The Four Muses

 The Spanish voters are divided, as in most other countries where one is legally allowed to have an opinion, into the four blocks of far-left, left, right and far right. Even the small regional parties must march to this drum, while tending towards supporting the socialists in government (simply because the conservatives would consider their dissolution).

The old Ciudadanos party, which toothily claimed to be a centre party, was proved to be a crutch for the right, and it also showed us – once again – that no one wanted to be in the centre anyway.

My take is that the far left is, as always, too busy squabbling amongst themselves to ever get together to achieve much. They famously did it prior to and during the Civil War and (after being understandably quiet for the next forty years) haven’t achieved all that much since. The Conservative Media, the Judiciary, Church and Establishment all put a stop to their brightest star Pablo Iglesias – he of the ponytail – through lies, innuendo, bulos and lawfare.

In the socialist seats (a party with a lot of corruption cases in its history, particularly from Seville), another strong and intelligent man has risen to take the helm. He is truly a statesman and is well-considered in Europe, if less so here in Spain. Nevertheless, Pedro Sánchez and his government has done surprisingly well for the economy (rarely a strong point with the lefties) and is – compared with the other party bosses – the captain in the popularity stakes.

On the right, we have the party of Capital. Yet, they have a weak leader who is more prone to pointless attack than to mounting any useful opposition. The Right must defend the economy (and profits), but the economy is doing just fine. Could the PP do better in this important sphere? We remember the last time they were in power.

Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s party recently voted against the increase in pensions (no doubt in a gesture towards fighting against rising costs) and promptly got a Black Mark from Spain’s better than ten million pensioners, and was obliged to reverse course in a second vote just a week later. The point of chastising the government is not always going to play well with the ordinary folk queuing up outside the bank or the employment office.

The chances are good that Feijóo will anyway soon be deposed in favour of Isabel Díaz Ayuso or possibly Juanma Moreno (both currently nursing some problems of their own).

If supporters of the Partido Popular tend to think more of their wallets than they do of mine, then the Vox crowd have a different and far more negative agenda based on hatred, fear and jealousy. This party, which has a soft spot for General Franco (and his international equivalents today), is slowly growing in popularity and now stands at around 15% in the polls.

If the ragbag of far-left groups must support the PSOE to keep the wolf from the door, then the Voxxers will be vital in any future election to putting the PP into power, and their price will be high.

Right now, a small but symptomatic headline comes from a tiny village in the forgotten province of Zamora. It appears that no one has given birth in Vega de Villalobos in the last eighteen years, but now everyone there is thrilled by a Happy Event. The ninety-one residents of the village are said to be delighted with the birth there of a baby boy.

But then a Vox deputy called Rocio de Meer (a good old Spanish family name if ever there was one) wrote on Twitter last week, as one does, complaining as usual about the foreign immigrants and to make her point she refers to the birth of the Vega de Villalobos child saying: ‘The future of Spain is dark’. See, the baby’s name is Ayoub (and not, I don’t know… Manolito). Worse still, she received 10,000 ‘likes’ for her efforts. The parents may be integrated, but they are still newcomers.

The leader of Vox is Santiago Abascal. He is also the president of ‘the Patriots for Europe’ clique in the European Commission and he has just held an international far-right fest in Madrid, with all the usual suspects in attendance, including Viktor Orban, Marine Le Pen, André Ventura, Matteo Salvini, Geert Wilders and Kevin Roberts: president of the sinister American Heritage Foundation (the ‘Project 25’ people).

Donald Trump received suitable adulation from all those present (as Europe waits for his tariffs to kick in).

The phrase Make Europe Great Again appeared on the rostrum during Vox’s ‘Cumbre de Patriotas’ (celebrating the utopian and largely fictionalised past of our continent, or are we thinking of Mussolini and his partners of ninety years ago?).

Apart from the music, I can’t think of a time when Europe was greater than it is now.

Thus Spain has its four political groups (plus some small and eccentric satellites). As for the large number of foreigners living in this marvellous country, 6,800,000 of us, well we don’t have the vote and, sad to say, we don’t count for much with the politicians.

Unless we misbehave of course.

Or have a baby.    

No Great Breturn for Great Britain

This seems like a good time to write about Brexit, which finally came to pass five years ago this February 1st. No doubt, like the majority of Brits living in Europe at the time (many of us without the vote on this considerably important topic), or in Gibraltar, I was decidedly against it.

My passport used to say that I was a European citizen; and now, it doesn’t.

But let’s start with the British opinion on the Brexit, where a far from thunderous 52% of those who voted back in June 2016 wanted out of the EU.

The Telegraph says: ‘Brexit wasn’t a failure. It liberated us from the declining, dictatorial EU’ (the right-wing organ introduces the above with the slightly inelegant ‘The Telegraph is publishing a series of essays on How to Save Brexit from expert commentators…’).

To which I say ‘indeed’.

We might as well do The Express (the low-brow right-wing newspaper): ‘Has Brexit failed? It’s the patently stupid question that people won’t stop asking’. Answers on a postcard.

John Redwood writes the Conservative line: ‘The voters were right about Brexit. We now need a government to use the freedoms we have gained’.

The BBC brings us a cautious ‘Brexit has some benefits, No 10 says on anniversary’.

There’s Adam Bolton over at Sky News writing ‘Most people think leaving the EU was a mistake - but don't expect politicians to reopen the Brexit question. Five years on, even many of those who still champion Brexit, including Nigel Farage, concede that it has "failed" - so why are the main parties afraid to tell voters they got it wrong?’

The Guardian also wonders whether there’s a light in the tunnel: ‘Hope mixes with anger on Brexit’s fifth anniversary’.

The European press (unless they are supporters of the AfD or Geert Wilders) are worried that any fresh departure from the EU could only weaken the rest – and we all know that there are some dangerous creatures out there circling the wigwams (or was it the wagons?).

To turn to the Spanish media, we find El País with ‘55% of Britons regret the EU exit as the British government cautiously approaches Brussels. Keir Starmer is quietly seeking greater cooperation with Brussels to revive the UK economy’. elDiario.es, reporting from Oxford, has ‘Five years of Brexit, the reverse that has slowly sunk the United Kingdom amid popular disappointment. Only 11% of adults now believe that leaving the European Union has been a success while the country suffers the obstacles of the self-imposed border to buy tomatoes, sign footballers or sell sandwiches in its supermarkets outside the island’. Sandwiches always were a problem, that and bendy bananas.

The ABC assures its readers that ‘57% of the Brits would vote to re-join’. 62% of the Brits, says another Spanish paper doubling-down, think that ‘the Brexit was a fiasco’.

A local Brit blogger calls it ‘The worst day in modern British history’.

There is some question about whether the UK should look to shelter under the wings of the EU or grasp the US nettle held by Donald Trump. None of the Spanish media appear sanguine about the UK going it alone, but accept that there won’t be a cautious Return to the European Union for a long time, although, as a pundit tells 20Minutos, the two powers evidently need each other.  

How’s business here down the line? Todotransporte says ‘After five years, Brexit has not been so bad (por España)’. It says that Spanish exports to the Sceptred Isle are actually up by 25% over 2020 with Spain enjoying an annual surplus of 12,500 million euros.

To return to those Brits who have a connection or a sympathy towards Spain, we have the (apparent) future issue of the 100% tax on non-EU citizens buying a home here, and the ongoing one of those who own a place, but don’t have residence and thus fall under the 90/180 day issue, obliging them to leave the Schengen Area – and indeed their Spanish home – for lengthy and unnecessary periods.  This second issue, of course, wouldn’t be fully resolved by the UK re-joining the EU – it would have to sign into the Schengen Treaty.

Which, ‘like Breturn itself’, is a non-starter.

The Plot to Slow Down House-Sales to Foreigners

 Under a photo of the Minister of Homes and Urban Agenda and a logo that reads, ‘Housing: the Fifth Pillar of the Welfare State’, an article from Spanish Property Insight (the best English-language site on the subject in general) says ‘The Spanish government floats radical tax plan targeting British and other non-EU property buyers’.

They aren’t alone. Dozens of headlines say something similar. The Yahoo news site quoting some regional Brit newspaper, says ‘Warning to Brits after Spain reveals 'extreme' plans targeting them’ and The Telegraph says ‘Spain wants to kill off the British holiday home dream, here’s what you can do about it’. Some hyperbole from The EWN says that ‘Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez shook the world with the ambiguous claim that his government planned to tax properties owned by non-EU nationals by 100 percent’, while Bloomberg says ‘Spain's Premier aims to ban non-EU citizens from buying homes’, which, between you and me, also seems to be a bit of an exaggeration.

My favourite one though comes from The Times, with a comic but despairing piece called ‘Spain’s anti-Brit tax is a reminder: no one wants to be driven out by immigrants’.

Ah yes, the British fear of Johnny Foreigner. No wonder they chose Brexit.

I imagine that well over half the people reading this are neither British nor American citizens hoping to move to Spain (although, for sure, it’s a good time to come).

Come quickly though, as Sánchez later refined his plan, to say that all sales to non-EU foreigners could be halted. "We will propose to ban these non-EU foreigners who are not residents, and their relatives, from buying houses in our country since they only do so to speculate," Sanchez said at a political rally in Plasencia, in western Spain, on Sunday.

For balance, know that all the Brits currently resident in Spain (around 300,000) or Americans from the USA (perhaps 64,000) are evidently a lot fewer in numbers than the 1,560,000 foreign EU citizens living here.

And there’s the key. I think we Brit/American commentators take an – perhaps understandably - parochial view of our importance to both the Spanish people and to their political concerns.

In reality, we are fairly small fry and, worse still, we live in small and relatively unimportant towns along the coast and islands. Andalucía has the most Brits (and that would be in Marbella, Mijas, Estepona or Níjar with around 3,000 in each), followed in order by the Valencian Community, the Canaries, Catalonia, the Balearics, Murcia and only then the Madrid Region. In point of fact, Pedro Sánchez when looking out of his window doesn’t see hoards of resident Brits tucking into an English breakfast on the Avenida de Castellana.

Madrid, by the way, has a population of 3,400,000. 

The point being – the Spanish government will be looking at its own citizens (especially those that vote) rather than at the foreigners who, Bless them, come here with full wallets to buy a home on the coast.   

In short, with this suggestion, the Government is looking elsewhere.

Two points here - the vulture funds are big buyers of property (to speculate usually as corporate landlords), and the wealthy Latin Americans are taking over choice properties particularly in Madrid (there are now well over a million of them living just in that one city: some wealthy ones in the smarter areas, known apparently as el Miami de Europa, other poorer and perhaps even living without papers in the workers’ neighbourhoods). Both issues being far more important than the plight of our British and American cousins who may have waited a bit too long…

Maybe Sánchez was reading a recent piece from El País which says ‘They are not guiris, they are the new Madrileños: today, 40% of the residents of the centre of the capital were born outside of Spain’.

The concern, then (at least in anglo quarters) is that the tax on buying a property could go up maybe later this year or next and this would certainly put some non-Schengen buyers (already concerned with the 90 in 180 day limit within the region) off. One way around would to be to rent and take out residence-papers, as the proposed surcharge is only for non-resident non-EU citizens. Or maybe there will be early elections, as La Razón fondly hopes, and the PP will get in and smile on us foreigners once again.

From the Spanish point of view, the increase on property tax for non-EU foreign investors might be little more than wallpaper (there are a number of rather more useful proposals), but it shows that the Government is thinking of its citizens, for all that the conservative media runs articles about the inconvenience towards foreign-buyers.   

Or maybe not: ‘Closing the country to rich foreigners might win some votes, but it won't solve the real problem’ says El Economista sententiously.

The Knives are Out

 As the ex-president José Maria Aznar said earlier this year, El que pueda hacer, que haga, or in English, ‘he who can do something, do something’!

This conservative leader was – and still is – keen to cause the fall of the Government – by any and all means. A call received loud and clear by many judges, police and the Media. The cloacas, as it’s called: the cesspit.

And how are things going today?

The economy is up and so is employment. Pensions have been raised and new rules are in place to tax the wealthy and the banks.

But the leading stories are the same: Begoña Gómez, the President’s wife, remains in the headlines. We learn this week that, yes, she is married to Pedro Sánchez, and further, that she only has a few bob in her bank account (maybe). The tenacious Judge Peinado remains biting at her heels.

The President’s brother, a musician, doesn’t after all have 1.4 million euros in his bank account, so there’s another door closed.

The President’s cat still hasn’t spilled the beans, but hopes are high…

All of this (except the cat) come from the denuncias of the far-right Manos Limpias, which is currently lodging complaints with the courts over the AEMET (State weather forecasters).

Maybe – just a thought – it’s time to close down this troublesome ‘pseudo-syndicate’.

Other attacks against the Government include a denuncia against the PSOE-appointed Attorney General Álvaro García Ortiz – one of five hundred people who saw an email regarding the boy-friend of Madrid regional leader Isabel Diaz Ayuso and may have leaked it to the media. Unlikely, but there you go. The email – sent out by Miguel Ángel Rodriguez, the head of Ayuso’s cabinet, concerned a (fake) confession that the boyfriend – Alberto González Amador – had neglected to declare some 350,000 euros to Hacienda by using false documents during the Covid pandemic. So far – while nothing much has happened to the boyfriend – the leader of the opposition PSOE in Madrid has resigned, having seen the bogus (secret) email and passed it on to a notary. In short – the inquiry is not (yet) interested in the fraud itself, but rather, over the leak to the media of a phony document sent out last February.

Yet another attack against the Government comes from a businessman called Victor de Aldama, ‘unconditionally’ jailed for a massive IVA fraud in October, and released last week (can this really be true?) after he claimed paying all kinds of bribery payments to various Socialist ministers. The PSOE deny the accusations.

Lastly, there’s the Koldo Affair.  

With all this excitement, taking an inside page are the stories about Zaplana remaining free from incarceration (10.5 years); Feijóo’s sister’s business dealings in Galicia; the connection between Ayuso’s boyfriend and the giant private-health company Quirón; the accusations of corruption against the Vice-president of the Madrid region Ana Millán; the refusal of Carlos Mazón to resign following the inept handling of the flooding in Valencia; and the revelations that family and colleagues of Rita Barberá (the mayor of Valencia from 1991 to 2015 who also under investigation when she died), defrauded the Treasury of over 631,287.65 euros between 2004 and 2008. (Yes, you read that right: and sixty five cents!) And so on.

It all depends, of course, on who controls the media that one prefers to read or watch.

But what says the conservative Corner about the PSOE (and its recent congress held in Seville): ‘The PSOE closes congress in Bulgarian style to rally around Sánchez and his government, besieged by corruption’. We read that ‘absent, were Felipe González and Alfonso Guerra, the historic leaders of the PSOE, who are highly critical of the current government and the populist drift of the PSOE’.

I’m not sure what the Bulgarian Style means – probably something bad.

While some judicial investigations in Spain are agonisingly slow, others move at warp-speed (usually to be filed under the heading of 'Lawfare').

A retired (‘progressive’) judge says: ‘We are facing a permanent judicial coup d'état’.

One must ask - what would be the program of the PP and their uncomfortable ally (beyond tumbling a successful progressive government) - tax cuts for the uber-wealthy and a ban on homosexual marriages?

El que pueda hacer, que haga.

Spain (and the USA)

The last few weeks have been interesting, with the floods in Valencia (the regional president still hasn’t quit after 220 deaths through his inattention), the woeful attacks against the government by the PP leader Núñez Feijóo, and of course the disappointing results in the American elections of November 5th.

I am currently in the USA, enjoying a visit there and staying with two of my kids. The news here tends towards the parochial (bibles in the state classrooms kind of stuff – yes, I’m in the Midwest) and, frankly, if it wasn’t for the Internet… I would still be thinking that the world is flat (along with many millions of co-believers).

Part of the future team enjoying burgers on Trump's aircraft

As far as Trump goes, we will only know how bad things are going to become once he is sworn in on January 20th, and I am sure it is going to be terrible – whether thanks to an alarmingly ancient president with signs of dementia, or through his choices of a new department to eradicate Federal overspending (with Elon Musk in charge), or an anti-vaxxer for Health Secretary, a Fox newscaster for Defence, or a pro-Russia politician for Intelligence. 

Then there's the forthcoming deportation of millions of undocumented immigrants using the military, under 'a National Emergency'. 

In Spain, Feijóo has been trying to pass the blame for the many deaths in the Valencia flooding on to other shoulders than those of the regional president Mazón (who was busy having a very long lunch with a journalist on the day of the DANA and wouldn’t be interrupted). The main targets being the Spanish weather agency (the AEMET) or the Minister for Ecological Transition Teresa Ribera, now (and since) confirmed in Brussels as the new vice-president of the European Commission. ‘Her appointment, as you know, has been achieved overcoming lies and manoeuvres, over which truth and evidence have finally triumphed," said Pedro Sánchez.

Feijóo’s opposition to her ascendency was considered – even in Europe – as an anti-patriotic manoeuvre in his endless and rather futile struggle to take Spain in some new direction. After all, the economy is doing well, and there is little suggestion that it would do better with someone else in the engine room.

Otherwise, we are left only with opportunities (as allowable with a necessary alliance with Vox).

Fresh hope for Feijóo comes from a businessman convicted of an enormous scam – buying and selling petrol using fictitious companies which were then closed before the IVA came due – who has now been allowed out of jail after claiming that he had been giving bribes to various senior PSOE members. Victor Aldama has so far failed to provide any proof of his disbursements.

Fresh public protests in Valencia against Mazón are scheduled for November 29th and 30th. For the organisers, ‘the Valencian Executive, with Carlos Mazón at the helm, has demonstrated a "serious inability and inefficiency" in managing any type of crisis. Thus, they have condemned the fact that, one month after the catastrophe, "the basic needs of the people affected are still not covered"’.

In other news, the Council of Ministers has approved a reform of the regulations of the Immigration Law that reduces deadlines and simplifies requirements for regularizing migrants living in Spain without papers, which could benefit some 300,000 people each year over the next three years.

The Literary Regent

 

The previous king of Spain, who abdicated in 2014 to give way to Felipe VI, is to publish his memoirs – evidently with the idea of presenting his side of the story. “I get the feeling”, he says, “that they are trying to rob me of my own history”. The book is being ghost-written by a French journalist and will be published early next year with the title: Reconciliación.

“My father always advised me not to write my memoirs. Kings do not confess, and even less so publicly”, says Juanca (his nickname in progressive circles).

It may not be such a good idea. One should always consider the reputation of The Firm.

A second story about Juan Carlos had also hit the news-stands last week: photos in a Dutch magazine of His Royal Highness in a clinch with a companion of the female persuasion called Bárbara Rey. (El Rey kissing La Rey). The relationship had been considered until now as an open secret.

The Bourbons (going back through the ages) have long enjoyed activities which have been quietly swept under the carpet: but Royalty is not as other people, and their peccadillos should be at best, unremembered. President Clinton might have got into hot water in his day for his extra-curricular activities (and we shake our heads, even though many of us have done the same, or worse), but our leaders, our shepherds, chosen as it were by God (or Franco maybe) must be kept to a higher standard.

Why, if it’s OK for His Nibs to cheat on his wife (and his subjects), then what about little me?

For this whole thing to work, the Royals must be revered by their subjects, since they are, and must be, an example to us all. One thinks of Elizabeth II or Spain’s Felipe VI and of course many others.

All said, it must be a strain – living such a virtuous life under the public eye at all times. One mistake or lapse in judgement, especially in these times of intrusive paparazzi, and one’s Royal reputation is in the dust.

Not that Juan Carlos didn’t have other reasons to upset the applecart – other lovers such as Corinne, other enthusiasms such as shooting elephants, and other vices including accepting bribes from foreign leaders. José Antonio Zarzalejos, former director of the ABC, once defined JC's behaviour with three words in the book about his son called ‘Felipe VI. Un rey en la adversidad’: greed, promiscuity and arrogance.

His fortune is estimated by Forbes as running to 2,000 million euros. He is leaving it all to his two daughters Elena and Cristina – Felipe wants nothing to do with it.

El Emerito moved to Abu Dhabi a few years back to keep himself out of the public eye, however he sometimes briefly returns to participate in regattas in Sanxenxo (Pontevedra).

His son ignores him on these occasions.

For the institution of Royalty to survive, it has to be without blemish. Now that may be hard to do; but there are only two answers to that, and Spain has been careful not to ask the public in any of its many official surveys, which they would prefer: a monarchy or a republic. It is strange to think that the obligation for a country to elect a system with a head of state is like throwing a coin to choose between pot luck and naked ambition.