Increased water costs make it more difficult for farmers to compete with farmers elsewhere who have lower overheads, the irony being that billions has been spent building desalination plants to supply the south with its water needs, water the farmers are unwilling (unable) to pay for and remain competitive.

Elsewhere, it has been confirmed that the National Court have rejected an appeal against the awarding of the contract to undertake regeneration work in the bay of Portmán. This removes another potential obstacle from the path towards finally beginning to repair the environmental damage done in Portmán over a period of decades until the last mining activity ceased in 1991.

In Cartagena, meanwhile, glass recycling company Ecovidrio has initiated a special campaign to encourage people to recycle more used glass at the numerous beaches of the municipality, re-designing the familiar green containers for glass collection in an effort to collect 260 tons (or 7%) more than last summer by making the containers "more fun to use".

The summer campaign will be focused on the beach towns and villages of La Manga del Mar Menor, Cabo de Palos, Islas Menores, Mar de Cristal, Los Nietos, Playa Honda, Los Urrutias, Isla Plana and La Azohía, and special attention will be paid to beach-side bars and restaurants, which are responsible for around 50% of the used bottles available for recycling.

Also falling into "environment" is, “Fuensantica”, an African spurred tortoise weighing 5 kilograms who was safely delivered on Tuesday to the Terra Natura wildlife park in Espinardo  and elsewhere in the city of Murcia the Policía Local continue to rescue a variety of animals, the latest including a kestrel and a snake. 

Economic news

In line with the nationwide trend throughout Spain (see below), the number of people registered as out of work in the Region of Murcia Spain fell by just over 2,000 during June, according to the provisional data made public by the Ministry of Employment and Social Security on Monday, bringing the total down to 116,850 at the end of the month.

This represents a fall of 1.71% in the total during a 30-day period, and at the same time, the fall since last June now stands at 8.59%.

Corvera airport

It has been confirmed this week that the contract for security and vigilance at the unopened Region of Murcia International Airport in Corvera has been awarded to Grupo Securitas España at a cost of 171,721.02 euros per year (including VAT).

This is only a minor step forward on the long road towards opening the airport in Corvera, but nonetheless it is welcome news after a long break with no developments at all having been made public. The terms of the new airport management contract are still being finalized, and the contract is unlikely to be put out to tender until after the summer.

Crime and punishment

In the early hours of Saturday morning a spectacular car chase ended with two suspected thieves running off into the fields of Alcantarilla, leaving their own van and three police vehicles damaged alongside the roads along which it took place.

Other miscreants in the news are a gang of thieves in Murcia who have been arrested by the Policía Nacional after they were tracked down through their boastful publications on social network sites, underlining once again how foolish some people are capable of being when using the internet!

The people who are facing charges of theft and burglary showed off their new possessions, including cars worth up to 90,000 euros, a flat in the centre of the city of Murcia, large wads of cash and latest generation mobile phones, on Twitter and Facebook, and this caught the attention of the police on account not only of the nature of the photos uploaded but also of the age of those responsible (all four of them are between 17 and 25).

Elsewhere two men and two women, all of them of Rumanian nationality, have been arrested by the Policía Nacional in the city of Murcia in connection with the theft of copper cabling from street lighting systems in the regional capital, and a 42-year-old man has been arrested by the Guardia Civil in Cieza on charges of theft aggravated by violence and intimidation following an incident at the convent of Santo Cristo del Consuelo in the municipality. Tthe nuns who live in the convent reported that a man had threatened one of them before making off with the princely sum of 20 euros.

Bean botulism alert

864 jars of beans belonging to a batch which was found to be at risk of contamination with botulism after people fell ill in Catalunya have been traced to a supermarket in the north-west of the Region of Murcia, according to the regional public health authorities. 

The 400-gram jars were distributed under the brand name IFA Eliges and belong to batch number 06A L-146-16. 752 of those which were found in the north-west of Murcia were taken off the shelves on Tuesday afternoon, but another 112 had already been sold so if you buy bottled beans (excellent in salads and to beef up a bowl of soup!) check that yours are not affected.

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Positive property sales figures for Murcia

The latest property sales figures which were published on Friday report a total of 1,487 transactions registered during May of this year in the Region of Murcia, the highest monthly total since February 2011 and an increase of 61.8% compared to May 2015.

This is the third most significant increase in the seventeen regions of Spain, behind those reported in Balearics, where the recent sharp rise in sales activity was maintained with growth of 70%, and La Rioja (68.9%).

At the same time, the property market in the Region of Murcia was the third most dynamic in Spain.

The really good news, though, is that this is not an isolated month of positive data, rather it represents further consolidation of a trend which has built up considerable momentum. In the first five months of this year the accumulated sale registrations total in Murcia has risen by 28.9% since last year, and the running twelve-monthly total now stands 23.4% higher than a year ago.

There are still those who doubt the recovery of the property market in the Region of Murcia, and indeed evidence of price rises is relatively flimsy in comparison to other parts of Spain, but these latest figures underline that demand is definitely on the increase and that prices do not need to fall any further in order to make residential property attractive in the Costa Cálida. 

Spanish national news

Post-election negotiations to form the next government

Last month Spain went to the ballot boxes for the second time in six months in an attempt to elect a national government, and although the results were more positive for the PP, no party gained sufficient votes to automatically form a government. This means a coalition must be sought and talks began last week to this end.

The first formal meeting held by acting President of the Spanish government Mariano Rajoy this week passed off relatively smoothly on Tuesday, when his conversations with representatives of the Coalición Canaria party were friendly enough, but on Wednesday matters were rather more complicated as he met leaders of Basque and Catalan parliamentary groups.

On his 199^th day as acting President since the election which was held on 20^th December last year, Sr Rajoy first met Aitor Esteban of the Partido Nacional Vasco (PNV), who informed him that the Basque nationalist group has no intention of casting its six parliamentary votes in his favour in any investiture debate.

Things went little better when it was the turn of the leaders of Catalan party ERC to meet Sr Rajoy. Joan Tardà, the leader of the party, delivered to the acting President a pen-drive containing the recordings of the conversation two years ago between Jorge Fernández Díaz, the Minister of the Interior, and Daniel de Alfonso, the former head of the Catalan anti-fraud squad, during which Sr Fernández Díaz allegedly urged Sr de Alfonso to concoct charges of corruption against Catalan nationalist parties and their leaders.

The conversation with Sr Tardá and his colleagues lasted for approximately half an hour, and while little has been reported about other topics they may have touched upon it can be assumed that for the time being at least the acting President cannot count on their support in his bid to be appointed for a second term in office.

These meetings appear to make it even more important for the PP to negotiate with the PSOE party in order to form a working government, even if this is achieved only by the abstention of PSOE MPs in an investiture debate. This is an option which for the time being has been rejected by PSOE leaders, but which is favoured by former President Felipe González, who at the age of 74 is still perhaps the party’s most charismatic member. An intriguing few weeks lie ahead!

Catalan separatism

While attention in the Spanish press focuses on the efforts to form a new national government it should not be imagined that the issue of Catalan independence has in any way been placed on hold, and the latest news this week is that on Thursday the Constitutional Court ruled that legislation passed in Barcelona to lay the foundations of a Catalan State is at least partially invalid.

The immediate response in the Catalan government has, predictably, been one of defiance. Neus Munté, the minister at the head of the Presidency department, believes that the effect of the ruling will be “minimal”, and reasserts the separatists’ determination and right to govern according to the mandate they claim to have achieved at the regional election on 27th September last year.

On the same topic, at the end of last week King Felipe VI spoke in Girona of the need to “learn to live together” peacefully, understanding and respecting one another within societies which are becoming more and more diverse.

Felipe was speaking at a prize-giving ceremony, where his every word was scrutinized and analysed for any reference to the regional government’s plans to secede from Spain. This was all the more so on Friday due to the presence in the audience of Carles Puigdemont, the president of the regional government of Catalunya, towards whom few doubt that his speech was directed.

Approximately half of the King’s speech was given in the Catalan language, but unfortunately there is no information available concerning which language was used over the dinner table at the ensuing meal, when he and Queen Letizia shared a table with Sr Puigdemont. 

Illegal immigration

While much attention throughout Europe is currently focused on the migratory pressure being placed on the EU by refugees, it should not be forgotten that at the same time Spain is constantly involved in protecting its own Mediterranean coast from incursions by those who are determined to cross the sea from northern Africa.

During the first half of 2016 2,979 people, most of them sub-Saharans were rescued by Spain’s maritime rescue service from the small and unsafe dinghies and boats which are referred to in Spanish as “pateras”, and most were brought to port in Spain itself.

Economic and tourism news

The number of people registered as out of work in Spain fell by almost 125,000 during June, according to the provisional data made public by the Ministry of Employment and Social Security on Monday, bringing the total down to 3,767,054 at the end of the month. The overall figure is now at its lowest level since September 2009  following a 3.2% fall in the month of June alone.

There is no doubt that this is good news, but there are some justifiable concerns over the nature of the employment which is being created. The number of new contracts registered during the month was 1,920,340, the highest on record, but among those only 148,395 were for permanent full-time employment. This means that the remaining 1,771,945 contracts were for temporary, short-term employment.

Let no-one imagine that these contracts were issued to 1.77 million different people for the duration of the summer in the tourism sector – if that were the case, the fall in unemployment would have been far greater. The reality is that most of these contracts were almost certainly for durations of weeks, days or even, in some cases, one day. Many beachside bars and restaurants, for example, are tempted to take on staff only for the weekend, or even on a day-to-day basis, as a consequence of which the employees are not entitled to paid days off, and have absolutely no job security. 

In the burgeoning tourism sector, the latest tourism figures published on Tuesday show that during May the amount spent by foreign visitors to this country rose by 7.8 per cent to 6,914 million euros, with the breakdown of the numbers illustrating just how important the UK market is for tourism in Spain. 

The increase in spending by all visitors from abroad during May amounted to almost exactly 500 million euros, but the most significant development is that during May the spending by UK visitors was 10.3% higher than in the same month last year.

After five months in free fall following the inconclusive general election results on 20th December last month the consumer confidence index in Spain rose by 5.6 points in June, according to the country’s official sociological research centre.

It may be that there were increased hopes of a government being formed during the campaigning which started a fortnight before the vote, but cynics might suggest that after six months without a government members of the public are slowly coming round to the opinion that the economy doesn’t actually need one!

Unusual birth, marriage and nudity ruling in Madrid

An unusual and partially unscheduled wedding took place on Saturday in the Madrid district of Carabanchel, when the 50-year-old bridegroom suffered a fainting fit on his way to the civil ceremony at the local Junta Municipal.

The district councillor for Carabanchel and Latina hurried to the scene and officiated at an improvised ceremony in the ambulance itself, following which the newly-weds began married life with a trip to the Hospital Central de La Defensa Gómez Ulla!

Later in the week, an 18-year-old woman and her baby girl are both reported to be in good health after the baby was born in the streets of the Ciudad Lineal district of the city. The mother had failed to recognize the abdominal pains she had suffered during the night as contractions, by the time ambulance staff arrived the new arrival, whose name is Samanta, had already emerged.

Also in Madrid, the latest scheme to hit the headlines this week is one which will potentially allow nudism at municipal swimming pools. The Town Hall has issued a communiqué to the management of all municipal pools in Madrid authorizing them to hold No Costume or Costume Optional days if they see fit: this is not obligatory, but the news has given rise to heated debate among members of the public! 

Air traffic chaos and Vueling in trouble

The beginning of the peak summer holiday season last weekend brought about problems for thousands of airline passengers who had booked flights with Spanish low-cost airline Vueling, as numerous flights were severely delayed or cancelled outright, apparently due to deficiencies in the company’s management of a heavy flight schedule. 

On Tuesday the matter was made worse by yet another French air traffic control strike, the 53rd in seven years and the thirteenth in fourteen weeks, and the effects on air traffic between Spain and France were serious. In the meantime, the threat of government fines still hung over Vueling after the disruption suffered by passengers at the weekend, and if the Ministry of Development is not convinced by the contingency plan which was handed in by the airline on Tuesday there is even a possibility of their operating licence being withdrawn. 

Motoring news

1st July was the tenth anniversary of the introduction of a points system on Spanish drivers’ licences, and to mark the occasion a plethora of statistics have been made public regarding the number of points lost by careless and reckless drivers over the last decade.

One of the most commonly quoted pieces of data is that in absolute terms men have been docked far more points than women since 1st July 2006. One interpretation of these numbers might be to deduce that women are approximately 3.5 times safer behind the wheel than men, but of course it has to be taken into account that there are more men than women holding driving licences, and also that in general terms it seems probable that men complete more kilometres in the driving seat than women do.

Bulls and other animals

The fiestas in honour of San Fermín, which include the famous bull runs, officially got under way at midday on Wednesday with the launching of the “chupinazo” rocket from the balcony of the Town Hall in the city of Pamplona. 

However, the day before the festivities began there was a protest against the holding of the bull-related events, when approximately 100 demonstrators gathered outside the Town Hall, stripped from the waist upwards, donned symbolic horns and emptied buckets of artificial blood over their heads, faces and torsos to object against what they see as an unnecessary example of cruelty against animals.

Nonetheless, the bull runs went ahead, and the second one was a highly eventful affair. In the Pamplona bull runs the words “slow” and “eventful” normally equate to “dangerous”, and this was most certainly the case on Friday morning, when seven runners were gored and taken to hospital, two of them in “serious” condition after an “encierro” which lasted 5 minutes and 45 seconds.

By Saturday however, the annual summer festival "death by bull count" had begun with one bullfighter gored to death during a bullfight and one bullrunner killed in an "encierro" in the street.

In Tordesillas, meanwhile, the Town Hall has announced that it will appeal against the ban imposed by the regional government off Castilla y León on the Toro de la Vega event on the grounds that the regional government has infringed the local council’s right to make decisions in the municipality.

Away from bulls, as of Wednesday 6^th July it is permitted for dog owners to take their pets with them on the Madrid Metro rail network, as long as the animals are kept on a lead of no more than 50 centimetres, are muzzled and are taken onto the last carriage of the train.

Worse news for dogs, though, was a report published on Monday by the Affinity foundation concludes that in 2015 a total of 137,000 cats and dogs were abandoned in Spain.

As for horses, last weekend saw the celebration of the annual “Rapa das Bestas” event in the Pontevedra locality of Sabucedo, with upwards of a thousand spectators cheering on the efforts of those taking part in a tradition which is said to date back to the 16th century. 

The “Rapa” consists of rounding up as many as possible of the 600 or so wild horses which live in the nearby hillsides, herding them to the enclosure erected for the event and clipping their manes and tails. This process is made more complicated by the need to subdue the animals by hand, a task which involves considerable daring, physical strength and no mean skill. 

Crime and punishment

The Mossos d’Esquadra (the regional police of Catalunya) are investigating a mystifying double murder and suicide which took place on Tuesday in the Barcelona district of Sarrià, where a man killed a Filipino butler and a female bank employee before throwing himself off a bridge and being run over by a school bus.

In Madrid the trial began on Wednesday of a former member of the Spanish armed forces who is facing a possible 2-year prison sentence for selling t-shirts bearing IS emblems and slogans online, offering a range of designs and sizes which even catered for babies. 

More shocking events in Madrid, where a 19-year-old man has been rescued from imprisonment in his home in the Madrid municipality of Rivas Vaciamadrid after he was held captive by his father for two years, and is reported to be undernourished, dehydrated and disorientated as a result of continual physical and psychological maltreatment. 

The young man was found to be in a state of emaciation and bearing the marks of blows which he is believed to have received from his father, and it has since emerged that his “kidnapper” lived in the belief that his neighbours were attempting to poison the drinking water supply, that he was being subjected to dangerous radiation and that the Russian mafia were hunting for him.

A higher profile suspect was back in the news this Thursday when the Supreme Court of Spain rejected the appeal made by Luis Bárcenas, the former PP party treasurer, against a decision which was reached in the courts of Toledo and which obliges him to pay 50,000 euros in damages to María Dolores de Cospedal, the general secretary of the party.

Unusual July weather

Much of Spain was affected by a string of thunderstorms on Wednesday and Thursday, with thunder and lightning accompanied by sometimes heavy rain and hailstorms on an axis running from the south-west of the country through to central northern areas.

Some of the worst of the weather was suffered in the region of Extremadura, where rain, hailstorms and hurricane-force winds destroyed crops over an area of 10,000 hectares in the Vegas Altas and La Serena areas. At the same time streets were flooded in the province of Badajoz in what the Mayor of Villanueva, Miguel Ángel Gallardo, described as “the perfect storm”.

In Ciudad Real, though, the weather was warm enough for bathers at the swimming pool in Tomelloso to be joined for a dip by a wild boar!

Spanish property news

The latest property sales figures which were published on Friday morning by the central statistics unit of Spain report a total of 36,425 transactions registered during May of this year, the highest monthly total since January 2013 and an increase of 23.6% compared to May 2015.

In addition, the year-on-year increase is reflected to a greater or lesser extent in all but one of Spain’s 17 regions. The most spectacular rises are reported in the Balearics, which maintained their recent sharp rise in sales activity with growth of 70%, La Rioja and the Region of Murcia (see above).

This represents further consolidation of a trend which has built up considerable momentum. In the first five months of this year the accumulated sale registrations total has risen by 15.75% since last year, and the running twelve-monthly total now stands 14.5% higher than a year ago.

During the week it has also been reported that another sign of prosperity returning to the property market is the increase of 11% in beach rental prices on the Spanish Costas: great news for expats renting out, perhaps less so for those looking for accommodation!

Elsewhere, during June the Euro Interbank Offered Rate, better known as Euribor, continued to descend into previously unexplored negative territory, ending the month at around -0.05% and registering a monthly average of -0.026%.

Once again this is a new record low, with the result that many Spanish mortgage owners whose annual payment schedule is up for review will see their monthly quotas reduced still further. 

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