Inconvenience for Both British Visitors and Residents

 The British involvement with Spain has certainly taken a dive since the Brexit debacle.

We could blame the Schengen rules, or the misleading propaganda leading up to the referendum, or maybe the British sense of entitlement – whichever it is, the result for many of us comes down to inconvenience, bother and frustration.

Tourists will sooner or later have to get a permit to visit Europe. They will of course still be coming for their hols, and it’s only seven euros (good for three years) each. We read that the scheduled 2024 introduction of ETIAS, a special travel authorization covering most of Europe, will now begin sometime in 2025, so next season’s summer stay is saved…

However, another formality called the EES Entry/exit scheme has now been agreed to start from October 6th next year, with the extra obligation to provide fingerprints and facial biometrics at the border (plus the implied aggravation). Big Brother will be watching.

Visitors who hope for longer stays, but don’t have either special visas or their residence papers, must face the 90/180 rule.

Those bothered by this will likely be the people who own a house here – which, in essence – they can’t fully use. Most of these unfortunates had bought their properties when they were still able to stay here as long as they wanted: that’s to say, pre-Brexit.

The 90/180 rule is frustrating for non-Schengen Area (particularly British) home-owners in Spain. The rule states that (non-EU) foreigners from outside the partnership may only remain anywhere in the borderless zone for ninety days in any 180 days stretch. In short, only European citizens from the 26 Schengen nations (22 within the EU plus Norway, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Iceland) can enter Spain or another member state freely.

It’s not just the Brits, Americans and any other foreigner who suffer with the Schengen rules: Spain loses out as well – on house-sales, business and job creation. Most legal foreigners, at least, spend here with money brought from outside: they buy – or have bought – houses, cars and goods. Those who work here, either in an air-conditioned office or behind a bar (or indeed those poor souls who are in the plastic farms of the South) are bringing wealth to at least someone, along with their taxes and social security paid.

Understandably, there is an active resistance to the 90/180 day problem. A Facebook page called 180 Days in Spain is worth a look. With enough lobbying, maybe things will change.  Indeed, late news from France appears to show that the rule is already being eased there - so keep up the pressure! Maybe we shall hear something positive at the FITUR international travel fair to be held in late January in Madrid.

Those of us who are second-class residents can stay as long as we like; but we are, of course, only resident in the one country – in our case, Spain. Move somewhere else for an extended visit (even if there’s no border control) and we face the same 90/180 issue. Thus – I might fancy moving from Spain to Portugal to live – but what if they catch me? Could I become persona non grata? Indeed I could.

The only thing that hasn’t changed is taking out Spanish nationality. It’s still as long and as tiresome a process as ever it was.

Podemos (no podemos)

 What a phenomenon Podemos has been! From nowhere to greatness and apparently back to nowhere in just ten years!

Founded by Pablo Iglesias – the university professor with the pony-tail and a Masters in both Arts and Humanities – together with some like-minded companions back in January 2014, the party won an astounding 71 seats in the 2015 general election. Later joining with Izquierda Unida and other far-left groups, Podemos soon became the particular target of far-right politicians, together with part of the Judiciary, the Church, the Establishment, and the majority of the Media. Whenever a reasonably plausible story could be fabricated against the party, it would receive major attention from all sides: both the concepts of fake-news (‘bulo’) and judicial manipulation (‘lawfare’) became mainstream instruments of attack thanks to the group.

Many of the early members of Podemos were to fall out with Iglesias – some starting their own parties and movements (it’s perhaps a common problem with the far-left) – and Iglesias’ popularity began to wane after he and his wife bought an expensive house in Galapagar – a smart area of Madrid. The perception being that long-haired lefties should live in a draughty garret somewhere in a working-class neighbourhood.

 Pablo Iglesias with his wife Irene Montero

Following the April 2019 elections, Podemos (67 deputies) failed to join the PSOE in a government, which meant fresh elections for November of that year, where a weakened Iglesias (now with 42 deputies) finally agreed to support Pedro Sánchez.

Iglesias himself left his post as vice-president in the Spanish government in March 2021 to run for the Madrid regional elections (May 2021) where Podemos fared badly. He left the party to work as a broadcaster, leaving things to his wife Irene Montero and the current party leader Ione Belarra. In the July 2023 elections, the party ran within the Sumar movement, polling just five deputies, and in early December they subsequently quit their affiliation with the left-wing alliance and moved – possibly as renegades (‘transfugas’) – to the non-aligned Grupo Mixto instead.

The third strike against the party came from the flawed ‘only yes means yes’ law of Irene Montero – Minister of Equality in the last government. Neither the PSOE nor Sumar wanted her to return as minister, and their offer to give a ministerial position to another Podemos member was rebuffed (the member in question, feeling humiliated by his own partners, promptly quit the group, as have several other leading Podemos members in the past week).

Podemos today, ten years after it bounded onto the political scene, appears to be close to the end of its time in the frontline of Spanish politics. An editorial in the left-wing elDiario.es says gloomily: ‘Live fast, die young, and leave a beautiful corpse’. As for Pedro Sánchez, he now has another minority group to appease during this political cycle.    

Advert Blue

Why do we dislike adverts so much in our daily encounter with the computer? 

It’s one thing, I suppose, to be bombarded with commercial messages when the service we use is free - like Facebook - but even there, the main product which that company - and don’t forget its grasping shareholders - lives from, is us chickens. 

 

We are the ones, we and our information, likes, dislikes, gender, age and location, which is sold to the companies who wish to better direct their products. The fact that a proportion of those advertisers (or ‘sponsors’) are attempting to sell us a dodgy product with ‘last few days’ discounts should warn us: but no - we fall for all these scams and traps. 

 

Right now, a targeted advert from some obscure company which probably started business a week ago arrives every tenth post or so, telling me of the virtues of some household product which can cure everything, please read on… It's just a form of clickbait, a bit like the one you see in downmarket newspaper headlines. If you turn to it, the new page will offer a wordy article about the hundred different uses for salt, for example, interspaced with endless adverts. Yes, the client company pays young Mark Z to place its advert, which is in turn, full of adverts.

 

What are the moderators really there for - to stop some delightful girl from Denver writing to me out of the blue proposing a relationship if I only send her five thousand dollars?

 

If we expect it with Facebook (or the other social media pages which I must admit I’ve not sampled), then what of the ordinary news-sites? As Elon Musk says - 'Fuck the advertisers'

 

Once again, if you don’t know what the product is, then it’s you. Which is why advertisers advertise.

This is particularly unarguable with a free newspaper. The blurb is just space that wasn’t sold by the sales-reps or the ad-manager. ‘We need some filler for page eight’ calls Layout from its bunker in the back. Then perhaps, there’ll be some advertorial (that’s to say, paid-for copy) on page nine. 

Adverts: so long as they aren’t too much of an irritation, then fine. But what about - and we return to the computer or the television screen - the pop-up advert that suddenly interrupts one’s reading?

 

Of course, the medium needs an income. There are staffers, writers, printers, photographers, distributors, lawyers, owners and shareholders to pay. But we have pay-walls, subscribers and a wealthy parent-company putting out its own angled-copy. So yes, advertisers too, but we don’t have to like them (sorry!).

As for the media-sites with pay-walls - do they expect us to get our news from a single source and shouldn't they be, in consequence, advert free? How many annual ransoms should one be paying to get the full range of reporting? Mostly, one can get around them anyway with a simple paywall-bypass.

 

Then we have the war between the useful ad-block extension (a practical tool for the consumer) and the ad-block blockers, increasingly used by the media. It’s a struggle which will never end.

 

And so we come to YouTube, which will drop an ad-bomb half-way through a spoken sentence. In the same spirit of disorder, Spanish TV - which I rarely watch - will think nothing of interrupting a film with adverts, which understandably irritates the viewer while the mood is irretrievably lost.

 

But what of subscription TV? How about when one has paid to be rid of those pesky plugs that  ruin our viewing? What have we learned here?  

 

Simply this: that advertisements, or commercial interruptions, are a nuisance and a pest. If you pay enough as a subscriber and a streamer, you might be relieved of them. 

 

At least in the novel I’m currently reading, which I got from the library, there aren’t any endorsements. 

And then there’s the cinema - at least no one would dare stop the film to promote a fruit-drop. 

 

Which brings us to this question - do we ignore the advertisers buzzing around like flies at the stables, or actively decide to avoid their products? 

 

It’s easy enough when it’s a BMW, but what about - and it’s coming up to Christmas - a certain fragrance pour l’homme, or maybe a message about the many uses for potato-peel?

 

One thing’s for sure - this article will never appear anywhere outside of my blog… 

The Investiture

 The debate and probable approval of Pedro Sanchez as president is upon us. I'm in the USA right now, but the wonders of the Internet put me as close to the action as if I were sitting in the public gallery of the parliamentary chamber. 

It's been a long road to get this far. The local and regional elections of last May were disappointing for the Government and consequently, national elections were called with what turned out to be ambiguous results. The PP won the most seats, but not enough - even with their far-right Vox allies - to take the house. The PP leader Feijoo tried in the two-day debate in late September, but fell short by a tiny margin. Now comes the chance for Pedro Sanchez (sorry, there are no accents on this keyboard). 

To get this far, Sanchez had to court a number of small parties - including the regionalist ones.  One of these is the Junts per Catalunya, with its erstwhile leader Carles Puigdemont living in exile in Belgium, fearful of capture and imprisonment (like some of his associates) after the illegal referendum for independence in 2017. Sanchez needed the Junts, and the price, now agreed, was an amnesty (it will affect around 400 people in all). Some consider this as a coup d'etat, but it is better to think of it as a solution to the Catalonian unrest, which has lasted over a number of years.

The PP (which could have avoided this if it considered the interests of the country over its own) called for massive protests across Spain during the ten days running up to the investiture. This naturally attracted the Vox and other unsavoury groups - sundry fascists, the Desokupa folk, Fake-news experts, the right-wing media, anti-abortionists and other religious nutters and, for some reason, the appalling American broadcaster Tucker Carlson (tipped in some circles as Trump's running mate). Then there are the Youtubers and other keyboard warriors working their nefarious magic from home. 

Outside the PSOE offices in Calle Ferraz in Madrid, the protests have been particularly colourful. Signs such as 'Sanchez: Spain isn't for Sale'. 

We should remember the number of public companies sold to private interests (or even vulture funds) by the PP in past times (such as Telefonica, Antena3, Repsol, Endesa, Aena, Gas Natural, Iberia...). Of course, as we see these protesters wrapped in their Spanish flags, or singing Cara al Sol, we are reminded that there's more to patriotism than just hating the Catalonians.

The point is, that the PSOE and its allies have the majority and are thus equipped to run the country.  Spain has been without a government since the elections this August. It's time this was resolved. Feijoo can't continue to call for fresh elections over and again until his alliance wins enough seats.  

Another Fine Mess

 Although Israel was officially born on 14th May 1948, Spain and Israel only signed diplomatic relations on the 17th January 1986. The forty-year lacuna might have been, in part, because Spain didn’t want to sour its relationship with Arab countries. Spain, however, still doesn’t recognise Palestine as a state, despite efforts from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, although it ‘enjoys excellent relations with the Palestinian National Authority’ – the Fatah agency in partial control of the region.

Today, and in contrast to most of the western world, the Spanish media could be described as being lukewarm towards its support of Israel in the current conflagration. The politics here are more concerned with trading blows between the left and the right than what might be Spain’s official position in the Middle East (which is, more or less, spreading criticism equally between Hamas and Netanyahu).  

Spain, having been largely under Moorish domination for seven hundred years, and being the closest point in Western Europe to North Africa, is more sensitive to the Arabs than – perhaps – to a regime which is located far away at the other end of the Mediterranean.

But here, we shall only talk of the Israel/Palestine struggle (for land) as it affects Spain.

Thus, the right wing must confront the left – if the Basque EH Bildu party asks for the release of the Spanish hostage Iván Illarramendi (he’s a Basque) held by Hamas, then naturally El Español will write that ETA used to hold hostages too.

Alberto Núñez Feijóo, says the official PP website, would have gone – as president of both Spain and the European Union – to both Israel and Palestine for talks, since as things stand today, “nobody expects or can rely upon Spanish participation’’ (Pedro Sánchez was in Egypt at the same time as Feijóo made his remarks – preaching for restraint at the ‘Cairo For Peace’ meeting held on Saturday. Furthermore, Sánchez also phoned Netanyahu on Sunday asking for an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza).

After the Podemos leader and acting Minister of Social Security Ione Belarra called for Spanish support of Palestine and for Pedro Sánchez to ‘condemn Israel’, Núñez Feijóo reacted by saying that Sánchez must instantly relieve her of her position but, alas, the socialist leader needs their approval (Podemos has five votes within the Sumar alliance) to make the looming investiture work.

Vox says it wants to cut all official Spanish aid to Palestine.

Sumar wants the Government to recognise the Palestinian state as soon as possible.

The situation would appear to be getting worse, while the terrible ongoing events in Ukraine are pushed to the inside pages.

…

How will things progress and will Pedro Sánchez be able to return to power in the upcoming debate and vote for the presidency?

With poor timing, I shall be taking a vacation for November – to stay with my son in far-off Oklahoma: where the talk is all of Trump, abortion and guns. I look forward to enjoying a Thanksgiving turkey and my seventieth birthday over there before returning home at the beginning of December.

Maybe by then, things will have settled down.  

Reasons for the Traffic Police to Fine You

 

The traffic czar and his mighty organisation at the DGT are unceasing in their efforts to make the roads safer. In 2022, the traffic police handed out 5,542,005 fines (El País here). 

Speeding is the main offence, or driving in the left lane on the motorway while not overtaking, or crossing a double white line or using the phone or parking where you shouldn't or going the wrong way down a one way street, or driving drunk or stoned. 

Or not having a spare pair of spectacles in the glove box...

But there are other, less known reasons to help readjust the size of one's wallet...

Thus, noise-radars are arriving on the roads to control our output, with fines of up to 280€ (Autopista here), while wearing the wrong kind of sunglasses can cost us 200€ (ECD here). 

A fine of 200€ may be issued to drivers leaving the shopping on the back seat (La Opinión here) and of course for entering a ZBE (low emission zone) with the wrong sort of car or sticker (Autofácil here). 

Running out of petrol is a no-no (OKDiario here) and ThinkSpain has a list of other ‘driver distractions’ here.  

The Protest and its Aftermath

 On Sunday, a large protest was held in the Barrio de Salamanca in Madrid led by Alberto Núñez Feijóo and joined by his two predecessors Mariano Rajoy and José María Aznar. How many people were there? Sixty thousand says the right-wing press; maybe 30,000 says the left-wing sites. This despite organising free buses from the provinces (plus a bocadillo), and assurances from the Madrid regional president Isabel Díaz Ayuso to expect a crowd of 200,000.

The subject (so dear to the PP) was nothing less than: ‘that there is no room for both first and second class citizens’. Feijóo stood in front of the crowd like Bruce Springsteen (says an article unkindly – he has trouble pronouncing the name of the singer). ‘I’ll defend the equality for all Spaniards’ (he’s referring to the Catalonian issue) ‘even if it costs me the presidency’ he told his supporters.

The demonstration was, in a sense, a giant group hug – plus a reminder of the common enemy and the hope for another election soon...

And maybe too – a message from the top, that Ayuso’s time is ‘not yet’.

From Barcelona, Pedro Sánchez had this to say about the event: “They are demonstrating against a socialist government, but I'm sorry to tell them, there is going to be one”.

While it was a Partido Popular protest, other fellow-travellers were welcome to join in, and one news-site at least found an entrepreneur selling Francoist items (flags, mugs and caps).

The protest was against the supposed deals that Pedro Sánchez would be making to gather enough votes to be returned as president later in October assuming that Feijóo were to lose the vote for an absolute majority on Wednesday.

Which he duly did (172 for – 178 against).

The numbers didn't change for the second 'simple majority vote' held on Friday. 

So that's that for Núñez Feijóo for the time being.

That recent Madrid protest was a bit disorganised, maybe a little pointless, but it reminded Spaniards across the country that Madrid for the conservatives is not only the capital city of Spain, but also the only city of Spain. There’s a comic map of SW Europe I saw somewhere that shows the borders but only features three names: Portugal, France and, er, Madrid. 

Maybe they should have a major re-think.  

The Humiliator

It’s certainly odd that the 23 players in the Women’s team, La Roja, that won the football World Cup in Sydney, beating the English Lionesses in the finals, shouldn’t be the protagonists of this story, but rather it’s the fellow who kissed the unwilling Jennifer Hermoso during the presentation of the gold trophy who has taken over the entire news networks, becoming inter alia the turd in the punch-bowl of women’s pride.

This week, even Donald Trump’s angry mug-shot was relegated to the inside pages.

We have found a balance in the classroom; a parity in politics; harmony in the workplace and even equality in the army; but the sports-ground remains the preserve of the alpha male: the Spanish macho.

The 2010 world champion Iker Casillas said, “We should have spent these five days talking about our girls! To be proud of winning a title we didn’t have in women’s football, but, no…”

The losing English team meanwhile put out a message on Saturday, describing the Real Federación Española de Fútbol as ‘a sexist and patriarchal organisation’. Luis Rubiales is a football chauvinist, but he’s certainly not alone.

With this humiliation doled out (once again) to half of the Spanish population. Rubiales and his mates show that parity and respect for women in sports is as far away as ever.

So, we shall leave him and his 700,000€ annual income (plus his 3,000€ monthly housing support from the RFEF) for now.

He doesn’t really need anything more to be said about him here.