ARCHIVED - Murcian and Spanish news round-up W/e 30th October

Spain finally has a new government

The week concludes with news that at last a new national government will finally be in place next week – see below for details – as after 10 months of bickering and uncertainty a third General Election has been avoided and agreement reached between the PP and PSOE to form a new national government for Spain.

For all of us living in Spain this is a decisive decision, as it will dictate the stance and attitude adopted by the Spanish government in forthcoming Brexit negotiations with the UK.

Prime minister Mariano Rajoy has been at pains to stress that he has every intention of maintaining good relations between the UK and Spain, and emphasised that he must also consider the future of Spanish nationals working in the UK during negotiations, although the hard-nosed stance of the current Foreign Minister towards the sovereignty of Gibraltar looks set to be the focal point for a great deal of sabre rattling should Margallo remain in his position now that the PP have been given the mandate to form another government.

But in the meantime the most important issue for much of the population is what for many Spaniards will be a four-day weekend. A large proportion of the country will be taking Monday off to form a “bridge” with the national holiday on Tuesday, and as a result the DGT traffic authorities are preparing for major traffic movements on the roads leading in and out of the country’s major cities both sides of the weekend. Murcia alone is expecting more than 300,000 traffic movements over and above normal domestic traffic.

Murcian hotels are hoping for a last minute end-of-season boost as following a week of clouds, showers and unsettled temperatures, the fine weather forecast for the four day period is likely to bring plenty of visitors to the coast.

The weather has indeed been strange this year and there have been unusually balmy nights in the province of Alicante and the rest of south-eastern Spain, although this contrasts contrasting sharply with the heavy rain which fell in Sevilla last weekend. In the town of Dos Hermanas a man lost his life after being caught unawares by a flash flood while driving, as the floodwater reached depths of over half a metre in homes and commercial premises.

Tuesday’s holiday is in honour of All Saints’ Day (“The Day of the Dead”), (Click for All Saints and All Souls) and in the light of this it seems somehow appropriate that the Catholic Church this week published a document in which the intention is to encourage people to opt for traditional burial services in holy ground rather than following the recent trend towards preferring cremation. Pope Francis has effectively denied Catholics the right to have their ashes dispersed in private gardens, at sea or at other locations which hold special significance for the individuals concerned and for their families. Instead, they must be scattered on consecrated ground: if not, the document warns, a full religious funeral should not be held, because the “new” burial and cremation practices are “contrary to the Catholic faith”.

For those who are interested in enjoying some of the many Halloween-related events on offer in the Murcia Region over the next few days, a full round-up is available in the weekly What's on bulletin sent separately every week; Click for What's on in Murcia 

This week has been very quiet on the newsfront in Murcia, with most of the activity relating to the Bank Holiday weekend and preparations for the All Saints and All Souls festivities. Every council has been busy ensuring cemeteries are clean and ready for the thousands of people who will visit between Friday night and Tuesday evening, laying on bus services, re-enforcing the police presence and announcing traffic diversions to cope with the volume of vehicles anticipated. Added to this are the number of events being laid on for young people and the associated security aspects of these festivities, all of which means that very little of any note has taken place other than pre-Halloween preparations and the obsessive coverage of the political debating prior to Saturday's investiture debate which has now finally concluded.

There have been a few scraps of news in Murcia:

Tourism

Alhama de Murcia continues push to open new thermal spa complex: This week one of the principal experts in Spanish thermal tourism, Antonio Freire, visited the Alhama de Murcia municipality, to begin work on the viability studies which will help the council to make an informed decision about the format which the planned thermal spa complex will take.

The history of Alhama de Murcia is inextricably entwined with that of the thermal waters in the municipality, the name of the town itself relating to the period of occupation by the Moors who extended the thermal spa baths built by the Romans to enjoy the hot thermal waters which bubbled up from the ground. Click here to read full story

Murcia promoting Costa Cálida diving in Birmingham: With an average temperature of 20 degrees, Murcia offers year-round diving conditions and the regional tourism board has been drumming up new business for next year

Further prospections to take place in Mazarrón bay in search for more archaeological treasure: This week it has been announced that 10,000 euros is to be spent carrying out a detailed survey of the bay in Mazarrón in which two Phoenician boats have already been found. With plans progressing to build a new museum dedicated to their archaeological treasure, Mazarrón council is hoping to find more remains in an area used by traders 2700 years ago.Click for full story

Courts have been busy in Murcia this week:

Two of those involved in the murders of Dutch volleyball player found guilty of murder: This week one of the highest profile trials in the Murcia Region for many years concluded, following the murder of Dutch volleyball player Ingrid Visser and her partner Lodewijk Severein in Molina de Segura in May 2013.

Both the private and public prosecutors in the high-profile murder case which is being held in Murcia have requested two 17-year prison sentences each for Juan Cuenca and Valentin Ion, after the two men were found guilty by the jury of the brutal murders of the two Dutch nationals.

For another of the accused, Constantin Stan, who was originally suspected of having committed the killings with Valentin Ion, the sentence requested is one of five months for allegedly helping to dispose of the bodies, despite his having been found not guilty by the jury.

There has been a great deal of upset over the verdict as nobody seems to believe that the decapitated and dismembered bodies could have been buried in the land owned by Serafin Alba without his knowledge and that the second Rumanian charged with the murder was not as guilty as his compatriate. Click for full story

Los Alcázares Mayor found guilty of disrespecting the police

Another case in court this week was that of the Mayor of Los Alcázares who was found guilty of disrespecting the police after an argument over parking fines. All of us who live in Spain watch British TV programmes about the daily abuse of police officers in the UK by mouthy criminals with astonishment, as one thing every expat moving to Spain learns very quickly here is not to argue with the Spanish police. It's certainly not the same here as in the UK, even if you are the Mayor! Click for full story

Another shameful case of animal abuse

Another horrifying animal abuse case was in the news this week, involving young people who have been sent to an internment centre after being found to have stolen goats and pigs from residents in the municipality of Molina and tortured and mutilated them, either killing the animals or leaving them in agony. Their escapades were all planned in a group on WhatsApp, and videos of their exploits were then uploaded onto the app and onto social network sites. 

The same means of communication was found to have been used to plan a random attack on Hallowe’en, when the intention was to pick someone to beat up, but these plans were thwarted when a member of the public who suspected that his goats were among the victims reported the activity of the group to the police.Click for full story

Commission set up to examine the possibility of splitting Cartagena off as a separate province.
For some weeks now there has been a lot of discussion within the political  bodies of Cartagena about the possibility of Cartagena splitting off to form a separate province.

The Region of Murcia is currently managed as one single governmental entity, whereas other regions of Spain, such as the neighbouring Comunidad Valenciana are divided into separate provinces.

This is generally undertaken due to geographical size and the difficulty in administering so many councils as some of our neighbours are huge compared to Murcia.

Murcia covers a surface area of 11,313 kilometres and is divided up into 45 local municipal councils, whereas the neighbouring  Valencia Region covers 23, 355 kilometres and has 542 local councils, so has been divided into three provinces, Alicante , Castellón and Valencia.

To the west of Murcia is Andalucía which covers 87,268 square kilometres, and has eight separate provinces due to the sheer scale of the administrative task of managing it.

At the moment, Cartagena is a municipality within the Murcia Region, but current Mayor José López has begun a campaign to give it the status of province, claiming that this would give the city more say in its own management and would also allow the municipality to receive more than 100 million euros a year in extra funding for services from central government were it to receive the status of province.

This would also make Cartagena a provincial capital resolving a row which has been rumbling on for nearly 1,000 years between Murcia City and Cartagena about which should be the capital city of the region. Click here for full story

Other news:

190,400€ to restore three cloaks of the Paso Azul in Lorca:The cloaks are part of the spectacular Semana Santa parades in the city

Repair works in Lorca reveal 18^th century flute: The flute was found during repair works to the Palacio de Guevara

Torre Pacheco firemen face the scratchy cat challenge: A cat somehow managed to climb a telegraph pole and in the end its anguished mewling prompted a call-out for the fire brigade

Woman gives birth on the A-7: The baby couldn´t wait for her to reach hospital

Murcia property news:

The latest detailed statistics regarding residential property sales in Spain which were published on Monday by the country’s notaries show that the market upturn continued in the second quarter of the year in terms of both the number of sales completed and the average market price, and that for the third quarter in a row the data for the Region of Murcia are encouraging.Click to read full story

Increased mortgage activity in Murcia: The latest mortgage data published by Spain’s central statistics unit on Thursday show that the amount of activity on residential property in the Region of Murcia continues to rise, with the 609 new loans registered in August representing an increase of 20.6% over the figure for the same month last year.

This is the 22nd of the last 26 months in which an increase has been reported, and during August the data also show that the average loan capital rose by 2.1% to over 75,062 euros: as a result, the amount of money lent rose by 23.1%.Click for full story

Spanish news round-up week ending 30^th October 2016

Political news

But the really big news this week has been in the world of politics, where it has been an extremely interesting few days, culminating in the presidential investiture debate and, after more than 300 days without a government, an agreement between the political parties which will permit the PP party to form a new minority government.

The first vote ended as expected on Thursday evening, with Mariano Rajoy falling six short of the absolute majority he required, but that is not to say that the procedures were without incident as all of the major parties took their opportunity to make what they feel to be important points, with gestures and silences in some cases speaking louder than words.

Sr Rajoy, speaking on behalf of the PP, was uncharacteristically enthusiastic about the possibility of collaborating, negotiating and reaching compromises with other parties in order to maintain a stable government over the next four years, and indeed the caretaker government has already stepped down on the issue of new examinations which it had been proposed to introduce in secondary education. However, Sr Rajoy’s calm was not mirrored during other speeches.

On behalf of the PSOE, Antonio Hernando generally came through a daunting task unscathed, managing to retain his dignity in what has been described as a tour de force of political contortionism by explaining that the decision to abstain on Saturday is for the good of the country. But much of the attention was on former party leader Pedro Sánchez, who resigned earlier in the month and on Thursday affected an attitude of studied boredom and disinterest, failing to applaud Sr Hernando at any point and preferring to deal with what appeared to be more important issues on his mobile phone. Sánchez has refused to accept any compromise with the PP and is now likely to spearhead the disaffected PSOE politicians who are angry about the decision to allow the PP to form a minority government.

The IU Podemos group were keen not to waste their chance to make an impression, the highlight of their generally non-conformist behavioir being a walk-out, after which Pablo Iglesias announced that he would be supporting a demonstration against the governing “mafia” in which Congress would be surrounded by protesters during Saturday’s second vote. Albert Rivera of Ciudadanos then adopted footballing parlance to state that the new government will be taking the legislature “one match at a time”, although on important matters the strongest players are all on the same side.

The Catalan separatist parties represented in the national parliament reiterated the only policy on which they appear to have an opinion at the moment, namely the intention to hold an independence referendum next year, while Aitor Esteban of the Basque nationalist party PNV was rather less blunt, expressing his hope that with his party’s support potentially being crucial for the passing of the 2017 budget there will be an opportunity for dialogue rather than the simple imposition of the government’s will. 

As expected the first vote went against the PP, but on Saturday, as promised, sufficient numbers of the PSOE abstained, allowing Mariano Rajoy to form a minority government.

That this debate was possible was due to last weekend’s PSOE Federal committee decision that the 85 Socialist MP’s would abstain en bloc in an investiture debate.

So, a period of turmoil in Spanish politics appears to have ended, with Javier Fernández, the temporary PSOE leader, having been successful in his stated aim of steering the party towards the option he sees as the lesser of two evils (the other being to force a third general election which would most likely have proved calamitous for the PSOE). But within the Socialist party the turmoil is likely to continue: the party faces a very different problem in most of the Autonomous Communities of Spain where they currently hold power in the regional governments.

In Asturias, Extremadura, the Comunidad Valenciana, Aragón and the Balearic Islands they govern in minority due to the cooperation of the regional IU and Podemos groups, and these latter formations are far from happy with the PSOE’s Federal Committee’s decision to hand power to the PP at a national level. 

There will be a new government in Spain on Monday, but there is little to guarantee that it will last for four years, and even less to indicate that a period of political stability is about to begin.

Economic news

The day after Mariano Rajoy announced during the presidential investiture debate that he is prepared to negotiate almost all of the PP’s most controversial recent legislation except the revised labour laws, citing as his reason the creation of half a million jobs per year, the data published on Thursday morning in the Active Population Survey for the third quarter of 2016 would appear to vindicate his stand.

For the first time since 2010 the unemployment rate among the workface of Spain fell this summer to below 20%, ending a period of six years above that threshold, and at the end of the quarter it is reported that the number of people out of work stood at 4,320,800, following a fall 10.93%, or 530,000, over the last twelve months. Certainly some of that decrease is due to people leaving the country and to the ageing of the population, but the survey also reports that a total of 478,000 jobs have been created over the last year.

If the unemployment figures are gradually improving, though, that doesn’t mean that the economy can be left to look after itself, and this week the EU authorities in Brussels have left a message for the new government making it quite clear that the first few days and weeks after Mariano Rajoy’s swearing-in as President will be no honeymoon. The message reiterates that further budgetary adjustments of 5,500 million euros for 2017 need to be made “as soon as possible”.

Illegal immigration

After a summer in which the attempts by would-be African immigrants to cross the Mediterranean into Spanish territory have been in the news on an almost daily basis, there are more and more indications that the facilities to deal with those who are intercepted are being stretched to or beyond the limit. 

This impression was strengthened still further this week with the news that 69 interns in Barcelona, all but one of them Algerians, have begun a hunger strike in protest at being held for as long as 60 days before being repatriated. At present no violent incidents of any kind have been reported, but this latest incident has highlighted the repeated demands of political parties including IU, Podemos, Equo, ICV and Alternativa Galega de Esquerda for the European Commission to close down all of the CIE centres in Spain, on the grounds that the conditions in which immigrants are housed are demeaning and insufficient.

The fight against Jihadism

Imams, a hairdresser, a tea-shop owner and a TV actor are all in the headlines

Jihadist activity in Spain has been in the spotlight on a couple of occasions this week, firstly with the arrest of two imams in Ibiza for inculcating extremism in youngsters while carrying out their religious and other duties at the mosque of “Masjid al Fath” in the tourist resort of Sant Antoni de Portmany.

At the same time it has been confirmed that both were arrested six years ago for maltreating pupils in the Koran school at the same mosque, where reports were received of students being beaten with a stick.

The following day another man was arrested in the region of La Rioja on charges of preaching the message of Daesh and IS, and has been identified as a Moroccan hairdresser. This latest arrest is connected with the detention on 11th December last year of 32-year-old Salim Aghmir, a tea-shop owner in Pamplona who was on the point of travelling to Syria to join the forces of the “Caliphate”.

This latest arrest brings the number of detentions related to Jihadism in Spain since last year to 157, and the trail of one of those who face charges began in the National Court on Tuesday. Farid Mohammed Al Lal, who was arrested in Ceuta in January 2015, is accused of having been the leader of a Jihadist cell, but denies having been radicalized while serving a previous prison sentence and maintains his innocence.

During his court appearance on Tuesday he claimed. Somewhat bizarrely, that “I am here not because of Daesh but because of José Coronado”, referring to the actor who starred in a TV series where the presence of Jihadism in Ceuta was one of the plot threads. 

Alongside these incidents, it has been reported that Spain is at risk of becoming the main point of re-entry into Europe for “Foreign Fighters” recruited to the Daesh forces in Syria and Iraq: the ports of Almeria, Valencia and Alicante are thought to be likely destinations.

Other news

Lively debate over proposals for Spain to return to GMT: the government of the Balearics has expressed its desire to remain on Spanish Summer Time, an opinion shared by the region of Valencia.

Five arrested for organizing brutal dog fights in Huesca: one of the combat dogs was also taken into custody in Jaca.

Valencia breakers yard owner employs guard bull: 7 break-ins at a yard in Montserrat lead the owner to resort to extreme measures.

All eyes on a Basque beach for Game of Thrones fans: the return of Davos Seaworth is confirmed at the beach of Itzurun in Guipuzcoa.

Asturias yew could compete for 2017 European Tree of the Year award: theBermiego yew is known to be over a thousand years old.

Largest ever marijuana plantation in Aragón busted by Teruel police: 8,000 plants occupied a total area of around 12,000 square metres in the rural municipality of Villarluengo. 

Death of man crushed by tree in Asturias is not an open and shut case: initially the authorities found it hard not to associate his demise from the fact that a large eucalyptus tree had fallen on him.

Felipe VI finds time to visit traditional Asturias villages: the Monarch preceded his political meeting with a visit to the Los Oscos area of the northern region of Asturias.

Gürtel trial goes on with Ferando Correa’s alleged sidekick facing questions: Pablo Crespo could face 85 years behind bars.

Ministry of Defence releases UFO sighting data: the events include four notable ones which incidents in the sky over the Comunidad Valenciana.

Long-lost statue found in the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela: the figure was deposited in its underground chamber around 500 years ago, when the medieval façade was dismantled. 

Spanish court rules in favour of VW client in first emissions software verdict: this is the first such verdict in Spain and could open the floodgates to a host of cases.

Barcelona mammoth museum closes down: bargain hunters can buy unwanted tusks in Barcelona as the museum has followed its chief exhibits along the path to extinction.

Russian fleet withdraws refuel request to Spain after NATO outcry: NATO allies said the carrier battle group could be used to target civilians in Syria.

Valencia nature reserve manager accused of killing bison through negligence: Carlos Alamo is accused of cutting off the head of a bison to hide death by malnutrition.

Only four Spanish regions have cut greenhouse gas emissions since 1990: emissions were cut in the EU by 24.4% while in Spain an increase of over 15% was observed.

Madrid Mayoress sees sheep as a grass-mowing alternative in the Casa del Campo: 2,000 sheep arrived in the capital after a seven-day walk from Ávila and Badajoz. 

Barcelona Mayoress expecting her second child: Ada Colau vows to work to improve the city for future generations

Spanish property news

Statistics published by Spain’s notaries show that the market upturn continued in the second quarter of this year, in terms of both the number of sales completed and the average market price. 

More specifically, the notaries report that in the country as a whole the number of sales was 13.3% higher than in the second quarter of 2015 at 122,776, while the average price paid per square metre rose by 1.3% to 1,314 euros. 

However, as has become customary in the field of Spanish property market statistics, both of these national averages hide considerable variation among the seventeen regions of Spain. In terms of sales volume the picture is at least more or less uniform, but the situation regarding price is less clear. The regional map shows that almost all of the areas in which the market value of real estate has risen over the last year are in the eastern half of the country, the exception being the Canary Islands, while in the west of mainland Spain the trend is universally downward.  

More positive news published on Thursday was that the amount of mortgage activity on residential property continues to rise, with the 20,309 new loans registered in August representing an increase of 6.4% in comparison to the same month last year.

This is the 25th of the last 26 months in which an increase has been reported, and the underlying upward trend in these data is illustrated by the fact that the 186,000 new residential property mortgages in the first eight months of 2016 reflect a 13% rise in comparison with last year, while the rolling 12-monthly total now stands 14% higher than a year ago at 268,000.

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