ARCHIVED - Murcian and Spanish weekly news round-up week ending 18th December 2015

Six degrees above December average heading into Christmas, contract awarded to clean up Portman Bay, Spain votes for new government on Sunday

Murcia Today weekly news round-up

News is updated daily in the regional news section of www.murciatoday.com

On Sunday Spain goes to the polls to choose its new national government for the next four years and after a year in which there have been three sets of elections, both politicians and general public alike will breathe a sigh of relief when the seemingly endless campaigning finally stops and both Spain and Murcia can settle down to getting the economy back on its feet.

This is a decisive vote, and campaigning has been ferocious, the PP expected to win, although with a reduced majority, and at the moment it is impossible to tell whether our government will be centre-right, centre-left, left-left, right-right or something in-between. As a result of Sunday being such an important day there is little in the way of major events, the main focus being on security and ensuring everything goes smoothly, with extra police on duty and local traffic disruption anticipated.

It’s been a surprisingly decisive week for the Murcia Region, with several major themes coming back to the fore as we head into the seasonal break.

Jesús Samper dies, aged 65
Unfortunately the first topic is sad news: this morning the owner of Real Murcia football club, Jesús Samper, passed away, and although for much of the region their primary association with him is through his participation in the sporting events of the region, for the ex-pat community he is the man behind the Paramount Park project in Alhama de Murcia.  The project has failed to find backers since it was first presented in 2010, and although hope continued that it could still stand a chance of going ahead, the absence of financing left only few clinging to any hope after the offices set up to support the project in Alhama closed down in September and a substantial part of the Samper holdings associated with the park project entered insolvency protection. Sr Samper had been determined to keep the Paramount project on simmer and met with the Mayor of Alhama not long ago to reassert his commitment to finding the necessary backing, but with the announcement of his death today, there is now virtually no chance at all that the project will be resurrected.

Corvera airport
The other major infrastructure project linked with Paramount is that of Corvera airport. Having reached a point at which the banks would lend no more money at the beginning of the Spanish property market implosion, the prospect of a major theme park opening just a few kilometres away was a deciding factor in the regional government agreeing to guarantee a 200 million euro loan to complete and open the airport, a plan which has backfired badly as the concessionary failed to open the airport within the contracted period, forcing the regional government into a legal battle to take control of the airport and open it via a new concessionary. This situation is still ongoing, costing an estimated 22,000 euros a day in interest payments alone and although progress is being made towards resolving the situation as the regional government slowly crunches through the legal steps it must follow in order to completely regain control, the former concessionary still occupies the airport installations. This week the Spanish media reported that the parliamentary committee set up to investigate the whole history of the airport was refused entry to inspect the buildings.

San Javier airport is still fully operational, and although traffic is fractionally down from 2014 levels (-2.6%) at just over 1 million passengers from January to November, still offers a local service for principal UK routes. The majority of the traffic coming through the airport is from the UK, and a huge range of connections are available nearby at Alicante-Elche airport which continues to increase the number of routes on offer. This year Alicante has processed 9.96 million passengers ( up by 4.4%) and is likely to beat its own 10 million passenger record comfortably, providing a valuable gateway for Murcia to worldwide routes.

What 2016 holds for Corvera airport is unclear, and depends partly on the outcome of this weekend’s general elections, but the regional government is confident that the obstacles are being slowly cleared away and that the airport will be open within a few months.

Portmán Bay
Another major project was back in the news again this week and offers good news, as the contract to remove millions of tons of sterile wastes from the bay of Portmán, which is just behind the La Manga Club, has now been adjudicated, clearing the way for work to begin on removing the accumulated mining waste and once more opening up the bay.

The contract has been awarded for 33 million euros, to Acciona, SATO and Continental, at just over half the original tender figure, the plan being to start work in the new year.

Tourism
Part of the reason regeneration of this bay has been fought for so hard is its potential to create tourism employment in La Unión, as the clearance of the bay opens up the options to build a major sporting marine and residential tourism complex in the area.

This week other projects were announced and came to fruition: Águilas has signed a contract to promote golf tourism to the Scandinavian market,  Danish tour operators have been visiting the La Manga Club complex in Cartagena to discuss the options for Danish footballing, Tennis and Cycling packages for both professional and amateur sportsmen, Cartagena is considering the options available to make a breakwater promenade alongside the La Manga spit, Cartagena is also analysing the various ways to excavate the Roman Ampitheatre which lies beneath the ruined bullring and will greatly extend the tourism options available in the city, helping to create more tourism and in Murcia City plans have been announced to create more tourism options in the Monteagudo area, which has substantial Roman remains, as well as the striking figure of Christ atop a rocky outcrop which dominates the surrounding planes. Its true gem in the crown though is the Moorish castle supporting the figure of Christ and is not immediately visible from afar as it blends into the rocks it encircles.

In the north-west the residents of Mula continue the fight to recover their historic castle from its current owners and prevent it from further deterioration, a protest planned to surround the castle with a human chain as attempts continue to obtain ownership on behalf of the municipality aand exploit its potential.

Meanwhile in Lorca the Cofradías are already planning their Semana Santa parades for next year and tickets have gone on sale this week for the magnificent parades of embroideries held in the City during Easter week.
In other areas the focus remains on the forthcoming Christmas celebrations although in Los Alcázares there’s a real Ding Dong merrily on high going on in some quarters over the topic of a hydroplane being included in the municipal belén. A fierce debate is currently underway with some viewing this as a “local inclusion” too far, while others say that in the 100th anniversary of the construction of Spain’s first airbase, a small hydroplane alongside the blue and white striped bathing hut which was also 1900 years in the future when Mary and Joseph made their epic journey, is a local homage to a major event in the history of the municipality.

For the local forces of law and order, however, the festive season means an increased drink driving enforcement campaign, so be careful on the roads as there are plenty of patrols looking for drivers committing misdemeanours.

They’re also on the lookout for pedestrians crossing in the wrong place: over 3,000 of us have been fined since the beginning of 2014 for crossing in the road instead of on the crossing points provided. Málaga council has recently upped its fines to 1,000 euros in an attempt to reduce the numbers of pedestrian deaths, so if there is a crossing, then use it or risk getting a fine.

Other police stories
This week police have dismantled a major Marijuana growing set-up in the agricultural country side of the Lorca municipality and have also welcomed their first police dog into the Lorca force. On Friday police announced that they had also recovered a number of 2,000 year old amphorae which had been stolen from wreck sites along the coast and were being offered for sale. These are now in the possession of the Mazarrón and Águilas archaeological museums.

Medical matters
Police were also called in this week to keep an eye on protestors (including several mayors!) who marched on Thursday night in Cartagena to demand that the Rosell Hospital in Cartagena be re-opened.

The regional government has also announced additional measures to cope with the onset of the flu season, amongst them the very sensible advice that most of the major health centres in the region do offer A&E services (SUAP), which are 24 hours in some cases, so these should always be a first point of call rather than heading straight for the major hospitals. It’s also worth remembering that vaccines are free for all those of pensionable age and registered with the health service here and that vaccines can be purchased over the counter at pharmacists for just a few euros, so if you work in a busy bar or have a lot of contact with other people it’s a very cheap investment to make: just buy one over the counter and ask the nurse at your local surgery to administer it for you.

Another medical story this week involves the substantial rise in the number of organ donors and subsequent transplants which have taken place in the region this year, and Murcia’s artists have united in an exhibition in the regional auditorium which is in situ right over the festive season, donating their works for sale to raise money for cancer research.

Expats have also been out in force in their local communities, boosting the donations to local Spanish charities and helping the needy this festive season.

Weather    
This week the state meteorological agency Aemet issued their autumn summary, concluding that 2015 has been the second warmest year on record.

At the moment winter temperatures are six degrees above normal levels for December, and it’s been too hot to wear even a lightweight sweatshirt outside during the day this week. The forecast up to Christmas is that it will remain warm, although will probably drop down to around 18 degrees and there may even be a little drizzle to wash off the BBQ on Christmas Day.

Over the Christmas period the newsdesk will be undertaking its annual site clean-up duties to clear up the anomalies left by the programmers after this year’s changes, so the next news bulletin will be in the New Year, although there will be What’s on summaries for Christmas and Three Kings.

Thank you for all your support this year and have a great Christmas, New Year and Three Kings!

Region of Murcia news, whats on and community information is updated daily on www.murciatoday.com

Alicante Province news can be found on www.alicantetoday.com

To stay in touch sign up for our Murcia Today Facebook Page and receive reminders about whats on events and news stories

Or if you want to know about Community events, post questions, comments, and tell other readers about things you've done in the region, then join the community group facebook page

Murcia property

To see a wide range of properties from agents and private vendors across Murcia go to www.murciapropertypage.com

Exchange rate from Sterling to Euros still good for those buying Spanish properties

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.

 
Spanish national news

This weekend Spain goes to the polls to choose its new national government.

This election is the most uncertain in 40 years, with newcomer parties poised for big gains against the traditionally dominant conservatives and socialists if the last pre-election polls are to be believed, complicating efforts to form a stable government. The ballot will mark the end of the established two-party system that has held sway since the dictatorship of Francisco Franco ended in 1975, ushering in an untested and potentially volatile era of consensus politics.

Opinion polls show the governing conservative Peoples Party (PP) of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy will win Sundays' vote, but fall well short of an absolute majority, and Sr Rajoy indicated on Wednesday that he would consider a cross-party pact to ensure a stable administration over the scheduled four-year term. However, for the time being all the main opposition parties have expressed their unwillingness to join the PP in a coalition. 

Campaigning has been relentless, the PM and PSOE opposition leader Pedro Sánchez clashing in a live debate on TV in which neither party shied away from dealing brutal body blows in the topics discussed, although Prime Minister Rajoy was physically punched in the face during a campaign walkabout in Galicia.

Elsewhere, despite the election, it's a relief to be able to report that Christmas has not been cancelled, and appears to be going ahead more or less as usual. Nativity scenes are on display at Town Halls and other venues throughout the country, including the largest one in Spain which is now open in the Valencia town of Xátiva and a spectacular series of tableaux carved in sand in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. 

Similarly, Christmas trees and ice rinks are adorning squares and public buildings throughout the country, and apart from the monumental trees which have recently been inaugurated in major cities, some of the most original ones are to be found in varied locations including a jewelry complex in Córdoba, where the decorations have a total value of a million euros. At the other end of the scale, the women of Notáez in Granada have taken a rather more low-budget approach to the task of decorating the village, and have painstakingly knitted their own tree for Christmas!

The festive spirit swept, or sprinted, through the centre of Madrid last weekend in a race featuring 10,000 runners dressed as Santa – the real Mr Claus, disappointingly, did not manage a podium finish – and as the big day approaches households are stocking up on food and drink for the next two weeks of family get-togethers and sumptuous eating. Seafood and lamb are among the traditional favourites, but the more intrepid might this year like to include an unusual variation on the typical “turrón” nougat, an option catered for by a Salamanca confectioner who has created a cured ham and chocolate turrón. Interesting…

Should that not be to your taste, those with quite a lot of extra cash to spare could always splash out on the exclusive eel-flavoured ice-cream which has been presented at a gastronomic event in the province of Girona.

If turrón and trees are indispensable elements of the Christmas festivities, then so too in Spain is the El Gordo Christmas lottery, which will be held as usual on the morning of 22nd December. This annual event is not only good fun (especially for those whose tickets turn out to be worth 400,000 euros), but also provides some interesting insights into how the human mind works when large sums of money are at stake, as an experiment carried out in Sevilla, Madrid and A Coruña showed on Wednesday. Ticket-holders were offered the chance to exchange their tickets, each of which cost 20 euros, for a cured ham worth far more, and most turned the offer down on the off-chance that they could be made rich by Tuesday’s draw. Only one man in A Coruña was apparently sharp enough to rush in to the lottery office, buy an El Gordo ticket he didn’t want, and then exchange it for a cheaply acquired top-quality ham!

If you still haven´t purchased your ticket yet, then does it really make a difference which numbers you pick for El Gordo?

One Christmas product always seen across Spain at this time of the year is the "polvorón", a crumbly shortbready type of sweet pastry sold in cloudy paper packaging. However, one well-known favourite will be packaged with different branding this year after animal rights protestrors targeted the manufacturer. Dulces Galicia specializes in “polvorones”, and has successfully marketed them for over 50 years under the brand name “El Toro Vega”, but has now acted on commercial advice to drop the work “Vega” from the name in future due to its similarity to the “Toro de la Vega” bull-killing event in the Valladolid town of Tordesillas every September, which attracts widespread condemnation for the manner in which the bull is hunted on foot and on horseback before being killed with a spear.

Staying on the subject of hunting, animal rights campaigners in Ávila have called for a court to reverse the decision of a local town hall to authorise the hunting and killing of hunting greyhounds which are roaming in the wild. Animal rights volunteers say town halls with a large number of hunters within their borders view the authorisation to shoot and kill stray greyhounds as being a cheaper way of disposing of stray animals then using municipal dog collection services, and are asking for the animals to be captured instead.

Cataluña still without a president

In recent weeks the political machinations surrounding the attempts of the separatist party JxSí to ensure that Artur Mas is re-elected regional president have occupied a large proportion of column inches in Spain, but this week has been a fairly quiet one on that front. No further developments are expected until next weekend, when rival separatist party CUP will debate whether to change their posture and support Sr Mas, and the headlines in Catalunya have for once been occupied by other matters. 

These include the theft of 60 metres of copper cabling from the local rail network on Tuesday morning, and although the amount stolen may not seem much, the resulting chaos on commuter services affected thousands. Extra spice was then added to the incident by the Minister of the Interior, who commented that more copper is stolen in Catalunya than in any other part of Spain, and although he refrained from blaming the separatist movement directly there can be little doubt that his observation carried barbed implications. 

The region of Catalunya also made the news through an announcement that online retail firm Amazon is planning to build its main logistics and distribution centre for southern Europe in the outskirts of Barcelona, close to the airport of El Prat. There have been worries expressed about businesses staying away from Catalunya due to concerns over the consequences of the drive for independence, but clearly Amazon do not share these fears.

Neither, apparently, does the New World Cities report, which lists Barcelona as the city with the eighth highest quality of life in the world!

Basque separatism

On the subject of separatism, the same issue is still an important one in the Basque Country, where former ETA convicts were among those expressing their support for the EH Bildu party in the general election this week. At the same time, one of their former colleagues in ETA was sentenced to 51 years in prison, following his arrest in Belfast in 2010.

Compressed cocaine as pallets and Brits busted

Other criminals in the news this week include two UK nationals. One of them is Robert Dawes, considered by the police to be the most powerful drugs baron in Europe, whose arrest at his Costa del Sol home in November was confirmed at the weekend. 

Dawes is now expected to spend a very long time behind bars, but the same is not true of Devinder Kainth, a property millionaire whose argument with a German man who took video footage of his daughter ended in fisticuffs and a kick to the groin in Sotogrande in February. The German died of his injuries, but it has since emerged not only that he was suffering from cirrhosis of the liver but also that he was a suspected pedophile, and the courts have decreed only a suspended six-month sentence.

Another major arrest which made the headlines this week related to a big drugs bust in the Valencia region in which charcoal was shipped to Spain from Colombia on pallets made from compressed cocaine. These were then cleaned and processed in a large industrial-scale lab in Valencia before being sold on throughout Europe. British nationals were amongst those arrested in a multinational drugs operation.

Record month for Spanish airports

As the year draws to a close the latest record airport passenger numbers for the month of November indicate that 2015 will most probably break all records in terms of visitors to Spain from abroad, with the number of people passing through airport terminal buildings in this country set to top 200 million for the first time by the end of December. Once again no other nationality (apart from the domestic market) comes close to matching the contribution made by those from the UK, and this has if anything become even more noticeable in recent months due to the strength of the pound against the euro. 

One kind of tourism which could enjoy a positive 2016 is religious tourism, with routes such as the Camino de Santiago likely to attract more walkers than usual as a result of Pope Francis’ declaration of an “Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy”. This event began in Spain last weekend at the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela with the ceremonial opening of the “Door of Mercy” (as the Holy Door has been renamed between now and November next year), and similar ceremonies have taken place at cathedrals and major churches all over Spain. 

Other tourist attractions such as those in museums are always finding new ways to showcase their treasures and this week the National Archaeological Museum in Madrid opened a new exhibition featuring a remarkably preserved prehistoric Guanche mummy from the Canary Islands.

However, treasures need a great deal of maintenance and in Segovia emergency work is underway to repair the UNESCO listed city wall which forms a 3.4 kilometre long ring around the city centre.

As a bomb scare on a flight from Madrid to Brazil reminded us on Monday, the issue of national security currently a very important one, and this week it has been announced that the Spanish Ministry of Defence is to acquire 19 ground-to-air missiles at a cost of 23 million euros while selling off an aircraft carrier as scrap for 4.8 million. This may seem odd, but it should be borne in mind that the “Príncipe de Asturias” aircraft carrier is 27 years old and has close to half a million miles under its belt, and the costs of updating it would far outweigh the long-term benfits.

Finally, anyone planning on a Christmas party involving paintball next week should be warned about a change in Spanish law: it has been ruled by the Supreme Court that paintball guns are offensive weapons, and cannot be used without a licence. Fortunately, the licences required consist of no more than temporary authorizations signed by the local Mayor, but even so they should be obtained from the paintball company before combat begins.

Spanish property news round-up 2015

Reasons to be cheerful and reasons to be careful as 2016 approaches

As 2015 draws to a close, this is a good time to reflect on what has been a momentous year for the Spanish residential property market, not because of any spectacular growth or price increases but simply because the bad news has been made up for by the good.

For the first time since the end of 2007, when the bubble created by over-inflated prices and wildly speculative construction projects finally burst, the year now ending can be described as one of relative stability. Prices are no longer in free fall, purchaser confidence is returning, and banks are in a position to offer attractive and sensible finance deals through mortgage loans, and a combination of all of these factors means that those working in the sector will begin the new year with a spring in their step for the first time in eight years.

The statistics themselves are far from spectacular, and yet encouraging in their own way. At the end of the third quarter the government reports that average prices across the country were 4.5% higher than a year previously, and although in the Balearics the increase in market value was an impressive 8.4%, in other areas, particularly in the north of Spain, the rise was closer to 1% or 2%. That might not seem much, but after seven years of decreases during which between 30 and 50 per cent was wiped off the value of homes throughout the country, the mere fact that price increases were recorded in all seventeen regions of the country is enough to cause sighs of relief. 

Similarly, the number of sales this year has so far risen by 11.2% after ten months. Again this in itself is not an earth-shattering improvement, particularly since the figures in 2014 and 2013 were so low, but nonetheless it is sufficient to indicate that prices have now fallen far enough to become attractive to purchasers again. Much of the increase can be put down to foreign buyers from northern Europe gravitating towards coastal provinces, especially those of Alicante and Málaga, a phenomenon which has been accentuated by the recent strength of the pound sterling against the euro, but this alone is not enough to explain the whole of the increase. 

Although the number of properties being sold is still only approximately a third of what it was ten years ago, the reality is that as employment becomes easier to find and more stable in Spain, so more and more Spaniards are also finding themselves able to clamber onto the first rung of the property ladder. 

Much of this is due to the record low interest rates currently available on mortgage loans, and with the banks also regaining confidence far more mortgages are now being constituted than was the case a couple of years ago. Again, as with sales, the numbers are far lower than they were during the boom years prior to 2008 – close to a third of the levels recorded 10 years ago - but the feeling in the market is that this is a time for gradual consolidation and steady growth rather than embarking on another boom-and-bust cycle.

So, should we all be mortgaging ourselves up to the hilt and buying as much property as we can in order to make medium- and long-term capital gains?

Probably not. There are plenty of reasons to be cheerful in respect of Spanish real estate at the moment, but there are also reasons to be careful.

Firstly, while demand is growing and beginning to push prices back up, it has to be remembered that there is still a large proportion of the Spanish public who can’t afford to buy, imposing a ceiling on future demand. This accounts for the buoyancy of the rental market, where prices have risen by a reported 3.8% during the year.

Secondly, despite increasing sales there is still a large stock of unsold new-builds struggling to find purchasers, and this will continue to slow down any potential price increase. These new-builds are not necessarily the most attractive properties on the market, but as banks and promoters strive to sell them they will probably exert downward pressure on market prices. 

In addition, while they are still lying empty they will deter promoters from embarking on new construction projects, and although the number of build licences issued has increased this year it is still at a worryingly low level. 

Another deterrent for growth and increased demand is recent demographic trends in Spain: the population is currently falling and birth rates are at their lowest levels ever, meaning that in the long term there may be fewer homes required in this country.

On top of this, those taking out mortgages must be aware that the current interest rate cannot be maintained for the next twenty years or more, and that repayment instalments will definitely rise at some point in the future. Fixed rate mortgages may prove a popular option over the next twelve months for those who prefer to hedge their bets.

Further uncertainty concerns the results of the general election this Sunday, with polls suggesting that no party will come close to winning an overall majority in parliament and stimulating insecurity regarding future economic and fiscal policy.

The biggest caveat of all, though, is that the stabilization and recovery of the Spanish property market is still very localized, not only from region to region (Castilla-La Mancha and Extremadura are not yet reaping the benefits, for example), but even from district to district within cities and towns. For those planning to invest in a home in Spain during 2016, the most important piece of advice is, as ever, to learn about the local market conditions in the area they are looking at and weigh up the different properties carefully before making a decision. 

However, taking all of these factors into consideration, the industry can look forward to 2016 with considerably more optimism than at the beginning of 2015, with all indications pointing to a gradual improvement in the property sector during the next 12 months.

Murcia Classifieds

 Why not give Murcia Classifieds a try?
It,s FREE up to €500 for non commercial ads.