It has been quite hot recently, which is an understatement. The maximum (and this article was written on Tuesday) has been 40.5C. This was in Sa Pobla on Sunday. Sa Pobla is typically one of the hottest of weather hotspots on the island, although it doesn't enjoy (if that's the right word) the honour of having registered the all-time record. Its neighbour Muro achieved this in July 1994: the highest official temperature ever in Mallorca was 44.2C. It was that hot that on the same day - 4 July - Lluc in the mountains sweltered with 42.6C.
We are of course regaled with tall tales of current temperatures having matched Muro's record or even surpassed it. Quite probably so, if the wrong measure - direct sunlight - is taken. There can seem to be almost a desire to claim such exceptionally high temperatures as some type of badge of honour. Look, it's 45C!
Be careful what you wish for, and all that. At least in Mallorca it has never got as hot as on the mainland. Unreliable measures suggest that 50C was registered in Seville in 1876 and 1881. The more reliable ones suggest that the highest was recorded last month: 47.3C in Montoro, Cordoba. In 1994, Murcia knocked out 47.2C.
The Aemet met office, bless it, issues its long-range forecasts for the summer and is always suitably vague. This summer's effort said that the heat would be normal, that there would be the odd heatwave and that there could be a certain instability from the middle of August. Never!? Who would ever have thought that? For the record, 15 August two years ago was that bad that the Can Picafort duck swim had to be cancelled. The rain wasn't the problem; the mad state of the sea was.
The question is - what is normal? Despite the mid-August hiccup in 2015, that was a very hot summer. So was 2016. It's possible that this one could eclipse all others, and the pattern since May has been very similar to the unbearable summer of 2003, which was so hot (and not just in Mallorca and Spain) that people were expiring. Prior to 2003, one can go back to the phenomenal heatwave of 1994 and also to 1983 to find examples of very hot summers.
Because there have been exceptional summers in the past - the ones of 1876 and 1881 must have been, even if the records were unreliable - are the summers now being experienced just one of those things that nature serves up? Perhaps they are. Or perhaps not.
Mallorca is lucky in that there aren't the kind of extreme conditions in parts of the mainland. Take the area around Cartagena, for instance. That's in Murcia, with its all-time high that may or may not still be a record. The summer of 2015 produced something of an agricultural disaster; for farmers with almond trees at any rate. Thousands of trees died off not because of pest but because of the excessive heat. The trees were in effect being roasted. They are now planting less and less in the countryside around Cartagena. And what does get planted has to contend with the extremes: Murcia was more badly affected by last winter's floods than Mallorca was.
The rain was welcome, but the lack of precipitation has been evident for some twenty years. The area is becoming increasingly like a desert.
According to researchers who have had their work published in the journal Science, within seventy years from now the current desert conditions in the south-eastern part of Spain will have spread greatly. The Iberian Peninsula will be divided into two along a line from Lisbon in Portugal to Alicante in Valencia. South of this divide will be desert.
We are of course used by now to all manner of predictions as to the consequence of climate change, e.g. rising sea levels, and are also used to those who have their heads in the sands in denial. In Murcia's interior, they needn't worry about drowning (not in summer anyway); on Murcia's coast and on the coasts of other parts of Mediterranean Spain, they should worry, if the sea rises as much as it is feared that it might.
Evidence for the advance of desert on the mainland seems irrefutable, and the national government is just one body that is stuck in the sand. There has been no update of the national action plan against desertification for ten years. It might take a while, but the seat of government may wish to reactivate this plan when it realises that temperatures in Madrid are on a par with what they are now in north Africa.
In Mallorca, there isn't such an extreme, but it is argued that the Mediterranean will warm up more than any other part of the globe because of climate change. Hot summers? Yes, and getting hotter.
Showing posts with label Spain. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spain. Show all posts
Thursday, August 03, 2017
Sunday, April 23, 2017
Spain Has No Defence Against Zombies
Buried beneath all the news about the travails of the Balearic tourism minister and of the British ambassador spreading joy of a citizens' rights variety, there was news that THEY clearly wish to keep quiet. I don't wish to alarm you unduly but the Spanish government has admitted that it doesn't have a plan to deal with an invasion of zombies.
While it might be said that there are politicians stalking populations who fall into the category of the living dead - Bauzá, for example - there is a far greater and far more dangerous threat, and Madrid is doing nothing about it. For us to have become aware of this gross negligence, we have to thank Carles Mulet of the Compromís party in Valencia. Carles, it needs saying, does not have a mullet. He sports a more shorn affair and can't himself really be described as resembling a zombie, while his party is alive with various greens, Republican leftists - that sort of thing.
It may be the case that Valencia is at greater risk of a zombie attack than other parts of Spain (I honestly wouldn't know), but whatever the level of danger is, Carles has raised the matter in the Senate. What plans are there for a zombie apocalypse, he wished to know in a written question. The government was caught on the hop. Nevertheless, once it managed to respond, dealing with an apocalypse (in a general sense) appears to be easier than tackling one that specifically involves zombies. Bodies (sic) ranging from the state security forces to the Civil Protection volunteers are capable of handling an apocalypse because the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy says so.
No, that's not strictly true. The dictionary doesn't state this as such - it's not the job of a dictionary to go into the detail of security matters - but it does have definitions. One of these, a "catastrophic situation", is, says the government, something which the security forces can tackle. The other definition is rather more tricky. "The end of the world", implying as it does the end, is not something that the government can plan for. There would, it concludes, be little time to plan for it. Which, let's face it, isn't terribly reassuring.
When it comes to the specific threat posed by a zombie apocalypse, the government has also consulted the dictionary. "People who are supposed to be dead and are revived by the art of witchcraft in order to dominate their will," is more or less how the dictionary defines zombies. Given this definition, the government has concluded that it doesn't believe that such an eventuality is likely. There is "doubtful probability of such a circumstance arising".
This may be designed to allay citizens' fears (citizens in Valencia at any rate), but the response is surely not good enough. And Carles, for one, most certainly isn't prepared to give the government the benefit of the doubt. In fact, he's indignant at the lack of preparedness. "The government has no plan of action for the zombie apocalypse. Its answer can be interpreted as meaning that the government itself is a zombie apocalypse, a human catastrophe brought about by stupefied and automaton people."
Are the PP therefore themselves zombies? Worrying.
Just to add, in case you think that Carles is off his tree, he was being ironic (as was the government in its replies). The zombie issue was raised because Carles doesn't think much of the government's ability to respond to questions.
While it might be said that there are politicians stalking populations who fall into the category of the living dead - Bauzá, for example - there is a far greater and far more dangerous threat, and Madrid is doing nothing about it. For us to have become aware of this gross negligence, we have to thank Carles Mulet of the Compromís party in Valencia. Carles, it needs saying, does not have a mullet. He sports a more shorn affair and can't himself really be described as resembling a zombie, while his party is alive with various greens, Republican leftists - that sort of thing.
It may be the case that Valencia is at greater risk of a zombie attack than other parts of Spain (I honestly wouldn't know), but whatever the level of danger is, Carles has raised the matter in the Senate. What plans are there for a zombie apocalypse, he wished to know in a written question. The government was caught on the hop. Nevertheless, once it managed to respond, dealing with an apocalypse (in a general sense) appears to be easier than tackling one that specifically involves zombies. Bodies (sic) ranging from the state security forces to the Civil Protection volunteers are capable of handling an apocalypse because the Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy says so.
No, that's not strictly true. The dictionary doesn't state this as such - it's not the job of a dictionary to go into the detail of security matters - but it does have definitions. One of these, a "catastrophic situation", is, says the government, something which the security forces can tackle. The other definition is rather more tricky. "The end of the world", implying as it does the end, is not something that the government can plan for. There would, it concludes, be little time to plan for it. Which, let's face it, isn't terribly reassuring.
When it comes to the specific threat posed by a zombie apocalypse, the government has also consulted the dictionary. "People who are supposed to be dead and are revived by the art of witchcraft in order to dominate their will," is more or less how the dictionary defines zombies. Given this definition, the government has concluded that it doesn't believe that such an eventuality is likely. There is "doubtful probability of such a circumstance arising".
This may be designed to allay citizens' fears (citizens in Valencia at any rate), but the response is surely not good enough. And Carles, for one, most certainly isn't prepared to give the government the benefit of the doubt. In fact, he's indignant at the lack of preparedness. "The government has no plan of action for the zombie apocalypse. Its answer can be interpreted as meaning that the government itself is a zombie apocalypse, a human catastrophe brought about by stupefied and automaton people."
Are the PP therefore themselves zombies? Worrying.
Just to add, in case you think that Carles is off his tree, he was being ironic (as was the government in its replies). The zombie issue was raised because Carles doesn't think much of the government's ability to respond to questions.
Thursday, March 30, 2017
Lessons In Free Speech
Our good friend Valtonyc keeps popping up. If he isn't quite your good friend and you need reminding of his existence, he is the Sa Pobla rapper Josep Miquel Arenas Beltran, who has found himself in hot water with the courts over what boils down to a question of freedom of expression.
Since being condemned, pending appeal, to three and a half years for, inter alia, wishing harm to the old king, appearing to support terrorism and wishing death on certain individuals, Valtonyc has been constantly to the fore. His latest appearance, in non-rapping style (one guesses), was at the secondary school in Santa Margalida.
There has apparently been a "wave" of reaction against his having "given lessons" to pupils at the school. These lessons weren't lessons as such. According to the school's director, he was invited to a first year class for communication and language. The pupils, it would seem, needed someone of some media standing with whom they could do an interview. As Valtonyc has a relative at the school, it was easy enough to get in touch with him and ask him along.
If it was necessary for there to have been someone with media prominence, then there must have been others who could have been invited. Take the current mayor of Santa Margalida, for example. Joan Monjo is rarely out of the media and was rarely out of it during all the years prior to his having become mayor. One feels sure he could have found a window in his busy schedule to answer questions about putting up chiringuitos on unspoiled beaches in the municipality. Or possibly about his desire to name a street after that old rogue of the municipality, Joan March.
If not the mayor, then maybe his predecessor (one removed) would have sufficed and have been more of the left, to boot. The pupils could have enquired whether Toni Reus of Més still wishes tourist tax revenue to be spent on old folks' homes (that was his idea).
Well, they could have asked either of them, but neither, let's face it, would have held as much appeal as a young rapper and one with a prison sentence hanging over his head. I'm guessing that Valtonyc didn't start whipping up anti-monarchist and pro-terrorist fervour during his "lesson", though one suspects that freedom of expression may well have cropped up as a theme for discussion. In the context of a class on communication and language, that seems a relevant topic.
Very much more unlikely than Monjo or Reus as alternatives would have been Ignacio Arsuaga. And who is he? The president of Hazte Oír, the right-wing organisation that has been driving an orange bus around (or attempting to) for the past few weeks. This bus, dubbed The Bus of Freedom or The Free Speech Bus, has been attacking what Arsuaga says are laws of sexual indoctrination that exist in certain regions of Spain. Basically, he and Hazte Oír are against gays and lesbians and in particular transsexuals.
The bus has been immobilised by police in both Madrid and Barcelona. Bizarrely enough, it has now turned up in New York, where it has been vandalised. The bus and Hazte Oír had gone along for an event organised by Family Watch International, a body founded in 1999 which opposes homosexuality amongst other things.
In a current climate of movement towards the right it might be said that Hazte Oír has found its moment, though I would question whether it has. Spain, unlike elsewhere in Europe, does not have a prominent rabid right. It is the left which has adopted the alt mantle, a quite different take on the populist political fallout from economic crisis and austerity which consumed Europe. Is this so surprising? I would suggest not. Despite the struggles of the conventional left, as in PSOE, socially liberal policies that it advanced under Zapatero have not been undermined. It took Spain a long time to adopt them and it doesn't seem inclined to let them go.
Within this context and general social climate, therefore, one has the support shown for Valtonyc, mainly by the left but not completely. It isn't total support for what he rapped but it is support for his right to have done so.
Is such support misguided? The courts would suggest that it is, hence the prison sentence. There are limits to what can be said. Freedom of expression does not give anyone carte blanche, especially when there are laws preventing this. As a general principle, I'm inclined to agree, pushed to such a conclusion by the apparent impunity which individuals (and organisations) feel they have to state and espouse whatever the hell they want to. The internet takes a great deal of blame for this. There are limits, whether views are of the far right or left.
In Santa Margalida, was a lesson in communication learned?
Since being condemned, pending appeal, to three and a half years for, inter alia, wishing harm to the old king, appearing to support terrorism and wishing death on certain individuals, Valtonyc has been constantly to the fore. His latest appearance, in non-rapping style (one guesses), was at the secondary school in Santa Margalida.
There has apparently been a "wave" of reaction against his having "given lessons" to pupils at the school. These lessons weren't lessons as such. According to the school's director, he was invited to a first year class for communication and language. The pupils, it would seem, needed someone of some media standing with whom they could do an interview. As Valtonyc has a relative at the school, it was easy enough to get in touch with him and ask him along.
If it was necessary for there to have been someone with media prominence, then there must have been others who could have been invited. Take the current mayor of Santa Margalida, for example. Joan Monjo is rarely out of the media and was rarely out of it during all the years prior to his having become mayor. One feels sure he could have found a window in his busy schedule to answer questions about putting up chiringuitos on unspoiled beaches in the municipality. Or possibly about his desire to name a street after that old rogue of the municipality, Joan March.
If not the mayor, then maybe his predecessor (one removed) would have sufficed and have been more of the left, to boot. The pupils could have enquired whether Toni Reus of Més still wishes tourist tax revenue to be spent on old folks' homes (that was his idea).
Well, they could have asked either of them, but neither, let's face it, would have held as much appeal as a young rapper and one with a prison sentence hanging over his head. I'm guessing that Valtonyc didn't start whipping up anti-monarchist and pro-terrorist fervour during his "lesson", though one suspects that freedom of expression may well have cropped up as a theme for discussion. In the context of a class on communication and language, that seems a relevant topic.
Very much more unlikely than Monjo or Reus as alternatives would have been Ignacio Arsuaga. And who is he? The president of Hazte Oír, the right-wing organisation that has been driving an orange bus around (or attempting to) for the past few weeks. This bus, dubbed The Bus of Freedom or The Free Speech Bus, has been attacking what Arsuaga says are laws of sexual indoctrination that exist in certain regions of Spain. Basically, he and Hazte Oír are against gays and lesbians and in particular transsexuals.
The bus has been immobilised by police in both Madrid and Barcelona. Bizarrely enough, it has now turned up in New York, where it has been vandalised. The bus and Hazte Oír had gone along for an event organised by Family Watch International, a body founded in 1999 which opposes homosexuality amongst other things.
In a current climate of movement towards the right it might be said that Hazte Oír has found its moment, though I would question whether it has. Spain, unlike elsewhere in Europe, does not have a prominent rabid right. It is the left which has adopted the alt mantle, a quite different take on the populist political fallout from economic crisis and austerity which consumed Europe. Is this so surprising? I would suggest not. Despite the struggles of the conventional left, as in PSOE, socially liberal policies that it advanced under Zapatero have not been undermined. It took Spain a long time to adopt them and it doesn't seem inclined to let them go.
Within this context and general social climate, therefore, one has the support shown for Valtonyc, mainly by the left but not completely. It isn't total support for what he rapped but it is support for his right to have done so.
Is such support misguided? The courts would suggest that it is, hence the prison sentence. There are limits to what can be said. Freedom of expression does not give anyone carte blanche, especially when there are laws preventing this. As a general principle, I'm inclined to agree, pushed to such a conclusion by the apparent impunity which individuals (and organisations) feel they have to state and espouse whatever the hell they want to. The internet takes a great deal of blame for this. There are limits, whether views are of the far right or left.
In Santa Margalida, was a lesson in communication learned?
Wednesday, March 01, 2017
Pulling A Fraudulent Holiday Sickie
Comedian Marcus Brigstocke used to do a routine about a particular segment of the daytime television-viewing public and the adverts designed to appeal to them. These were ads for loans for those who would otherwise not get them and claims for compensation, such as for holidays that go wrong. Or rather don't go wrong but are made to appear as if they do.
Brigstocke was biting. The people they get on these ads to sell you this stuff, he observed, "you've never seen more ropey-looking pikey fuckers in your life". It's a good case of empathetic diversity marketing. Brigstocke's, let's abbreviate them to PFs, were appealing to PFs watching the telly. And we all know the type of PF he had in mind: Benefits Street lowlife dragging their knuckles along the floor.
Let's make one thing very clear. These PFs represent only a small minority of those who go to giant, economy-class all-inclusives, but they exist in sufficient number to make the efforts of ambulance chasers, aka claims' farmers, worthwhile. And why is this type of all-inclusive targeted? Because a) there are huge numbers of tourists, b) a lot of them are British, and c) this type of PF doesn't stay anywhere else. In the process, further fuel is added to the prejudice directed at guests who simply don't merit it (because they're honest and decent). Moreover, folk who genuinely do have grounds for complaint and claims are tarred by the same brush.
The sufficient number is costing hotels in Mallorca, Benidorm, the Costa del Sol and Tenerife a small fortune. Exact figures seem elusive, as reports give different ones. According to Cehat, the national hoteliers confederation, the figure nationwide last year was fifty million euros. But now we are told that last year in Mallorca alone the figure was 50 million.
Someone is either exaggerating or underestimating. Let's just accept that the scam is costing hotels a hell of a lot of money, and it is a scam - a total scam. The PF holidaymaker can get his or her holiday paid for (plus more if lucky) simply by filling in a form, provided by the scamming claims' farmers, and offering the weakest of evidence (imodium bought from a chemist's shop). There isn't even a need to file the complaint while on holiday, such is the absurdity of UK law that permits claims to be made long afterwards and which places the burden of proof on the hotel/tour operator.
Where the claim is made via the tour operator, which it typically is, contractual arrangements allow the tour operator - rather than fight a case that might end up costing 50,000 pounds - to cough up and then subtract the compensation payment from a hotel's invoice. Hence, it is the hotels which always lose out.
As far as I am aware, there has as yet not been the type of ambulance - the Claims Clinic - parked up by Mallorcan all-inclusives as there has been in Tenerife. It may only be a matter of time, though, as in this year. Being in the midst of Alcudia all-inclusivana, I have observed what goes on, and have been given chapter and verse by tour operator reps as well. It's despicable, utterly despicable, as bad if not worse than the old scratch-card, time-share try-on and miles, miles worse than anything the lookies get up to.
There is a further major reason why all-inclusives (of a certain type) are targeted. That's because there is a vastly reduced likelihood that PFs who make claims will have eaten anything outside the hotel. Therefore, m'lud, I respectfully submit that the all-inclusive has to be responsible. Quite right, Mr. Claims Farmer, here's a three grand award for your client. From which a commission is taken.
Hoteliers, tour operators are seeking to fight back, informing prospective fraudsters that a false claim is a criminal offence in Spain. And so it is in the UK. Yet, UK courts seem duty bound to accept these frauds without smelling a rat. They will have been presented, as are tour operator reps here, with the same evidence time and time again. The same form, the same imodium.
In what other ways are they fighting back? Jet2 has its gastroenteritis questionnaire, which may well deter PFs who are too stupid to be able to fill it out. Another way is to stop doing business with the British. This may be an extreme solution, it may well not be possible, but it most certainly is being considered.
Mallorca's hoteliers know full well the businesses behind the scams. They also know about the enticements on social media. The only ones who don't seem to know are the UK's legal authorities. It's high time that they accepted their responsibilities for having permitted fraud on a grand scale and for eliminating the pikey fuckers.
Brigstocke was biting. The people they get on these ads to sell you this stuff, he observed, "you've never seen more ropey-looking pikey fuckers in your life". It's a good case of empathetic diversity marketing. Brigstocke's, let's abbreviate them to PFs, were appealing to PFs watching the telly. And we all know the type of PF he had in mind: Benefits Street lowlife dragging their knuckles along the floor.
Let's make one thing very clear. These PFs represent only a small minority of those who go to giant, economy-class all-inclusives, but they exist in sufficient number to make the efforts of ambulance chasers, aka claims' farmers, worthwhile. And why is this type of all-inclusive targeted? Because a) there are huge numbers of tourists, b) a lot of them are British, and c) this type of PF doesn't stay anywhere else. In the process, further fuel is added to the prejudice directed at guests who simply don't merit it (because they're honest and decent). Moreover, folk who genuinely do have grounds for complaint and claims are tarred by the same brush.
The sufficient number is costing hotels in Mallorca, Benidorm, the Costa del Sol and Tenerife a small fortune. Exact figures seem elusive, as reports give different ones. According to Cehat, the national hoteliers confederation, the figure nationwide last year was fifty million euros. But now we are told that last year in Mallorca alone the figure was 50 million.
Someone is either exaggerating or underestimating. Let's just accept that the scam is costing hotels a hell of a lot of money, and it is a scam - a total scam. The PF holidaymaker can get his or her holiday paid for (plus more if lucky) simply by filling in a form, provided by the scamming claims' farmers, and offering the weakest of evidence (imodium bought from a chemist's shop). There isn't even a need to file the complaint while on holiday, such is the absurdity of UK law that permits claims to be made long afterwards and which places the burden of proof on the hotel/tour operator.
Where the claim is made via the tour operator, which it typically is, contractual arrangements allow the tour operator - rather than fight a case that might end up costing 50,000 pounds - to cough up and then subtract the compensation payment from a hotel's invoice. Hence, it is the hotels which always lose out.
As far as I am aware, there has as yet not been the type of ambulance - the Claims Clinic - parked up by Mallorcan all-inclusives as there has been in Tenerife. It may only be a matter of time, though, as in this year. Being in the midst of Alcudia all-inclusivana, I have observed what goes on, and have been given chapter and verse by tour operator reps as well. It's despicable, utterly despicable, as bad if not worse than the old scratch-card, time-share try-on and miles, miles worse than anything the lookies get up to.
There is a further major reason why all-inclusives (of a certain type) are targeted. That's because there is a vastly reduced likelihood that PFs who make claims will have eaten anything outside the hotel. Therefore, m'lud, I respectfully submit that the all-inclusive has to be responsible. Quite right, Mr. Claims Farmer, here's a three grand award for your client. From which a commission is taken.
Hoteliers, tour operators are seeking to fight back, informing prospective fraudsters that a false claim is a criminal offence in Spain. And so it is in the UK. Yet, UK courts seem duty bound to accept these frauds without smelling a rat. They will have been presented, as are tour operator reps here, with the same evidence time and time again. The same form, the same imodium.
In what other ways are they fighting back? Jet2 has its gastroenteritis questionnaire, which may well deter PFs who are too stupid to be able to fill it out. Another way is to stop doing business with the British. This may be an extreme solution, it may well not be possible, but it most certainly is being considered.
Mallorca's hoteliers know full well the businesses behind the scams. They also know about the enticements on social media. The only ones who don't seem to know are the UK's legal authorities. It's high time that they accepted their responsibilities for having permitted fraud on a grand scale and for eliminating the pikey fuckers.
Wednesday, December 28, 2016
Giving And Taking Offence: Moments Of 2016
With there having been as much politics as there has been this year - failed election, failed investitures and so on - there was ample opportunity for the insults to fly. But the best was left until the end. With Mariano Rajoy on the point of being anointed, the Catalonia Republican Left's Gabriel Rufián decided to lay into PSOE, with whom he was less than impressed for facilitating the investiture. Traitors to socialism, he declared. Are they not ashamed to bow to the designs of a cacique that governs an autonomous community (he was referring to Andalusia)? A raw nerve was touched. PSOE were in uproar, their anger with Rufián matched only by that of Podemos, who walked out en masse when the Partido Popular's Rafael Hernando referred to four million dollars of Venezuelan party funding.
By the end of October, when these pleasantries were being exchanged, Congress had become used to the new realities of its make-up. Podemos strode in for the first time, and there were baffled looks on the faces of members of the PP as the Tenerife deputy, Alberto Rodríguez, was presented. Alberto sports full-on dreadlocks in a bun and a permanently angry expression. The (PP) vice-president of Congress, Celia Villalobos, offered her views. She didn't mind there being rastas in Congress so long as they were clean and didn't have lice. Alberto grew angrier still.
The PP were to be the target of one Carlos Pons Camps. A member of Esquerra de Menorca (Menorca Left), he had stood as a candidate at the December general election (coming absolutely nowhere). Four months later, he was still smarting. In fact, he was bloody furious, so much so that he took to social media and proposed the extermination of every single PP voter: roughly ten million people across Spain. He later apologised.
Someone else who was forced to say sorry was Victor Fernández of Podemos in Alicante. Following the death of the Valencia "boss", the PP's Rita Barberá, he tweeted that she should be burned in order to keep a family without resources warm for a week. Even Podemos condemned his "deplorable behaviour". It had been black humour, he explained, but he promised not to do it again.
Twitter was the favoured medium of Loreto Amoros. She was to find herself as a candidate for the Senate with a suddenly and newly formed party, Sobirania per a les Illes (which just as suddenly un-formed itself). Suffice it to say that she didn't get elected, which didn't owe anything to her tweeting output. A 45-year-old mother of four, this hadn't prevented Loreto bombarding followers with her views on sex - "the week goes really slowly without fucking" - and on the Archbishop of Toledo, who merited a bullet in the back of the neck. To be fair to her, the archbishop had suggested that gender violence was linked to the fact that women asked for a divorce.
The archbishop would doubtless have disapproved of a video created by a 17-year-old Palma schoolboy which featured, inter alia, references to sex acts involving Jesus and the Virgin Mary. Various moral custodians (including the PP) were up in arms, citing religious hatred and law regarding the corruption of minors and pornography.
Some time later, and unrelated to this video, the general secretary of PSOE in the Balearics, Silvia Cano, was questioning the continuing live transmission of Sunday mass from Palma Cathedral by the public broadcaster, IB3. "Pornography," suggested Silvia, "also has its public". Silvia hadn't in fact been proposing that IB3 start filling its schedules with porn; she'd merely been drawing a comparison. But the very mention of porn had the custodians reaching for the nearest online petition in demanding that she retract her comments. She didn't.
Around the same time as there was the fuss over the schoolboy blasphemy video, the Manacor local magazine "Perlas y Cuevas" found itself - or rather its editor found himself - being blasted by feminist caceroladas (the beating of saucepans). This was because of its Sant Antoni special in January, which featured Aline, a Russian blonde and a topless one at that, in erotic poses with the Grand Demon. The editor, Antoni Ferrer, defended the photos by saying that they were professional and had not been designed to stir up controversy. Not everyone agreed with him.
Religion came to the defence of a defence lawyer. Manuel González Peeters, the lawyer for Diego Torres at the Nóos trial in Palma, branded former justice minister, Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, an idiot when he appeared as a witness. González Peeters defended his use of idiot by arguing that, in the Bible, Luke had used idiot to mean someone who doesn't listen and that many popes have used the same word for the same reason.
Idiots or not, plenty of people had been listening to this and to the other insults uttered and offences given and taken in 2016.
By the end of October, when these pleasantries were being exchanged, Congress had become used to the new realities of its make-up. Podemos strode in for the first time, and there were baffled looks on the faces of members of the PP as the Tenerife deputy, Alberto Rodríguez, was presented. Alberto sports full-on dreadlocks in a bun and a permanently angry expression. The (PP) vice-president of Congress, Celia Villalobos, offered her views. She didn't mind there being rastas in Congress so long as they were clean and didn't have lice. Alberto grew angrier still.
The PP were to be the target of one Carlos Pons Camps. A member of Esquerra de Menorca (Menorca Left), he had stood as a candidate at the December general election (coming absolutely nowhere). Four months later, he was still smarting. In fact, he was bloody furious, so much so that he took to social media and proposed the extermination of every single PP voter: roughly ten million people across Spain. He later apologised.
Someone else who was forced to say sorry was Victor Fernández of Podemos in Alicante. Following the death of the Valencia "boss", the PP's Rita Barberá, he tweeted that she should be burned in order to keep a family without resources warm for a week. Even Podemos condemned his "deplorable behaviour". It had been black humour, he explained, but he promised not to do it again.
Twitter was the favoured medium of Loreto Amoros. She was to find herself as a candidate for the Senate with a suddenly and newly formed party, Sobirania per a les Illes (which just as suddenly un-formed itself). Suffice it to say that she didn't get elected, which didn't owe anything to her tweeting output. A 45-year-old mother of four, this hadn't prevented Loreto bombarding followers with her views on sex - "the week goes really slowly without fucking" - and on the Archbishop of Toledo, who merited a bullet in the back of the neck. To be fair to her, the archbishop had suggested that gender violence was linked to the fact that women asked for a divorce.
The archbishop would doubtless have disapproved of a video created by a 17-year-old Palma schoolboy which featured, inter alia, references to sex acts involving Jesus and the Virgin Mary. Various moral custodians (including the PP) were up in arms, citing religious hatred and law regarding the corruption of minors and pornography.
Some time later, and unrelated to this video, the general secretary of PSOE in the Balearics, Silvia Cano, was questioning the continuing live transmission of Sunday mass from Palma Cathedral by the public broadcaster, IB3. "Pornography," suggested Silvia, "also has its public". Silvia hadn't in fact been proposing that IB3 start filling its schedules with porn; she'd merely been drawing a comparison. But the very mention of porn had the custodians reaching for the nearest online petition in demanding that she retract her comments. She didn't.
Around the same time as there was the fuss over the schoolboy blasphemy video, the Manacor local magazine "Perlas y Cuevas" found itself - or rather its editor found himself - being blasted by feminist caceroladas (the beating of saucepans). This was because of its Sant Antoni special in January, which featured Aline, a Russian blonde and a topless one at that, in erotic poses with the Grand Demon. The editor, Antoni Ferrer, defended the photos by saying that they were professional and had not been designed to stir up controversy. Not everyone agreed with him.
Religion came to the defence of a defence lawyer. Manuel González Peeters, the lawyer for Diego Torres at the Nóos trial in Palma, branded former justice minister, Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, an idiot when he appeared as a witness. González Peeters defended his use of idiot by arguing that, in the Bible, Luke had used idiot to mean someone who doesn't listen and that many popes have used the same word for the same reason.
Idiots or not, plenty of people had been listening to this and to the other insults uttered and offences given and taken in 2016.
Tuesday, December 06, 2016
Reforming Spain's Constitution?
How many of you are aware that the Spanish constitution makes possible, albeit hypothetically, the merger of two of Spain's regions - the Basque Country and Navarre? While radical elements long for such a union, the likelihood of it ever happening is all but zero. But the fact that the theoretical possibility even exists reflects historical anomalies that can creep into constitutions. In Germany there is one such. Bavaria, hypothetically, could declare itself independent.
These examples reveal that constitutions, generally considered to be inviolate, contain aspects that may or do require reform. As a form of pact between state and citizen, a constitution shouldn't necessarily remain set in stone. Circumstances do, after all, change, and where Spain is concerned, the constitution has been subject to more or less constant amendment over some two hundred years.
During the nineteenth century, there were various attempts at revision. The first actual constitution was that of 1812, a manifesto of liberalism that was doomed to failure but which was to be a fundamental factor in that century's development. Ferdinand VII revoked it and thus ushered in the clashes between liberals (joined later by republicans) on one side and the conservative monarchists on the other. Both parties were rife with their own intrigues and differences. From the conservatives came Carlism, a Catholic fundamentalism which fostered civil wars. The upheavals through the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century bred what was to become Francoism. The 1812 constitution, it might be said, had been the unwitting launch pad for a dictatorship which naturally abandoned the constitution of the Second Republic.
The current constitution, dating from 1978, has been amended twice. Both the amendments were responses to influences outside Spain's borders. In 1992, European citizens in Spain were allowed to vote in and stand for municipal elections. There was little or no disagreement with this. Five years ago, there was dissent. Budgetary stability, demanded by Brussels, became a constitutional mandate. It was seen as a stitch-up between the two main political parties - the Partido Popular and PSOE. Austerity was in effect enshrined into the constitution. This very act was as influential as any other in bringing about the rise of Podemos, whose targets included austerity and what was perceived as the corrupt, cosy co-existence of the casta parties - the PP and PSOE.
Mariano Rajoy faced calls for constitutional reforms during his first period in office, all of which he ignored. Then, prior to the first election last December, he surprised many by announcing that he was open to reform. Getting rid of the Basque Country-Navarre hypothesis was one item on the agenda, a seemingly obscure one but also important. Rajoy inferred that territorial issues would be considered. If that had been intended as a sort of sop to Catalonia, then it had no effect.
Rajoy's shaky hold on government gives this Constitution Day greater relevance than others over the past almost forty years. The Catalonia question and the legality of a referendum dominate the debate in which Podemos (and its friends) support the principle of separatism if a majority wishes it, while the PP and Ciudadanos want no truck with the idea. PSOE, its powers lessened, has an idea for a federal model, one that it has never satisfactorily elucidated. This, at least, was what Pedro Sánchez had been advocating.
There are other demands for reform. Juan Pedro Yllanes, the judge who now sits in Congress on behalf of Podemos in the Balearics, is one to call for a truly independent judiciary. In principle it is independent, but as an example of how it is deemed not to be, Rights International Spain last year referred the judicial system to the United Nations special rapporteur on independence; government meddling was the reason for doing so. Lurking in the wings is the monarchy and a referendum on that. Podemos's charter makes clear the party's demands for referendums on various constitutional matters, but then Podemos isn't in government.
A year ago, Rajoy said that a request from union leaders for Congress to debate constitutional reform was both sensible and necessary. How true he might now be to his words will be put to the test. He says he's open to more talks with Catalonia but not on independence. What the "territorial issues" might therefore be is anyone's guess; so are any other potential reforms.
In the Balearics the main call for reform is for the Sánchez federal model. Francina Armengol has referred to this many times, but her overriding concern is financing, something which doesn't require constitutional change. Rajoy knows that there is pressure for financial reform for the regions. He may feel that that this is a step worth taking in easing pressure to alter the constitution. He is, obviously, a conservative, for whom constitutional reform would be largely anathema, much as he might have said that a debate is necessary.
These examples reveal that constitutions, generally considered to be inviolate, contain aspects that may or do require reform. As a form of pact between state and citizen, a constitution shouldn't necessarily remain set in stone. Circumstances do, after all, change, and where Spain is concerned, the constitution has been subject to more or less constant amendment over some two hundred years.
During the nineteenth century, there were various attempts at revision. The first actual constitution was that of 1812, a manifesto of liberalism that was doomed to failure but which was to be a fundamental factor in that century's development. Ferdinand VII revoked it and thus ushered in the clashes between liberals (joined later by republicans) on one side and the conservative monarchists on the other. Both parties were rife with their own intrigues and differences. From the conservatives came Carlism, a Catholic fundamentalism which fostered civil wars. The upheavals through the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century bred what was to become Francoism. The 1812 constitution, it might be said, had been the unwitting launch pad for a dictatorship which naturally abandoned the constitution of the Second Republic.
The current constitution, dating from 1978, has been amended twice. Both the amendments were responses to influences outside Spain's borders. In 1992, European citizens in Spain were allowed to vote in and stand for municipal elections. There was little or no disagreement with this. Five years ago, there was dissent. Budgetary stability, demanded by Brussels, became a constitutional mandate. It was seen as a stitch-up between the two main political parties - the Partido Popular and PSOE. Austerity was in effect enshrined into the constitution. This very act was as influential as any other in bringing about the rise of Podemos, whose targets included austerity and what was perceived as the corrupt, cosy co-existence of the casta parties - the PP and PSOE.
Mariano Rajoy faced calls for constitutional reforms during his first period in office, all of which he ignored. Then, prior to the first election last December, he surprised many by announcing that he was open to reform. Getting rid of the Basque Country-Navarre hypothesis was one item on the agenda, a seemingly obscure one but also important. Rajoy inferred that territorial issues would be considered. If that had been intended as a sort of sop to Catalonia, then it had no effect.
Rajoy's shaky hold on government gives this Constitution Day greater relevance than others over the past almost forty years. The Catalonia question and the legality of a referendum dominate the debate in which Podemos (and its friends) support the principle of separatism if a majority wishes it, while the PP and Ciudadanos want no truck with the idea. PSOE, its powers lessened, has an idea for a federal model, one that it has never satisfactorily elucidated. This, at least, was what Pedro Sánchez had been advocating.
There are other demands for reform. Juan Pedro Yllanes, the judge who now sits in Congress on behalf of Podemos in the Balearics, is one to call for a truly independent judiciary. In principle it is independent, but as an example of how it is deemed not to be, Rights International Spain last year referred the judicial system to the United Nations special rapporteur on independence; government meddling was the reason for doing so. Lurking in the wings is the monarchy and a referendum on that. Podemos's charter makes clear the party's demands for referendums on various constitutional matters, but then Podemos isn't in government.
A year ago, Rajoy said that a request from union leaders for Congress to debate constitutional reform was both sensible and necessary. How true he might now be to his words will be put to the test. He says he's open to more talks with Catalonia but not on independence. What the "territorial issues" might therefore be is anyone's guess; so are any other potential reforms.
In the Balearics the main call for reform is for the Sánchez federal model. Francina Armengol has referred to this many times, but her overriding concern is financing, something which doesn't require constitutional change. Rajoy knows that there is pressure for financial reform for the regions. He may feel that that this is a step worth taking in easing pressure to alter the constitution. He is, obviously, a conservative, for whom constitutional reform would be largely anathema, much as he might have said that a debate is necessary.
Friday, December 02, 2016
Reaching The Shopping Summit
They were holding a summit in Madrid earlier this week. This wasn't a summit for, say, climate change, nuclear disarmament or how to solve a problem like Brexit. It was for something far more important (some might believe) - shopping. Yes, shopping is that important that it merits a summit. Not a mere conference, seminar or a forum, but a summit. What happens now? Will the UN pass a resolution?
The Summit Shopping Tourism & Economy (Madrid 2016) is an awfully pompous and self-important title for the pleasures (or otherwise) of traipsing around the streets of major cities and handing over vast amounts of cash in exchange for ... . Ah, there you have it. That's why a summit is required. Cash. Lots of it. Now let's make more.
The importance of the occasion was such that the government's second-in-command, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, was there. As was China's ambassador to Spain, Lyu Fan. Among other notables were the secretary-of-state for tourism (Spain's that is), the director-general of Turespaña, the president of the World Travel & Tourism Council, the president of the United States Chamber of Commerce in Spain, and Spain's former ambassador to Saudi Arabia.
In addition, there were heads of tourism from Madrid (region and city) and from Barcelona. How many do you reckon where there from Palma or the Balearics? Correct. None. Oh, there may have been the odd one or two in the audience, assuming the town hall in Palma had been willing to fork out the 390 euros (IVA included) to attend, but as for speakers, official institutional and corporate representatives, the number was zilch.
China's ambassador wasn't there to extol the virtues of the local Chinese store (or several local Chinese stores). He took part because the summit was very keen to learn how to extract ever greater benefit from Chinese tourists. Spain currently only gets around 400,000 a year - a mere 5% of non-EU visitors, but a 5% which represents 35% of non-EU visitor spending. Likewise, you can appreciate why a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia might have been invited.
The Chinese tourist offers great fortunes, but the summit was at pains to stress that this shouldn't be the only market targeted. There needs to be greater global segmentation. In other words, we don't care where you come from so long as you are loaded and willing to part with all your cash in a city's main shopping centre. Like, for example, in Palma around the Born and Jaume III.
If only this were the case. A reason why no one from Palma was on the official list is that no Chinese tourists come to Palma (or very few anyway). The same can be said for tourists from other nations with credit cards to burn, except for those comparatively rare European beasts who are capable of meeting prices in a shopping zone with some of the highest rents not just in Spain but anywhere. Alas for Palma and for its ambitions to become Spain's or the Mediterranean's Shopping Central, there aren't direct flights from Asia and the Middle East, so - as with elsewhere in Mallorca - it has to get by with impoverished market suppliers like Great Britain, whose tourists' contribution to the retail economy generally amounts to no more than the purchase of several hundred Embassy, a dozen types of mosquito treatment and an inflatable crocodile for the beach.
But it isn't only the Britons who are cheapskates. Spain as a whole accounts for around 20% of all overnight stays in Europe but only has 4% of the European shopping tourism market. That's mainly because out of the 68 million tourists who come to Spain, 60 million of them are from the European Union. Those from outside the EU spend as much in a day as Europeans do in a week, and if the non-EU market were to be expanded by 25%, then spending on shopping would leap from a current 4,100 million to 8,900 million euros.
It was these 4,800 million additional euros (plus ever more) that the summit was so interested in and therefore why it was deemed to be important enough to be dubbed a summit. Essentially, though, it was a summit for Madrid and Barcelona. Vague references may have been made to "other cities" - and one could mention the likes of, for example, San Sebastian, Malaga, Valencia, plus Palma - but until such time that there are adequate flights, the summit's attention will remain focused on Madrid and Barcelona.
Perhaps, though, Palma can hope for a whole new line of cruises for Chinese tourists. One dreads to think what the reaction would be to that. Hordes of Chinese cluttering up the city then legging it back to ships with the entire contents of El Corte Inglés. Someone would have to learn how to do graffiti in Chinese.
The Summit Shopping Tourism & Economy (Madrid 2016) is an awfully pompous and self-important title for the pleasures (or otherwise) of traipsing around the streets of major cities and handing over vast amounts of cash in exchange for ... . Ah, there you have it. That's why a summit is required. Cash. Lots of it. Now let's make more.
The importance of the occasion was such that the government's second-in-command, Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría, was there. As was China's ambassador to Spain, Lyu Fan. Among other notables were the secretary-of-state for tourism (Spain's that is), the director-general of Turespaña, the president of the World Travel & Tourism Council, the president of the United States Chamber of Commerce in Spain, and Spain's former ambassador to Saudi Arabia.
In addition, there were heads of tourism from Madrid (region and city) and from Barcelona. How many do you reckon where there from Palma or the Balearics? Correct. None. Oh, there may have been the odd one or two in the audience, assuming the town hall in Palma had been willing to fork out the 390 euros (IVA included) to attend, but as for speakers, official institutional and corporate representatives, the number was zilch.
China's ambassador wasn't there to extol the virtues of the local Chinese store (or several local Chinese stores). He took part because the summit was very keen to learn how to extract ever greater benefit from Chinese tourists. Spain currently only gets around 400,000 a year - a mere 5% of non-EU visitors, but a 5% which represents 35% of non-EU visitor spending. Likewise, you can appreciate why a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia might have been invited.
The Chinese tourist offers great fortunes, but the summit was at pains to stress that this shouldn't be the only market targeted. There needs to be greater global segmentation. In other words, we don't care where you come from so long as you are loaded and willing to part with all your cash in a city's main shopping centre. Like, for example, in Palma around the Born and Jaume III.
If only this were the case. A reason why no one from Palma was on the official list is that no Chinese tourists come to Palma (or very few anyway). The same can be said for tourists from other nations with credit cards to burn, except for those comparatively rare European beasts who are capable of meeting prices in a shopping zone with some of the highest rents not just in Spain but anywhere. Alas for Palma and for its ambitions to become Spain's or the Mediterranean's Shopping Central, there aren't direct flights from Asia and the Middle East, so - as with elsewhere in Mallorca - it has to get by with impoverished market suppliers like Great Britain, whose tourists' contribution to the retail economy generally amounts to no more than the purchase of several hundred Embassy, a dozen types of mosquito treatment and an inflatable crocodile for the beach.
But it isn't only the Britons who are cheapskates. Spain as a whole accounts for around 20% of all overnight stays in Europe but only has 4% of the European shopping tourism market. That's mainly because out of the 68 million tourists who come to Spain, 60 million of them are from the European Union. Those from outside the EU spend as much in a day as Europeans do in a week, and if the non-EU market were to be expanded by 25%, then spending on shopping would leap from a current 4,100 million to 8,900 million euros.
It was these 4,800 million additional euros (plus ever more) that the summit was so interested in and therefore why it was deemed to be important enough to be dubbed a summit. Essentially, though, it was a summit for Madrid and Barcelona. Vague references may have been made to "other cities" - and one could mention the likes of, for example, San Sebastian, Malaga, Valencia, plus Palma - but until such time that there are adequate flights, the summit's attention will remain focused on Madrid and Barcelona.
Perhaps, though, Palma can hope for a whole new line of cruises for Chinese tourists. One dreads to think what the reaction would be to that. Hordes of Chinese cluttering up the city then legging it back to ships with the entire contents of El Corte Inglés. Someone would have to learn how to do graffiti in Chinese.
Thursday, December 01, 2016
Keep Taking Us To Havana
It may be that someone did actually say "take me to Havana" in the days when airplane hijacks suddenly became popular and the Cuban capital was on the list of favoured destinations for the asylum-seeker. Closed off, to US airlines at any rate, the island nation had acquired a certain mystic, courtesy of Fidel Castro.
In the 1960s, when various individuals supposedly started to wander into cockpits in order to request a detour, Spain remained committed to the 1953 agreement with the US (and Vatican) by which the Franco regime was to legitimise itself in the view of a doubting international community. A pro-American policy wasn't, however, to prevent the regime from establishing a relationship with Castro, and this owed much to the coincidence of 1959: Castro staged his revolution, while Spain adopted the Stabilisation Plan which was to underpin the country's economic revolution.
Prior to the rise of Castro, Franco had been seeking to exert Spanish influence throughout the one-time empire of Central and South America. This was via a combination of the concept of "Hispanidad" and the stifling Catholicism that had characterised the Franco regime from the time of the Civil War. The clash of ideologies that Castro's revolution represented might well have shattered relations with Spain, with the threat to these relations initially equal on both sides. Cuba expelled the Spanish ambassador in 1960 for having interrupted Castro while he was criticising Spain. The regime, for its part, was under pressure from external forces (especially the Americans) and because of dissenting voices internally.
But through the 1960s a realpolitik emerged that was based far less (if at all) on the previous nationalist-religious philosophy and very much more on economic necessity. The dogmas of the Falange were discarded in favour of the technocracy of Opus Dei. The pragmatic technocrats, so important in having guided Spain to a more stable economic future courtesy of, for example tourism, viewed Cuba purely in economic terms. Trade with Cuba, rather than lessening, increased during the 1960s, and by the 1970s there was pretty much full-scale economic cooperation.
For the regime, Cuba held special significance. This had been one of Spain's most important colonies in the nineteenth century. The economic relationship was such that Mallorcans were among those who grew rich through trading with the island (and also Puerto Rico). When Cuba was lost during the humiliations suffered at the hands of the Americans at the end of the nineteenth century, national (and military) pride was shattered. Franco had sought to restore this. Despite what the Americans felt about Castro, events of 1898 still influenced thinking.
The ties with Cuba, strengthened by the PSOE government of Felipe González, were such that in 1990 the old relationship with Mallorca's entrepreneurs was truly revived. In that year, the Sol Palmeras hotel was opened. The following year, Castro attended the opening of the Meliá Varadero hotel, just as he had been at the inauguration of the Sol Palmeras.
The way had been opened up by a businessman from the Canaries, Enrique Martinón, who was the first to really sense the tourist possibilities in Cuba. Sol Meliá, as was, entered into a 50-50 joint venture with the Cuban state corporation. Mallorca's hoteliers were thus beginning a lucrative association with Cuba, the main problem to which was to be the 1996 Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (Libertad) Act, otherwise known as the Helms-Burton Act, under which foreign companies could be sued for "trafficking" land confiscated from Americans after the Castro revolution. At least one hotel, Las Americas, was on land that had belonged to the Dupont family.
The Helms-Burton Act was met with a unified response of opposition by the European Union, but in the same year that it was passed, José María Aznar of the Partido Popular came to power. He adopted a much tougher attitude towards Cuba, and the EU accepted a "common position" - proposed by Madrid - to pursue democratic reforms in Cuba. This political move pleased the American government, but it was also a means - so it seemed - for a deal to be struck: Spanish companies would not be pursued by Helms-Burton. Aznar, for all his hardline stance, was to go to Cuba in 1999. He stayed at the Havana Meliá, showing his support for Spanish entrepreneurs and protesting against Helms-Burton and the US embargo.
If nothing else, this all highlighted what by then were one hundred years of US-Spanish tensions where Cuba was concerned. Meliá was obliged to disinvest in the US, having set its stall out in Cuba, a loyalty that Castro recognised, but any difficulties were not to get in the way of Mallorcan hotelier expansion. Iberostar appeared in 1998, and with Meliá now forms by far the strongest presence. There are currently some 58,000 hotel places in Cuba. Roughly half of them are under the control of Balearic hotel chains.
In the 1960s, when various individuals supposedly started to wander into cockpits in order to request a detour, Spain remained committed to the 1953 agreement with the US (and Vatican) by which the Franco regime was to legitimise itself in the view of a doubting international community. A pro-American policy wasn't, however, to prevent the regime from establishing a relationship with Castro, and this owed much to the coincidence of 1959: Castro staged his revolution, while Spain adopted the Stabilisation Plan which was to underpin the country's economic revolution.
Prior to the rise of Castro, Franco had been seeking to exert Spanish influence throughout the one-time empire of Central and South America. This was via a combination of the concept of "Hispanidad" and the stifling Catholicism that had characterised the Franco regime from the time of the Civil War. The clash of ideologies that Castro's revolution represented might well have shattered relations with Spain, with the threat to these relations initially equal on both sides. Cuba expelled the Spanish ambassador in 1960 for having interrupted Castro while he was criticising Spain. The regime, for its part, was under pressure from external forces (especially the Americans) and because of dissenting voices internally.
But through the 1960s a realpolitik emerged that was based far less (if at all) on the previous nationalist-religious philosophy and very much more on economic necessity. The dogmas of the Falange were discarded in favour of the technocracy of Opus Dei. The pragmatic technocrats, so important in having guided Spain to a more stable economic future courtesy of, for example tourism, viewed Cuba purely in economic terms. Trade with Cuba, rather than lessening, increased during the 1960s, and by the 1970s there was pretty much full-scale economic cooperation.
For the regime, Cuba held special significance. This had been one of Spain's most important colonies in the nineteenth century. The economic relationship was such that Mallorcans were among those who grew rich through trading with the island (and also Puerto Rico). When Cuba was lost during the humiliations suffered at the hands of the Americans at the end of the nineteenth century, national (and military) pride was shattered. Franco had sought to restore this. Despite what the Americans felt about Castro, events of 1898 still influenced thinking.
The ties with Cuba, strengthened by the PSOE government of Felipe González, were such that in 1990 the old relationship with Mallorca's entrepreneurs was truly revived. In that year, the Sol Palmeras hotel was opened. The following year, Castro attended the opening of the Meliá Varadero hotel, just as he had been at the inauguration of the Sol Palmeras.
The way had been opened up by a businessman from the Canaries, Enrique Martinón, who was the first to really sense the tourist possibilities in Cuba. Sol Meliá, as was, entered into a 50-50 joint venture with the Cuban state corporation. Mallorca's hoteliers were thus beginning a lucrative association with Cuba, the main problem to which was to be the 1996 Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (Libertad) Act, otherwise known as the Helms-Burton Act, under which foreign companies could be sued for "trafficking" land confiscated from Americans after the Castro revolution. At least one hotel, Las Americas, was on land that had belonged to the Dupont family.
The Helms-Burton Act was met with a unified response of opposition by the European Union, but in the same year that it was passed, José María Aznar of the Partido Popular came to power. He adopted a much tougher attitude towards Cuba, and the EU accepted a "common position" - proposed by Madrid - to pursue democratic reforms in Cuba. This political move pleased the American government, but it was also a means - so it seemed - for a deal to be struck: Spanish companies would not be pursued by Helms-Burton. Aznar, for all his hardline stance, was to go to Cuba in 1999. He stayed at the Havana Meliá, showing his support for Spanish entrepreneurs and protesting against Helms-Burton and the US embargo.
If nothing else, this all highlighted what by then were one hundred years of US-Spanish tensions where Cuba was concerned. Meliá was obliged to disinvest in the US, having set its stall out in Cuba, a loyalty that Castro recognised, but any difficulties were not to get in the way of Mallorcan hotelier expansion. Iberostar appeared in 1998, and with Meliá now forms by far the strongest presence. There are currently some 58,000 hotel places in Cuba. Roughly half of them are under the control of Balearic hotel chains.
Thursday, November 10, 2016
What Does Trump Think Of Spain?
One would have to assume that a long, long way down the list of things on Donald Trump's mind as he was preparing to speak on Wednesday morning was how it was all playing in Spain. The president-elect, not slow to resort to Twitter, has demonstrated a general lack of interest in the country if his tweets are anything to go by.
In January last year, he hashtagged Spain as in Miss Spain, having suggested that the top five in the 63rd Miss Universe contest should be - in order - USA, Thailand, Colombia, Spain and Jamaica.
Other occasions when Spain loomed onto the Trump Twitter radar were in April 2012 when he announced how much the Obamas like Spanish vacations - the visit of Michelle and daughters in 2010 had apparently cost US taxpayers 476,000 dollars; a reference in 2013 to the Spanish government shutting down wind turbines because the cost of maintenance was higher than the income generated; one of 2012 in which he suggested that the "whole euro thing will eventually be doomed"; and a 2014 note that he was making a big speech in Barcelona before heading off to Scotland and Ireland. The big speech, which went completely unnoticed in the Spanish media, was at an international congress for sales professionals.
The tweets don't offer a great insight, if any, into Trump's thinking about Spain, other than that he indeed doesn't think about the country to any extent. The whole euro thing being doomed may yet be prophetic, but at the time he tweeted, Spain was only barely managing to avoid being on its knees and the whole euro thing did look as though it were liable to collapse. As for wind turbines, his views on alternative energies and climate change are a matter for public record, so no real surprise that he should pick up on them.
However, his views on the whole euro thing did include greater reflections on the state of Spain and its relations with the European Union at that time. The Spanish economic affairs minister, Luis de Guindos (who is keeping his position in the new cabinet), in essence has confirmed Trump's opinion. In a book he has written, de Guindos has revealed just how bad things were in 2012. At a G-20 summit, members of the Spanish delegation were seriously contemplating throwing in the euro towel. The problems posed by the Spanish economy went well beyond Europe; G-20 saw the country as a risk to global stability.
Trump also saw Spain as a land of opportunity. The reason? Plummeting real-estate values. Anti-globalist as he may appear, Trump is not the parochial individual some of the US electorate might have been led to believe; not when he owns hotels outside the US, such as Turnberry, and has licensed the Trump name to others. One of the points of speculation of his presidency to come will surely be to what extent he has at the back of his mind (or further forward than that) the Trump empire.
De Guindos, Mariano Rajoy and the Spanish government have been given a greater collective headache because of Trump's victory. If he's good to his word and goes for protectionist policies, this is not great news for Spain. Rajoy constantly appears to be head of a government needing to engage in crisis management, and these are crises not of its making. He inherited the mess in 2011. Now he has Brexit and Trump to worry about. De Guindos and others in the cabinet will be concerned that economic recovery will falter.
Rajoy was quick to go onto Twitter and to congratulate Trump on his victory. "We will continue to work to strengthen the relationship that unites us to the United States, an indispensable partner," he tweeted. Trump, at some point, is going to have to talk to Rajoy; it was best, therefore, for the Spanish premier to get in his good wishes, as he's likely to need them.
Other reaction was less positive. PSOE voiced its concern. There is now "enormous uncertainty" was one statement, although it was modified by noting confidence in the institutions and systems of control in the US democracy; Trump has yet to have to deal with these. Albert Rivera of Ciudadanos believed that liberty had been lost and protectionism had been a winner and he attacked the populism of both the right and the left. How can the lies be combated, he wonders.
One of those populists, Pablo Iglesias of Podemos, attacked Trump's xenophobia and rejected the idea that he is "anti-system". He was right, but then what will be the "system"? Rajoy needs to keep saying nice things on Twitter. Not, one imagines, that Trump will be paying a great deal of attention. He has other Spanish speakers more on his mind: down Mexico way.
In January last year, he hashtagged Spain as in Miss Spain, having suggested that the top five in the 63rd Miss Universe contest should be - in order - USA, Thailand, Colombia, Spain and Jamaica.
Other occasions when Spain loomed onto the Trump Twitter radar were in April 2012 when he announced how much the Obamas like Spanish vacations - the visit of Michelle and daughters in 2010 had apparently cost US taxpayers 476,000 dollars; a reference in 2013 to the Spanish government shutting down wind turbines because the cost of maintenance was higher than the income generated; one of 2012 in which he suggested that the "whole euro thing will eventually be doomed"; and a 2014 note that he was making a big speech in Barcelona before heading off to Scotland and Ireland. The big speech, which went completely unnoticed in the Spanish media, was at an international congress for sales professionals.
The tweets don't offer a great insight, if any, into Trump's thinking about Spain, other than that he indeed doesn't think about the country to any extent. The whole euro thing being doomed may yet be prophetic, but at the time he tweeted, Spain was only barely managing to avoid being on its knees and the whole euro thing did look as though it were liable to collapse. As for wind turbines, his views on alternative energies and climate change are a matter for public record, so no real surprise that he should pick up on them.
However, his views on the whole euro thing did include greater reflections on the state of Spain and its relations with the European Union at that time. The Spanish economic affairs minister, Luis de Guindos (who is keeping his position in the new cabinet), in essence has confirmed Trump's opinion. In a book he has written, de Guindos has revealed just how bad things were in 2012. At a G-20 summit, members of the Spanish delegation were seriously contemplating throwing in the euro towel. The problems posed by the Spanish economy went well beyond Europe; G-20 saw the country as a risk to global stability.
Trump also saw Spain as a land of opportunity. The reason? Plummeting real-estate values. Anti-globalist as he may appear, Trump is not the parochial individual some of the US electorate might have been led to believe; not when he owns hotels outside the US, such as Turnberry, and has licensed the Trump name to others. One of the points of speculation of his presidency to come will surely be to what extent he has at the back of his mind (or further forward than that) the Trump empire.
De Guindos, Mariano Rajoy and the Spanish government have been given a greater collective headache because of Trump's victory. If he's good to his word and goes for protectionist policies, this is not great news for Spain. Rajoy constantly appears to be head of a government needing to engage in crisis management, and these are crises not of its making. He inherited the mess in 2011. Now he has Brexit and Trump to worry about. De Guindos and others in the cabinet will be concerned that economic recovery will falter.
Rajoy was quick to go onto Twitter and to congratulate Trump on his victory. "We will continue to work to strengthen the relationship that unites us to the United States, an indispensable partner," he tweeted. Trump, at some point, is going to have to talk to Rajoy; it was best, therefore, for the Spanish premier to get in his good wishes, as he's likely to need them.
Other reaction was less positive. PSOE voiced its concern. There is now "enormous uncertainty" was one statement, although it was modified by noting confidence in the institutions and systems of control in the US democracy; Trump has yet to have to deal with these. Albert Rivera of Ciudadanos believed that liberty had been lost and protectionism had been a winner and he attacked the populism of both the right and the left. How can the lies be combated, he wonders.
One of those populists, Pablo Iglesias of Podemos, attacked Trump's xenophobia and rejected the idea that he is "anti-system". He was right, but then what will be the "system"? Rajoy needs to keep saying nice things on Twitter. Not, one imagines, that Trump will be paying a great deal of attention. He has other Spanish speakers more on his mind: down Mexico way.
Tuesday, November 08, 2016
Spain Is Not Croatia: Tourism ministers
Tourism is an odd thing politically. Important as it is, it isn't generally granted high political status. In the European Union, there appear to be only three countries which have a minister devoted to tourism alone: Bulgaria, Croatia and Malta. The latter of these is never mentioned in discussions of Mallorca and Spain's competitor destinations, but the first two most certainly are. The advances of their sun-and-beach tourism have been plotted strategically around the cabinet table.
There are other countries which relegate tourism to a lowly political level. The UK is one of them. It has a parliamentary under secretary of state for sport, tourism and heritage: Tracey Crouch, whose CV suggests that her knowledge of tourism is significantly less than her knowledge of football.
For the most part, EU nations place tourism within ministries which have cabinet status. In Germany, as an example, tourism comes under the ministry of economic affairs and energy. The French find a place for tourism in the foreign ministry. The nation which receives more tourists than anywhere else - France - doesn't have a dedicated minister.
Spain doesn't have a specific minister either. There was hope, prior to the announcement of the new cabinet, that it would. In the end Mariano Rajoy lumped tourism together with energy (as had previously been the case) and with the "digital agenda". In so doing, Rajoy failed to remove the potential conflict of responsibilities which dogged José Manuel Soria and that caused the disputes with the Balearics over oil. The apparent need for tourism to co-exist with energy is a source of bafflement. There again, what's good for the Germans ... even if tourism in that country is delegated downwards from the cabinet table. It could be more baffling: in Luxembourg, hive of tourist activity as it is, they have a minister for tourism, housing and, bizarrely enough, the middle classes.
At least tourism is directly represented at the Spanish cabinet table, when it is not in the UK, France, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, The Netherlands, Slovakia and Slovenia.
EU countries clearly have varying degrees of economic dependence on tourism. In Spain, it contributes 11.5% of GDP, a percentage that rises dramatically according to region, such as the Balearics. This is greater than in France, where it is just under 10%, but well below Croatia with 20%. In a Daily Telegraph list of the twenty countries on the planet most reliant on tourism, Croatia sits at number eighteen. Malta is five places above it. No wonder they have dedicated tourism ministers.
Of the major economic powers in the EU, Spain's dependence on tourism is the greatest; Italy lags behind by around one per cent. Although high, this dependence is not as fundamental as in, say, Croatia. But GDP figures can explain only so much. There is the indirect contribution as well and perhaps just as importantly there is the social and psychological contribution. While miscreants are going around daubing anti-tourist slogans - and not just in Palma - no one can (or should) forget that it was tourism above all that turned Spain into a major economic power. It is in the national psyche, therefore, which maybe helps to explain the degree to which a ministerial appointment has been discussed. The column inches have been numerous, the analysis of the new minister has been intense. The debate as to the need to a dedicated tourism minister continues, though some are counting blessings that Rajoy didn't go back to how things were for a time under Zapatero when there was no cabinet representation.
Yet it remains something of a mystery as to why tourism doesn't enjoy greater status in political affairs. Alvaro Nadal, the new minister, has said that "tourism is our jewel in the crown that has a snowball effect on the whole of the economy". Quite so; 11.5% of GDP does indeed explain only so much. Moreover, as Rajoy sought to bring Spain out of economic crisis, he repeatedly referred - quite correctly - to tourism being the motor of the economy. Its reward is to be allied to the nation's digitalisation and energy needs. It doesn't appear to make sense.
Nadal has also said that there is a need for tourism to be given "a strong impulse to reinvent itself". What does he mean by this? Is the sector not already heading in new directions of diversification and greater quality? In the Balearics, we'd like to believe so. But then, the Balearics are not Extremadura or Castile and Leon.
Spain's tourism diversity is vast. And herein perhaps lies the rub. While Balearic tourism interests must at all costs be defended, these interests are not as reliant on a national minister as is the case with other regions. The islands arguably have far more need of a national energy minister, so long as he doesn't want to start drilling for oil.
There are other countries which relegate tourism to a lowly political level. The UK is one of them. It has a parliamentary under secretary of state for sport, tourism and heritage: Tracey Crouch, whose CV suggests that her knowledge of tourism is significantly less than her knowledge of football.
For the most part, EU nations place tourism within ministries which have cabinet status. In Germany, as an example, tourism comes under the ministry of economic affairs and energy. The French find a place for tourism in the foreign ministry. The nation which receives more tourists than anywhere else - France - doesn't have a dedicated minister.
Spain doesn't have a specific minister either. There was hope, prior to the announcement of the new cabinet, that it would. In the end Mariano Rajoy lumped tourism together with energy (as had previously been the case) and with the "digital agenda". In so doing, Rajoy failed to remove the potential conflict of responsibilities which dogged José Manuel Soria and that caused the disputes with the Balearics over oil. The apparent need for tourism to co-exist with energy is a source of bafflement. There again, what's good for the Germans ... even if tourism in that country is delegated downwards from the cabinet table. It could be more baffling: in Luxembourg, hive of tourist activity as it is, they have a minister for tourism, housing and, bizarrely enough, the middle classes.
At least tourism is directly represented at the Spanish cabinet table, when it is not in the UK, France, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, The Netherlands, Slovakia and Slovenia.
EU countries clearly have varying degrees of economic dependence on tourism. In Spain, it contributes 11.5% of GDP, a percentage that rises dramatically according to region, such as the Balearics. This is greater than in France, where it is just under 10%, but well below Croatia with 20%. In a Daily Telegraph list of the twenty countries on the planet most reliant on tourism, Croatia sits at number eighteen. Malta is five places above it. No wonder they have dedicated tourism ministers.
Of the major economic powers in the EU, Spain's dependence on tourism is the greatest; Italy lags behind by around one per cent. Although high, this dependence is not as fundamental as in, say, Croatia. But GDP figures can explain only so much. There is the indirect contribution as well and perhaps just as importantly there is the social and psychological contribution. While miscreants are going around daubing anti-tourist slogans - and not just in Palma - no one can (or should) forget that it was tourism above all that turned Spain into a major economic power. It is in the national psyche, therefore, which maybe helps to explain the degree to which a ministerial appointment has been discussed. The column inches have been numerous, the analysis of the new minister has been intense. The debate as to the need to a dedicated tourism minister continues, though some are counting blessings that Rajoy didn't go back to how things were for a time under Zapatero when there was no cabinet representation.
Yet it remains something of a mystery as to why tourism doesn't enjoy greater status in political affairs. Alvaro Nadal, the new minister, has said that "tourism is our jewel in the crown that has a snowball effect on the whole of the economy". Quite so; 11.5% of GDP does indeed explain only so much. Moreover, as Rajoy sought to bring Spain out of economic crisis, he repeatedly referred - quite correctly - to tourism being the motor of the economy. Its reward is to be allied to the nation's digitalisation and energy needs. It doesn't appear to make sense.
Nadal has also said that there is a need for tourism to be given "a strong impulse to reinvent itself". What does he mean by this? Is the sector not already heading in new directions of diversification and greater quality? In the Balearics, we'd like to believe so. But then, the Balearics are not Extremadura or Castile and Leon.
Spain's tourism diversity is vast. And herein perhaps lies the rub. While Balearic tourism interests must at all costs be defended, these interests are not as reliant on a national minister as is the case with other regions. The islands arguably have far more need of a national energy minister, so long as he doesn't want to start drilling for oil.
Sunday, November 06, 2016
Christmas Comes Early To The Tourism Ministry
Bon Nadal. A bit early admittedly, but some were saying it. The Mallorcan hoteliers, for instance. Alvaro Nadal, rather than, say, Rafa, was handed tourism by Super Mariano, now anointed - by PSOE - as president (prime minister) for life. With a name like Nadal, some were foolish enough to think that a Mallorcan boy had done good and climbed to the top of the tourism mountain. They were wrong. Alvaro is every bit a member of the Madrid cartel as mostly all others are within the PP's high command.
Inma Benito, president of the Mallorca Hoteliers People's Party, is never slow to recognise a soul mate whose aversion to an ecotax is such that his facial expression suggests a bad smell at its very mention. This disgust can melt into a look of vague warmth when addressing the vexed issue of IVA (VAT). Yes, he has said to the delight of the nation's hotelier parties, a super-reduced rate for hoteliers would be good, knowing full well that Super won't sanction it and nor indeed would Brussels.
Alvaro is the closest thing that the Balearics have to a man on Super's council of war, i.e. the cabinet, already forming a circle of wagons in preparation for the missiles to be launched that will be the consequence of governing with 39.14% Congress representation. He is only close because of his name, which is purely the result of reproductive fluke. This Nadal has never opened a tennis academy in Manacor or played for Real Mallorca. He's an economics boffin, hewn from the capital's academia.
Despite this absence of Mallorcan connection, there were others who were swift to praise his appointment. Jaime "Two Paellas" Martínez, the gastronomic-promoting former minister of Balearic tourism, opined that Nadal would be very positive for the Balearics. Jaime could afford to lavish praise. While his name had mysteriously been mentioned as a possible national tourism minister, he was always a rank outsider, given that there's the investigation into the small matter of the money his local ministry forked out to demolish the Rocamar in Soller. Better odds had been on J.R., if only because Bauzá had opened the book on himself. In truth, the ex-Balearic president was never destined to be anywhere near the short list.
And the truth was that he knew that his name was not to be announced by Super on Thursday. The day before, he had chaired a meeting of the PP in his home town of Marratxi. Next to him, somewhat bewilderingly, was Sebastià Sagreras, the mayor of Campos and general secretary of the party in the Balearics but also one of the principal wielders of the knife in the back that ended with Bauzá being exiled to the Senate. Everyone at that meeting, including J.R., knew by then that his self-promotion as tourism minister had been a complete disaster. And when Inma announced that Nadal's appointment was "very good news", another knife was stuck into the Bauzá heart. She would not have said the same had J.R. been given the job.
He'll keep lingering like an unwanted guest at a party, but the party won't take him back. He needs to come to terms with that fact.
Inma Benito, president of the Mallorca Hoteliers People's Party, is never slow to recognise a soul mate whose aversion to an ecotax is such that his facial expression suggests a bad smell at its very mention. This disgust can melt into a look of vague warmth when addressing the vexed issue of IVA (VAT). Yes, he has said to the delight of the nation's hotelier parties, a super-reduced rate for hoteliers would be good, knowing full well that Super won't sanction it and nor indeed would Brussels.
Alvaro is the closest thing that the Balearics have to a man on Super's council of war, i.e. the cabinet, already forming a circle of wagons in preparation for the missiles to be launched that will be the consequence of governing with 39.14% Congress representation. He is only close because of his name, which is purely the result of reproductive fluke. This Nadal has never opened a tennis academy in Manacor or played for Real Mallorca. He's an economics boffin, hewn from the capital's academia.
Despite this absence of Mallorcan connection, there were others who were swift to praise his appointment. Jaime "Two Paellas" Martínez, the gastronomic-promoting former minister of Balearic tourism, opined that Nadal would be very positive for the Balearics. Jaime could afford to lavish praise. While his name had mysteriously been mentioned as a possible national tourism minister, he was always a rank outsider, given that there's the investigation into the small matter of the money his local ministry forked out to demolish the Rocamar in Soller. Better odds had been on J.R., if only because Bauzá had opened the book on himself. In truth, the ex-Balearic president was never destined to be anywhere near the short list.
And the truth was that he knew that his name was not to be announced by Super on Thursday. The day before, he had chaired a meeting of the PP in his home town of Marratxi. Next to him, somewhat bewilderingly, was Sebastià Sagreras, the mayor of Campos and general secretary of the party in the Balearics but also one of the principal wielders of the knife in the back that ended with Bauzá being exiled to the Senate. Everyone at that meeting, including J.R., knew by then that his self-promotion as tourism minister had been a complete disaster. And when Inma announced that Nadal's appointment was "very good news", another knife was stuck into the Bauzá heart. She would not have said the same had J.R. been given the job.
He'll keep lingering like an unwanted guest at a party, but the party won't take him back. He needs to come to terms with that fact.
Monday, October 31, 2016
The Noises Of Debate: Rajoy's Investiture
In the space of almost eight months I have watched six investiture debates. At the sixth time of asking there was a result, if you can call forming a government with a minority just shy of forty per cent a result. At the sixth attempt, therefore, something finally gave. The mould was broken, although it had been cast differently for debates five and six. There was an alternative cast member. PSOE's Antonio Hernando had moved along one seat. By the sixth debate, two days after the fifth, there was an empty seat. Tearfully, Pedro Sánchez had decided it was best not to turn up. How things had changed. At the start of the eight months - for debates one and two - he would have been crowned, if only in his dreams.
The lachrymose Sánchez was the prelude to debate six. It might have overshadowed what was to follow, had it not been pre-destined for Mariano Rajoy to be reinstalled as prime minister. Debate six was the big noise in town. Sánchez was a weepy diversion, he insisting that he is not finished, that he will seek the recuperation of PSOE. If he does, it will be a tough ask. There's life still in the body socialist but it's in intensive care not knowing if it will emerge intact or be permanently fractured.
There were big noises and bigger noises. Several thousand had gathered to surround Congress. The protest was allowed. Not even Rajoy's wretched law could prevent it being given clearance. That law, the gagging one, was just one reason for the thousands to have gathered. Other reasons ... . Well, by now we all know the reasons, while the several thousands were having none of the carve-up by the "mafias" inside Congress. Alas for Cuidadanos, ten years young, it has been branded thus alongside the much older mafias of the PP and PSOE. It was politicians from the C's for whom the greatest jeers were reserved.
Inside Congress there were various bursts of big noise. Cheers, heckles, one of the biggest came at half-time, prior to the actual vote, when the stewards looked as if they might have been required to keep the factions apart. The PP's Rafael Hernando, who had upset Podemos so much during debate five with his four million dollar Venezuelan accusation, was in discussion with Iglesias and Errejón. Surprisingly, it didn't look as unfriendly as might have been expected.
There again, Iglesias came out of debate six with an enormous amount of credit. His speech obliterated all others. Its passion was exceptional. Iglesias is enormously impressive, and when he spoke about the need for a young and new Spain, one couldn't help but contrast the informality of Podemos (in their attire) and the stiffness of the suit-wearing ranks of the PP and indeed PSOE. What was most impressive was that he didn't resort to name-calling. His was a speech for the future, of a politician growing in stature. There may be differences within his party, but Iglesias and Podemos are not going away. Indeed, they will believe their role is ever more crucial now.
Although Iglesias and his Podemos colleagues were to applaud his intervention, the speech of the Catalonia Republican Left's Gabriel Rufián was deserving of none. It was not as if he didn't have valid points, but it was the language he used that set him well apart from Iglesias. This was the oafishness of a students' union activist not the discourse of a Congress politician. His walk to the lectern spoke volumes. He passed the ranks of the PP glowering and with the swagger of a football hooligan. At the end, he even argued with the referee - the president of the house (speaker), Ana Pastor - who switched off his mike because he had gone over time. Before doing so, though, he had reprimanded PSOE for their kowtowing to a "cacique", for their being traitors to socialism. They should be ashamed. Yes, he had valid points, but the delivery was odious. Antonio Hernando, scandalised, said that Rufián had spoken with "odio" - hate. Rufián had lived up to more than just his name. He was a disgrace.
It was a minor player who was to offer the strongest rebuke to Rufián. The diminutive Ana Oramas from the Canaries was not easy to understand - the accent is pronounced - but there was no mistaking her distaste for the disrespect Rufián had shown the house as well as PSOE. He shouldn't behave in such a juvenile way. There was big noise of applause.
And finally, when the voting was over and the result was announced, there was no big noise from PSOE. They didn't applaud Rajoy. He had won the day but there are many other days to come. He needs to show magnanimity, he needs to prove that he is capable of dialogue. If he can't, debates seven and eight might occur sooner than he would hope.
Index for October 2016
Agriculture and tourism - 11 October 2016
Airbnb and hoteliers - 1 October 2016
All-inclusives - 8 October 2015
Balearic government - 10 October 2016
Bullying - 21 October 2016
Caso Gürtel - 7 October 2016
Ecotourism and sustainability - 18 October 2016
Fornalutx and prettiest villages - 28 October 2016
Havaneres - 9 October 2016
Hiking and the history of excursions - 3 October 2016
Holiday prices - 5 October 2016, 29 October 2016
Imserso holidays - 15 October 2016
Land plans in Mallorca - 25 October 2016
Museum of Water - 6 October 2016
Pebre bord pepper - 23 October 2016
Pep v. Pepsi - 14 October 2016
PSOE crisis - 2 October 2016, 4 October 2016
Rajoy investiture - 19 October 2016, 31 October 2016
Rock music in Mallorca - 30 October 2016
Saturation, sustainability and employment - 22 October 2016, 26 October 2016
Spain's National Day - 13 October 2016
Theatres - 16 October 2016
Tourism minister for Spain - 20 October 2016. 24 October 2016
Tramuntana fairs - 12 October 2016
UFOs - 27 October 2016
Xelo Huertas in Rome - 17 October 2016
The lachrymose Sánchez was the prelude to debate six. It might have overshadowed what was to follow, had it not been pre-destined for Mariano Rajoy to be reinstalled as prime minister. Debate six was the big noise in town. Sánchez was a weepy diversion, he insisting that he is not finished, that he will seek the recuperation of PSOE. If he does, it will be a tough ask. There's life still in the body socialist but it's in intensive care not knowing if it will emerge intact or be permanently fractured.
There were big noises and bigger noises. Several thousand had gathered to surround Congress. The protest was allowed. Not even Rajoy's wretched law could prevent it being given clearance. That law, the gagging one, was just one reason for the thousands to have gathered. Other reasons ... . Well, by now we all know the reasons, while the several thousands were having none of the carve-up by the "mafias" inside Congress. Alas for Cuidadanos, ten years young, it has been branded thus alongside the much older mafias of the PP and PSOE. It was politicians from the C's for whom the greatest jeers were reserved.
Inside Congress there were various bursts of big noise. Cheers, heckles, one of the biggest came at half-time, prior to the actual vote, when the stewards looked as if they might have been required to keep the factions apart. The PP's Rafael Hernando, who had upset Podemos so much during debate five with his four million dollar Venezuelan accusation, was in discussion with Iglesias and Errejón. Surprisingly, it didn't look as unfriendly as might have been expected.
There again, Iglesias came out of debate six with an enormous amount of credit. His speech obliterated all others. Its passion was exceptional. Iglesias is enormously impressive, and when he spoke about the need for a young and new Spain, one couldn't help but contrast the informality of Podemos (in their attire) and the stiffness of the suit-wearing ranks of the PP and indeed PSOE. What was most impressive was that he didn't resort to name-calling. His was a speech for the future, of a politician growing in stature. There may be differences within his party, but Iglesias and Podemos are not going away. Indeed, they will believe their role is ever more crucial now.
Although Iglesias and his Podemos colleagues were to applaud his intervention, the speech of the Catalonia Republican Left's Gabriel Rufián was deserving of none. It was not as if he didn't have valid points, but it was the language he used that set him well apart from Iglesias. This was the oafishness of a students' union activist not the discourse of a Congress politician. His walk to the lectern spoke volumes. He passed the ranks of the PP glowering and with the swagger of a football hooligan. At the end, he even argued with the referee - the president of the house (speaker), Ana Pastor - who switched off his mike because he had gone over time. Before doing so, though, he had reprimanded PSOE for their kowtowing to a "cacique", for their being traitors to socialism. They should be ashamed. Yes, he had valid points, but the delivery was odious. Antonio Hernando, scandalised, said that Rufián had spoken with "odio" - hate. Rufián had lived up to more than just his name. He was a disgrace.
It was a minor player who was to offer the strongest rebuke to Rufián. The diminutive Ana Oramas from the Canaries was not easy to understand - the accent is pronounced - but there was no mistaking her distaste for the disrespect Rufián had shown the house as well as PSOE. He shouldn't behave in such a juvenile way. There was big noise of applause.
And finally, when the voting was over and the result was announced, there was no big noise from PSOE. They didn't applaud Rajoy. He had won the day but there are many other days to come. He needs to show magnanimity, he needs to prove that he is capable of dialogue. If he can't, debates seven and eight might occur sooner than he would hope.
Index for October 2016
Agriculture and tourism - 11 October 2016
Airbnb and hoteliers - 1 October 2016
All-inclusives - 8 October 2015
Balearic government - 10 October 2016
Bullying - 21 October 2016
Caso Gürtel - 7 October 2016
Ecotourism and sustainability - 18 October 2016
Fornalutx and prettiest villages - 28 October 2016
Havaneres - 9 October 2016
Hiking and the history of excursions - 3 October 2016
Holiday prices - 5 October 2016, 29 October 2016
Imserso holidays - 15 October 2016
Land plans in Mallorca - 25 October 2016
Museum of Water - 6 October 2016
Pebre bord pepper - 23 October 2016
Pep v. Pepsi - 14 October 2016
PSOE crisis - 2 October 2016, 4 October 2016
Rajoy investiture - 19 October 2016, 31 October 2016
Rock music in Mallorca - 30 October 2016
Saturation, sustainability and employment - 22 October 2016, 26 October 2016
Spain's National Day - 13 October 2016
Theatres - 16 October 2016
Tourism minister for Spain - 20 October 2016. 24 October 2016
Tramuntana fairs - 12 October 2016
UFOs - 27 October 2016
Xelo Huertas in Rome - 17 October 2016
Friday, October 28, 2016
Which Is The Prettiest Village Of Them All?
Rather like restaurants and chefs need to meet strict criteria for Michelin scrutineers, so a village must also come up to standards if it wishes to be among the prettiest - a pueblo that is among the "más bonito".
Los Pueblos más Bonitos de España is an association that was founded in 2011. It took as its model Les Plus Beaux Villages de France. Its aims are: to promote, disseminate and preserve cultural, natural and rural heritage as well as raise awareness of the values of this heritage while also promoting cultural tourism and areas with low levels of industrialisation.
To qualify for inclusion as más bonito a pueblo must have no more than 15,000 inhabitants. In the case of Mallorca, therefore, most "municipalities" could be eligible; most municipalities in Spain could be as well. Having 15,000 people makes a place pretty big when one considers that Fornalutx can muster only around 700. Indeed, having up to 15,000 people would suggest that village status is no longer feasible. There again, we're talking pueblos here; the definition, as in village, town or even hamlet terms can be difficult to pin down precisely.
But Fornalutx, population-wise, unquestionably has village status. What, however, makes it pretty and one of the latest pueblos to be added to the más bonito hall of fame? Experts from the association say that all criteria are met. There is notable architectural heritage. Urban (sic) cleaning is of a high order. There is preservation of building fronts, even of car parks. There are plants on the streets. Water is well managed (though maybe the drought might have something to say about this).
There must, one feels, be rather more to it than this lot. By these criteria, one would think that a whole host of Mallorcan villages (hamlets, whatever) could make the list. Perhaps they will, but then the más bonito list is pretty exclusive. If there were hundreds, thousands of pretty places, the list would no longer be pretty exclusive. As it is, Fornalutx can boast that it is not just the prettiest pueblo in Mallorca, it is the island's only pretty pueblo. Until its recent elevation to the ranks, Mallorca and the Balearics didn't feature on the list.
There are parts of Spain which, according to the list, are prettier than others. Of the 48 in all that are now on it, there is a significant bias in favour of two regions - Aragon and Castile and Leon. Which isn't to say that they don't deserve to be; just that having around half of the prettiest pueblos between them seems a little odd.
The judging committee is presumably immune to outside influences, such as those of social media and the internet. There are other más bonito-type listings. In the case of the website Toprural, it doesn't just have más bonito, it has "maravillosos": the seven wonders of Spain's rural environment. Among the candidates this year isn't Fornalutx but Valldemossa. Of the remaining nineteen against which Valldemossa is pitched are some pueblos familiar to the más bonito list. Valldemossa would appear to need to go some to force itself on to the seven wonders' podium. Much will probably depend on how coherent its social media campaign will be. Rather like Trip Advisor and its best-of lists, anything that is decided by social media and the internet needs to be treated with a touch of scepticism. Still, it does wonders for internet traffic if you invite users to vote for wonders.
Likewise, there is an entirely different más bonito list. The news website 20minutos has one. Sixty pueblos in all are up for voting grabs. There can be only one winner, and the front-runner at present is San Vicente de la Barquera in Cantabria. It has some 55,000 more votes than the first entrant for Mallorca. Which is? Fornalutx? No, it's Pollensa. Fornalutx doesn't get a look in. Is Valldemossa among the sixty? No, but Portocolom is. The only other place in Mallorca, it's way down among the also-rans.
The judges from the más bonito association are likely, one would feel, to be more objective than internet users who might vote for a place purely because they live there or have been there on holiday. The association's list also carries cachet. Fornalutx will take its place on the international tourist stage when it is honoured at Madrid's travel fair. So well done, Fornalutx. Just don't go complaining that there are too many tourists, now that the accolade has been bestowed.
* Photo of Fornalutx from Wikipedia.
Monday, October 24, 2016
J.R. Is No Longer Dead
So, it was all a dream. Pammy's woken up, Bobby's appeared from the shower, and J.R. is heading off to join the barons of the PP by becoming tourism minister. The intriguing within the PP is the very stuff of "Dallas" minus the oil that J.R. so determinedly sought to deny the Balearics when his nemesis Cliff Barnes (aka José Manuel Soria) was in charge of both energy and tourism.
José Ramón Bauzá, for it is he, has his eye on a cabinet post and on leading the Balearics and Spain to ever greater touristic glory. There are just a few problems with his ambition. One is that Super Mariano has yet to be reconfirmed as president (sometimes referred to as prime minister). By this time next week, however, he may have been, as the socialist-lite element has got its way in sanctioning his investiture. The second problem is that there isn't a specific post for a tourism minister. Yet. But the bookies are placing odds on Mazza turning over one hundred years of history on its head and creating just such a post. Amidst this speculation, therefore, re-enter J.R., who mostly everyone (in the Balearics) had assumed and had hoped was politically interred.
However, away from Palma, J.R. has been conducting a one-man PR campaign, turning up on chat shows. Why would he be doing that? To prove to everyone that he was never dead in the first place. A seat in the Senate has provided sufficient warmth to prevent political rigor mortis from setting in. J.R. is back, and he wants tourism.
But then one gets to the third problem. Much as though J.R. may have been on a charm offensive, he remains thoroughly detested. The PP in the Balearics (many of them) are aghast at the prospect of him rising like a Phoenix of tourism from the ashes of the purge that exiled him to Madrid. And if his own party would not give his tourism ambitions houseroom, then you can be certain that Francina and chums will be even more determined to ensure that he never darkens their agreements for government change.
Could you imagine it? Bauzá at tourism. First thing he'd do would be to seek a change to the statutes of autonomy to ensure that tourist taxes would be banned. He couldn't actually do this, but then J.R. was never one for allowing procedure of a legalistic type to get in his way. Anyone remember the decree for trilingual teaching? A court said one thing (the government hadn't followed procedure), J.R. and his cabinet said we'll see about that and ushered in an emergency decree.
Eco-nationalist Mésite Balearic tourism minister Biel Barceló has declared that J.R. as national tourism minister would be disastrous for the Balearics. "As president (of the Balearics) he did not defend the interests of the islands." Which of course he didn't, as in, for example, not asking Mazza for the state investments which should have flowed in a Balearic direction. And why not? Well, J.R. was the original golden boy of Mazza's austerity. He did all he could to keep pally with Mariano until Soria got in the way and wanted to start digging for oil in the bay of Palma.
J.R. went gunning for Soria and for his job, relations with national HQ deteriorated, got even worse when a different golden boy - Mateo Isern - was being eased out by the intrigues of Bauzá and José María Rodríguez, and finally got so bad that Madrid was only too happy for the PP in the Balearics to stick the boot in. Thus the PP nationally was able to breathe a sigh of relief. Hence one comes to the fourth problem. Bauzá for tourism minister? No chance.
José Ramón Bauzá, for it is he, has his eye on a cabinet post and on leading the Balearics and Spain to ever greater touristic glory. There are just a few problems with his ambition. One is that Super Mariano has yet to be reconfirmed as president (sometimes referred to as prime minister). By this time next week, however, he may have been, as the socialist-lite element has got its way in sanctioning his investiture. The second problem is that there isn't a specific post for a tourism minister. Yet. But the bookies are placing odds on Mazza turning over one hundred years of history on its head and creating just such a post. Amidst this speculation, therefore, re-enter J.R., who mostly everyone (in the Balearics) had assumed and had hoped was politically interred.
However, away from Palma, J.R. has been conducting a one-man PR campaign, turning up on chat shows. Why would he be doing that? To prove to everyone that he was never dead in the first place. A seat in the Senate has provided sufficient warmth to prevent political rigor mortis from setting in. J.R. is back, and he wants tourism.
But then one gets to the third problem. Much as though J.R. may have been on a charm offensive, he remains thoroughly detested. The PP in the Balearics (many of them) are aghast at the prospect of him rising like a Phoenix of tourism from the ashes of the purge that exiled him to Madrid. And if his own party would not give his tourism ambitions houseroom, then you can be certain that Francina and chums will be even more determined to ensure that he never darkens their agreements for government change.
Could you imagine it? Bauzá at tourism. First thing he'd do would be to seek a change to the statutes of autonomy to ensure that tourist taxes would be banned. He couldn't actually do this, but then J.R. was never one for allowing procedure of a legalistic type to get in his way. Anyone remember the decree for trilingual teaching? A court said one thing (the government hadn't followed procedure), J.R. and his cabinet said we'll see about that and ushered in an emergency decree.
Eco-nationalist Mésite Balearic tourism minister Biel Barceló has declared that J.R. as national tourism minister would be disastrous for the Balearics. "As president (of the Balearics) he did not defend the interests of the islands." Which of course he didn't, as in, for example, not asking Mazza for the state investments which should have flowed in a Balearic direction. And why not? Well, J.R. was the original golden boy of Mazza's austerity. He did all he could to keep pally with Mariano until Soria got in the way and wanted to start digging for oil in the bay of Palma.
J.R. went gunning for Soria and for his job, relations with national HQ deteriorated, got even worse when a different golden boy - Mateo Isern - was being eased out by the intrigues of Bauzá and José María Rodríguez, and finally got so bad that Madrid was only too happy for the PP in the Balearics to stick the boot in. Thus the PP nationally was able to breathe a sigh of relief. Hence one comes to the fourth problem. Bauzá for tourism minister? No chance.
Thursday, October 20, 2016
A Tourism Minister At Long Last?
Spain ranks second and third in the world in terms of two key indicators of tourism performance. The country generates the second highest amount of revenue from tourism (the USA is top) and it receives the third greatest number of international tourists (behind France and the USA). The total contribution of tourism to the economy is around 11% of GDP, and the benefits that growth in tourism bring are reflected in additional employment in various sectors. CaixaBank research suggests that a one per cent rise in tourism GDP leads to 2,200 new jobs in the commercial sector, 10,400 further jobs in the hotel and catering industry, 800 more in agriculture and 680 in construction.
Exceltur, the alliance for touristic excellence, suggests that tourism growth in 2016 will be by one per cent above the general figure for national economic growth of 3.4%. Tourism typically does outperform the economy as a whole. This is one reason why it has been so important in bringing about economic recovery, while it shouldn't be overlooked that without tourism's contribution during the years of crisis Spain would have been in a far greater mess than it was.
It is a sector of strategic importance. While tourism as an industry is very robust, it can be shaken - as one has seen in other destinations. Neighbouring France, the world leader in terms of tourist arrivals, has seen those arrivals slump markedly because of terrorist incidents.
Having a minister responsible for tourism wouldn't prevent terrorist attacks, but if God forbid there were any, then having a minister in place, with a position around the cabinet table, might help in bolstering confidence in this strategic industry. Threats as much as opportunities should mean that Spain has a tourism minister.
One of the odd aspects of the extremely odd situation that has surrounded the national government for several months is that if ministers have to leave their post (even in an acting capacity) for whatever reason, they are not replaced. This happened with José Manuel Soria. After he resigned in April because his name had appeared in the Panama Papers, his entire portfolio was handed over to Luis de Guindos. He, in an acting function, is currently responsible for economic affairs and competitiveness (which he previously had been) and for industry, energy and tourism, the three oddly assembled elements in the Soria portfolio. De Guindos may be very capable (although the FT once suggested that he wasn't), but not even he can do justice to five briefs at the same time. He'll be thankful that tourism has been chugging along so nicely and not been needing any intervention.
While one mentions potential threats, there are also the opportunities and the current strengths of Spain's tourism. Too often, it has seemed, tourism has been taken for granted. This has been the case nationally and regionally. Complacency in the Balearics over decades has meant that economic diversification has never seriously been addressed and nor has the harmful impact of tourism seasonality. Nationally, there isn't the same level of dependence, but this doesn't diminish strategic importance. And at a time of strength, now is the time to reinforce this strength and to build an even more competitive industry, one recognised by a third performance indicator as being the most competitive tourism industry in the world.
Spain has never had a minister dedicated solely to tourism. As a government portfolio, tourism first appeared in 1905. It was part of the development ministry, which is where it stayed until the 1950s when tourism combined with "information". Since then, it has been moved around or even removed. The demand for a dedicated minister has existed since about as long as Spain's tourism boom started, and now there is a very strong rumour circulating that such a minister is about to be created.
If Mariano Rajoy is finally approved once more as prime minister, the signs are that he will increase the number of ministers, and one of these will be a tourism minister. For the first time, therefore, someone with responsibility for tourism and tourism alone will have a seat at cabinet. The industry is preparing to throw the confetti and uncork the champagne.
With the rumours getting stronger - the Spanish travel press are spreading them, as are mainstream newspapers - so the speculation starts. Who might be this tourism minister? It's a bit like guessing who'll be the new England football manager. Pundits are offering their thoughts, and one name which is towards the top of the list is that of Mallorcan Simón Pedro Barceló, co-president of the Barceló hotel group, an independent director on the board of airports authority Aena, and someone with very close links to the PP.
So, not only might there well be a tourism minister, he might also be Mallorcan. As a hotelier, that would doubtless put a few political noses out of joint here. But whoever it might be, a minister is long overdue.
Exceltur, the alliance for touristic excellence, suggests that tourism growth in 2016 will be by one per cent above the general figure for national economic growth of 3.4%. Tourism typically does outperform the economy as a whole. This is one reason why it has been so important in bringing about economic recovery, while it shouldn't be overlooked that without tourism's contribution during the years of crisis Spain would have been in a far greater mess than it was.
It is a sector of strategic importance. While tourism as an industry is very robust, it can be shaken - as one has seen in other destinations. Neighbouring France, the world leader in terms of tourist arrivals, has seen those arrivals slump markedly because of terrorist incidents.
Having a minister responsible for tourism wouldn't prevent terrorist attacks, but if God forbid there were any, then having a minister in place, with a position around the cabinet table, might help in bolstering confidence in this strategic industry. Threats as much as opportunities should mean that Spain has a tourism minister.
One of the odd aspects of the extremely odd situation that has surrounded the national government for several months is that if ministers have to leave their post (even in an acting capacity) for whatever reason, they are not replaced. This happened with José Manuel Soria. After he resigned in April because his name had appeared in the Panama Papers, his entire portfolio was handed over to Luis de Guindos. He, in an acting function, is currently responsible for economic affairs and competitiveness (which he previously had been) and for industry, energy and tourism, the three oddly assembled elements in the Soria portfolio. De Guindos may be very capable (although the FT once suggested that he wasn't), but not even he can do justice to five briefs at the same time. He'll be thankful that tourism has been chugging along so nicely and not been needing any intervention.
While one mentions potential threats, there are also the opportunities and the current strengths of Spain's tourism. Too often, it has seemed, tourism has been taken for granted. This has been the case nationally and regionally. Complacency in the Balearics over decades has meant that economic diversification has never seriously been addressed and nor has the harmful impact of tourism seasonality. Nationally, there isn't the same level of dependence, but this doesn't diminish strategic importance. And at a time of strength, now is the time to reinforce this strength and to build an even more competitive industry, one recognised by a third performance indicator as being the most competitive tourism industry in the world.
Spain has never had a minister dedicated solely to tourism. As a government portfolio, tourism first appeared in 1905. It was part of the development ministry, which is where it stayed until the 1950s when tourism combined with "information". Since then, it has been moved around or even removed. The demand for a dedicated minister has existed since about as long as Spain's tourism boom started, and now there is a very strong rumour circulating that such a minister is about to be created.
If Mariano Rajoy is finally approved once more as prime minister, the signs are that he will increase the number of ministers, and one of these will be a tourism minister. For the first time, therefore, someone with responsibility for tourism and tourism alone will have a seat at cabinet. The industry is preparing to throw the confetti and uncork the champagne.
With the rumours getting stronger - the Spanish travel press are spreading them, as are mainstream newspapers - so the speculation starts. Who might be this tourism minister? It's a bit like guessing who'll be the new England football manager. Pundits are offering their thoughts, and one name which is towards the top of the list is that of Mallorcan Simón Pedro Barceló, co-president of the Barceló hotel group, an independent director on the board of airports authority Aena, and someone with very close links to the PP.
So, not only might there well be a tourism minister, he might also be Mallorcan. As a hotelier, that would doubtless put a few political noses out of joint here. But whoever it might be, a minister is long overdue.
Friday, October 07, 2016
Justice On Trial: Caso Gürtel
There's a major trial taking place. One into corruption. Remarkably enough, it isn't taking place in Mallorca. Even more remarkably, there aren't any Mallorcan politicians in the dock. This isn't to say, however, that there are not Mallorcan implications. One of them may involve former president Jaume Matas (when doesn't it?)
This is the first major trial to do with caso Gürtel, a corruption investigation that has taken so long and is so complicated that it defies any simple explanation. Even the name of the case isn't straightforward. Gürtel is German. It means belt. The choice of name disguised the individual at the heart of the network that spawned the case: Francisco Correa - Frank Belt, if you like.
To say that Gürtel is just about kickbacks would be way too simplistic. This was a web that was woven around the business affairs of Francisco Correa, who had long cultivated links with - who else - the Partido Popular. Gürtel covers illegal funding of the PP and the favourable awarding of contracts (different public authorities are implicated, including both the regional community of Madrid and the Madrid town hall). Money laundering, tax havens and tax evasion, bribery - they're all there.
If this sounds familiar - one can think of the Nóos trial, for instance - it is, but while Nóos and the alleged activities of the husband of Princess Cristina and his associate embraced some six million euros, that was chicken feed compared with Gürtel. The exact amounts have never accurately been established. The total has been put at as much as 120,000,000 euros.
Gürtel isn't simply (what am I saying - simply?) about massive corruption. It is a trial that has also placed the Spanish judicial system in the dock because of that system's potential for manipulation by political forces. In order to understand this, one has to go back to the origins of the investigations and who launched them. The investigating judge in 2009 - yes, that's when the legal ball started to roll - was Baltasar Garzón. He was to be suspended the following year. Not because of Gürtel but because it was argued that he had exceeded his powers in investigating war crimes committed by the Franco regime.
Garzón had his enemies in the legal profession, but he also had them in the Partido Popular. The Franco angle did somewhat obscure the motives for having him suspended. He was readmitted, only to be suspended again because he had ordered recordings of suspects and lawyers involved in Gürtel. All the while, there was the unmistakable influence of the PP.
But getting Garzón removed didn't end the investigation. Even more life was to be breathed into it when the revelations came about the so-called B accounts that had been operated by former PP treasurer Luis Bárcenas (one of those now on trial). These too pointed to illegal party funding. Gürtel and Bárcenas are intimately linked.
If the PP had hoped that Gürtel would go away along with Gárzon, it was very much mistaken, and Gürtel, given its sheer scale, gave political momentum to others - Podemos most obviously. Pablo Iglesias's party and indeed the C's of Albert Rivera had corruption firmly in their sights. Yet despite this momentum and therefore the political situation that currently exists, what do we get? The trial has opened with legal challenges. They have come from defence lawyers, but giving these lawyers support is the PP. It almost beggars belief but the PP, via its lawyer, agrees that there is a list of reasons for having the whole trial process stopped in its tracks. And what might these reasons include? Baltasar Garzón. The investigating judge and those recordings.
The irregularities that surrounded Garzón were also said to have related to his having been designated as investigating judge. In other words, it is claimed that his was a political appointment (he has never disguised being sympathetic to PSOE).
So, it can be said that there were politics on both sides; that the judicial system was open to differing political influences. Where Garzón was concerned, there was probably also his own self-view. He was a celebrated judge by then, but this fame is another facet in suggesting that the judicial system is on trial. Investigating judges become famous. Mallorca has a couple of very well-known ones: José Castro, as much a people's hero as Garzón was to many, for his pursuit of Jaume Matas and Iñaki Urdangarin; Manuel Penalva, heading the investigation into Palma police corruption.
The system therefore creates celebrities out of judges, and much though they would always seek to remain impartial and within the rules, there can also be human fallibility. And political leanings are occasionally exposed. Take Juan Pedro Yllanes, now a Podemos deputy in Congress, who had originally been due to preside over Nóos.
Justice must be seen to be done. With Gürtel, whether it will or will be allowed to is another matter.
This is the first major trial to do with caso Gürtel, a corruption investigation that has taken so long and is so complicated that it defies any simple explanation. Even the name of the case isn't straightforward. Gürtel is German. It means belt. The choice of name disguised the individual at the heart of the network that spawned the case: Francisco Correa - Frank Belt, if you like.
To say that Gürtel is just about kickbacks would be way too simplistic. This was a web that was woven around the business affairs of Francisco Correa, who had long cultivated links with - who else - the Partido Popular. Gürtel covers illegal funding of the PP and the favourable awarding of contracts (different public authorities are implicated, including both the regional community of Madrid and the Madrid town hall). Money laundering, tax havens and tax evasion, bribery - they're all there.
If this sounds familiar - one can think of the Nóos trial, for instance - it is, but while Nóos and the alleged activities of the husband of Princess Cristina and his associate embraced some six million euros, that was chicken feed compared with Gürtel. The exact amounts have never accurately been established. The total has been put at as much as 120,000,000 euros.
Gürtel isn't simply (what am I saying - simply?) about massive corruption. It is a trial that has also placed the Spanish judicial system in the dock because of that system's potential for manipulation by political forces. In order to understand this, one has to go back to the origins of the investigations and who launched them. The investigating judge in 2009 - yes, that's when the legal ball started to roll - was Baltasar Garzón. He was to be suspended the following year. Not because of Gürtel but because it was argued that he had exceeded his powers in investigating war crimes committed by the Franco regime.
Garzón had his enemies in the legal profession, but he also had them in the Partido Popular. The Franco angle did somewhat obscure the motives for having him suspended. He was readmitted, only to be suspended again because he had ordered recordings of suspects and lawyers involved in Gürtel. All the while, there was the unmistakable influence of the PP.
But getting Garzón removed didn't end the investigation. Even more life was to be breathed into it when the revelations came about the so-called B accounts that had been operated by former PP treasurer Luis Bárcenas (one of those now on trial). These too pointed to illegal party funding. Gürtel and Bárcenas are intimately linked.
If the PP had hoped that Gürtel would go away along with Gárzon, it was very much mistaken, and Gürtel, given its sheer scale, gave political momentum to others - Podemos most obviously. Pablo Iglesias's party and indeed the C's of Albert Rivera had corruption firmly in their sights. Yet despite this momentum and therefore the political situation that currently exists, what do we get? The trial has opened with legal challenges. They have come from defence lawyers, but giving these lawyers support is the PP. It almost beggars belief but the PP, via its lawyer, agrees that there is a list of reasons for having the whole trial process stopped in its tracks. And what might these reasons include? Baltasar Garzón. The investigating judge and those recordings.
The irregularities that surrounded Garzón were also said to have related to his having been designated as investigating judge. In other words, it is claimed that his was a political appointment (he has never disguised being sympathetic to PSOE).
So, it can be said that there were politics on both sides; that the judicial system was open to differing political influences. Where Garzón was concerned, there was probably also his own self-view. He was a celebrated judge by then, but this fame is another facet in suggesting that the judicial system is on trial. Investigating judges become famous. Mallorca has a couple of very well-known ones: José Castro, as much a people's hero as Garzón was to many, for his pursuit of Jaume Matas and Iñaki Urdangarin; Manuel Penalva, heading the investigation into Palma police corruption.
The system therefore creates celebrities out of judges, and much though they would always seek to remain impartial and within the rules, there can also be human fallibility. And political leanings are occasionally exposed. Take Juan Pedro Yllanes, now a Podemos deputy in Congress, who had originally been due to preside over Nóos.
Justice must be seen to be done. With Gürtel, whether it will or will be allowed to is another matter.
Sunday, October 02, 2016
The Party That Was Taken Over
Spain knows a thing or two about the coup d'État. The country knows it as a "golpe de Estado". It knows about failed ones, too. 1981 was the famous one. That of 1982 was less famous. They swept it under the carpet. The failure had occurred on the eve of the general election. It was designed to prevent a socialist government coming to power. Everyone knew that Felipe González would win. Some were determined that he wouldn't.
González duly won the election. He was president (prime minister) for fourteen years. For the most part, these were the glory years for PSOE. They were the glory years for all of Spain's post-1975 democracy. A charismatic leader gave the country hope and pride. It clambered aboard the European gravy train; largesse flowed south in shoring up this nascent, socialist-led democracy - a country undergoing a renaissance.
It ended, as it tends to, in scandal and acrimony. The Partido Popular came to power. When it failed to win in 2004 - a result widely attributed to its mishandling of the Madrid bombs - in came Mister Bean: José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Everyone, including himself, was surprised. ZP, a decent, honourable man in a John Major-ineffectual sort of way, was no González, and he was to have his Jim Callaghan moment. Crisis, what crisis. The PSOE government poured money it didn't have into building its way out of the crash. This just made the eventual wreckage worse. ZP departed, to be replaced by Mr. Greybeard, Uncle Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba. He never stood a chance. The Rajoy era was to begin.
This background is important in understanding what has been happening over the past few days. Susana Díaz, the Andalusian president, is said to have launched a coup d'État, one designed to bring down Pedro Sánchez. There are different reasons for her having done so, of which her own ambition is just one. The crisis that has engulfed PSOE is attributed to two key factors - its disastrous election results while under Sánchez's watch and its stance over a future government. There are others.
PSOE has never recaptured the glory years. It remains a hostage to the González era. He was the party's figurehead, the national figurehead. It was PSOE who really effected the "transition" in Spain. A coup attempt could not derail that movement. It was a party of its time, but scandal, complacency and uninspiring leadership were to make it a party identified with a corrupt two-party system. The "casta" of PSOE and the PP was all that Podemos really needed. Enter, therefore, the charismatic Pablo Iglesias.
PSOE's polling has been massively affected by the emergence of Podemos and Ciudadanos. The same can be said of the PP, but the PP has remained comparatively strong where PSOE has been enfeebled. But there has been a more fundamental dynamic. PSOE has become a party directed by another - Podemos. Not directly, but its whole thinking is now determined by the factions who are for or against Podemos. It has been taken over by an outside influence. It has become a shell of a party in which even the pro-Podemos faction is uncertain. Sánchez is one of them.
He has vacillated greatly. But at the heart of his latest apparent shift - one in a Podemos direction - is the accusation that enabling the PP to govern would be evidence of the perpetuation of the "casta". He's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't, because this is where PSOE has ended up: a party no longer in control of its destiny and suffering the collateral damage of ebbing electoral support.
Sánchez threw down the gauntlet last week. There would be "primaries", ostensibly to determine who will lead the party into a third election but manifestly a vote of confidence (or not). Moreover, were Sánchez to carry the day, the quirks of the system might enable him to magic up a pact that would not require an election. The cut-off point, when the King dissolves parliament, is the end of this month. Prime Minister Sánchez might step forward, Pablo Iglesias with his hands on the strings and God alone knows whatever other parties coming along for the ride.
The gauntlet thrown, and executive committee members resigned en masse, their support for him gone. Díaz declared her coup. "Barons" in the party lined up against Sánchez, and the party's past - that hostage - caught up with Sánchez. Felipe González, still exercising great influence, declared that he had been "fooled" by Sánchez. The knife was being twisted and it was being turned in the direction of the "casta".
In the end, it wasn't a vote to abstain to allow Rajoy's investiture that did it. There was to be a show of hands on the holding of a congress, in effect a vote of confidence in Sánchez. He lost. He walked. Whichever way it had gone, Podemos would have succeeded. The party founded by one Pablo Iglesias had been infiltrated by another Pablo Iglesias. Its future has been determined not by it but by an outside force: it was Iglesias who launched the coup. Whether it has a future will be seen. The past week was monumental in deciding its fate.
González duly won the election. He was president (prime minister) for fourteen years. For the most part, these were the glory years for PSOE. They were the glory years for all of Spain's post-1975 democracy. A charismatic leader gave the country hope and pride. It clambered aboard the European gravy train; largesse flowed south in shoring up this nascent, socialist-led democracy - a country undergoing a renaissance.
It ended, as it tends to, in scandal and acrimony. The Partido Popular came to power. When it failed to win in 2004 - a result widely attributed to its mishandling of the Madrid bombs - in came Mister Bean: José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Everyone, including himself, was surprised. ZP, a decent, honourable man in a John Major-ineffectual sort of way, was no González, and he was to have his Jim Callaghan moment. Crisis, what crisis. The PSOE government poured money it didn't have into building its way out of the crash. This just made the eventual wreckage worse. ZP departed, to be replaced by Mr. Greybeard, Uncle Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba. He never stood a chance. The Rajoy era was to begin.
This background is important in understanding what has been happening over the past few days. Susana Díaz, the Andalusian president, is said to have launched a coup d'État, one designed to bring down Pedro Sánchez. There are different reasons for her having done so, of which her own ambition is just one. The crisis that has engulfed PSOE is attributed to two key factors - its disastrous election results while under Sánchez's watch and its stance over a future government. There are others.
PSOE has never recaptured the glory years. It remains a hostage to the González era. He was the party's figurehead, the national figurehead. It was PSOE who really effected the "transition" in Spain. A coup attempt could not derail that movement. It was a party of its time, but scandal, complacency and uninspiring leadership were to make it a party identified with a corrupt two-party system. The "casta" of PSOE and the PP was all that Podemos really needed. Enter, therefore, the charismatic Pablo Iglesias.
PSOE's polling has been massively affected by the emergence of Podemos and Ciudadanos. The same can be said of the PP, but the PP has remained comparatively strong where PSOE has been enfeebled. But there has been a more fundamental dynamic. PSOE has become a party directed by another - Podemos. Not directly, but its whole thinking is now determined by the factions who are for or against Podemos. It has been taken over by an outside influence. It has become a shell of a party in which even the pro-Podemos faction is uncertain. Sánchez is one of them.
He has vacillated greatly. But at the heart of his latest apparent shift - one in a Podemos direction - is the accusation that enabling the PP to govern would be evidence of the perpetuation of the "casta". He's damned if he does and damned if he doesn't, because this is where PSOE has ended up: a party no longer in control of its destiny and suffering the collateral damage of ebbing electoral support.
Sánchez threw down the gauntlet last week. There would be "primaries", ostensibly to determine who will lead the party into a third election but manifestly a vote of confidence (or not). Moreover, were Sánchez to carry the day, the quirks of the system might enable him to magic up a pact that would not require an election. The cut-off point, when the King dissolves parliament, is the end of this month. Prime Minister Sánchez might step forward, Pablo Iglesias with his hands on the strings and God alone knows whatever other parties coming along for the ride.
The gauntlet thrown, and executive committee members resigned en masse, their support for him gone. Díaz declared her coup. "Barons" in the party lined up against Sánchez, and the party's past - that hostage - caught up with Sánchez. Felipe González, still exercising great influence, declared that he had been "fooled" by Sánchez. The knife was being twisted and it was being turned in the direction of the "casta".
In the end, it wasn't a vote to abstain to allow Rajoy's investiture that did it. There was to be a show of hands on the holding of a congress, in effect a vote of confidence in Sánchez. He lost. He walked. Whichever way it had gone, Podemos would have succeeded. The party founded by one Pablo Iglesias had been infiltrated by another Pablo Iglesias. Its future has been determined not by it but by an outside force: it was Iglesias who launched the coup. Whether it has a future will be seen. The past week was monumental in deciding its fate.
Tuesday, September 27, 2016
Galicia Lessons: The End For Sánchez?
Regional elections in Spain, because they are not all held at the same time, can be viewed as a test of a public opinion about the national government. In Spain at present, however, there is only a national government by default, one that is nine months on from when it should either have been confirmed as re-elected or ousted. Are, in these circumstances, the elections in the Basque Country and Galicia relevant? Do they say anything about the national government?
They most certainly do. More importantly, they say a great deal about the pretenders, one of whom is PSOE; the PSOE that Pedro Sánchez leads. This is not the PSOE of the whole country, however, and the results loosen his grip - already tenuous - ever more. The knives of Andalusia, in the hands of Susana Díaz, are being sharpened on the stone. How long can Sánchez carry on?
Consider the numbers. In Galicia the regional version of PSOE suffered its worst ever result. It ended up with fourteen seats in the regional parliament with slightly less than 18% of the vote in a four-way fight. En Marea, effectively Podemos by another name, also gained fourteen seats but with a higher share of the vote - just over 19%. Both were eclipsed by the Partido Popular. Alberto Núñez Feijóo will continue to govern with an absolute majority.
In the Basque Country, the socialists suffered major losses - seven seats gone, leaving them with nine. The PNV, habitual leaders in the region, have insufficient seats for an overall majority, but could hook up with the PP (or PSOE) and establish a parliamentary majority.
While Feijóo's win in Galicia will be taken as enhancing Mariano Rajoy's moral right to remain as national prime minister, it needs reminding that Galicia is very firm PP territory - and Feijóo territory. The loss of one PP seat in the Basque Country places a rather different spin on things. Perhaps the strongest message to come from the elections, where the PP is concerned, is that Feijóo has strengthened his case for replacing Rajoy.
Rather than a test of public opinion for Rajoy, the elections were a poll on the ambitions of Sánchez and PSOE to attempt to form an "alternative" government of the left. These are surely dashed, if indeed they have ever truly been realistic. Díaz had made it clear that they weren't, given the fact that PSOE have only 85 seats in the national Congress.
A surprise with Sánchez is the fact that he's still in charge. Reflect on the charge sheet. A failed attempt, an awfully failed attempt at investiture, followed by a second election at which PSOE lost more seats in Congress. Yet he still believes he can form a government, seemingly egged on by the likes of Balearic president Francina Armengol into adopting a model of government akin to that in the Balearics - one that quite plainly isn't functioning. Armengol is deluded and so is Sánchez. With the batterings in the Basque Country and Galicia, his time must surely be up.
If this proves to be the case, the PSOE "barons", marshalled by Díaz, will manoeuvre a situation whereby there is a pact with Rajoy and the PP (or possibly with Feijóo and the PP; this may be the price Rajoy has to pay). For Francina Armengol, who must have been observing the results coming in with increasing horror and alarm, such a national manouevre would be terminal. Podemos wouldn't stand for it, while Més seem ever increasingly alienated from Armengol.
If PSOE were the big losers in these two elections, what about Cuidadanos? This party is more and more like an annoying terrier, snapping at the heels of others. It is shooed away but keeps coming back, yapping and yapping but never getting its way. Its leader, Albert Rivera, had been looking at the prospect of a post-election alliance with the PP in Galicia. They failed to gain a single seat. A share of the vote that was little more than three per cent ensured that they would fail, just as they also did in the Basque Country.
What may now dawn on the C's, whose support has been eroding, is that their aspirations to be a national party run up against nationalist interests in specific regions. Even the conservative nationalist instincts in Galicia and the Basque Country appear disinclined to embrace a party which started as a regional Catalonian organisation (with avowed anti-nationalist sentiments) and has attempted to become a national force. Regional parties aren't supposed to behave like this. The C's have got above their station. They are liked less and less. Their time may well have come and gone, leaving Podemos, with its internal divisions, as the genuine "alternative".
Díaz, Feijóo and others will make damn sure it never is.
* This article was written before Sánchez announced that there are to be "primaries" for electing the secretary general, i.e. that he is putting his position to the test.
They most certainly do. More importantly, they say a great deal about the pretenders, one of whom is PSOE; the PSOE that Pedro Sánchez leads. This is not the PSOE of the whole country, however, and the results loosen his grip - already tenuous - ever more. The knives of Andalusia, in the hands of Susana Díaz, are being sharpened on the stone. How long can Sánchez carry on?
Consider the numbers. In Galicia the regional version of PSOE suffered its worst ever result. It ended up with fourteen seats in the regional parliament with slightly less than 18% of the vote in a four-way fight. En Marea, effectively Podemos by another name, also gained fourteen seats but with a higher share of the vote - just over 19%. Both were eclipsed by the Partido Popular. Alberto Núñez Feijóo will continue to govern with an absolute majority.
In the Basque Country, the socialists suffered major losses - seven seats gone, leaving them with nine. The PNV, habitual leaders in the region, have insufficient seats for an overall majority, but could hook up with the PP (or PSOE) and establish a parliamentary majority.
While Feijóo's win in Galicia will be taken as enhancing Mariano Rajoy's moral right to remain as national prime minister, it needs reminding that Galicia is very firm PP territory - and Feijóo territory. The loss of one PP seat in the Basque Country places a rather different spin on things. Perhaps the strongest message to come from the elections, where the PP is concerned, is that Feijóo has strengthened his case for replacing Rajoy.
Rather than a test of public opinion for Rajoy, the elections were a poll on the ambitions of Sánchez and PSOE to attempt to form an "alternative" government of the left. These are surely dashed, if indeed they have ever truly been realistic. Díaz had made it clear that they weren't, given the fact that PSOE have only 85 seats in the national Congress.
A surprise with Sánchez is the fact that he's still in charge. Reflect on the charge sheet. A failed attempt, an awfully failed attempt at investiture, followed by a second election at which PSOE lost more seats in Congress. Yet he still believes he can form a government, seemingly egged on by the likes of Balearic president Francina Armengol into adopting a model of government akin to that in the Balearics - one that quite plainly isn't functioning. Armengol is deluded and so is Sánchez. With the batterings in the Basque Country and Galicia, his time must surely be up.
If this proves to be the case, the PSOE "barons", marshalled by Díaz, will manoeuvre a situation whereby there is a pact with Rajoy and the PP (or possibly with Feijóo and the PP; this may be the price Rajoy has to pay). For Francina Armengol, who must have been observing the results coming in with increasing horror and alarm, such a national manouevre would be terminal. Podemos wouldn't stand for it, while Més seem ever increasingly alienated from Armengol.
If PSOE were the big losers in these two elections, what about Cuidadanos? This party is more and more like an annoying terrier, snapping at the heels of others. It is shooed away but keeps coming back, yapping and yapping but never getting its way. Its leader, Albert Rivera, had been looking at the prospect of a post-election alliance with the PP in Galicia. They failed to gain a single seat. A share of the vote that was little more than three per cent ensured that they would fail, just as they also did in the Basque Country.
What may now dawn on the C's, whose support has been eroding, is that their aspirations to be a national party run up against nationalist interests in specific regions. Even the conservative nationalist instincts in Galicia and the Basque Country appear disinclined to embrace a party which started as a regional Catalonian organisation (with avowed anti-nationalist sentiments) and has attempted to become a national force. Regional parties aren't supposed to behave like this. The C's have got above their station. They are liked less and less. Their time may well have come and gone, leaving Podemos, with its internal divisions, as the genuine "alternative".
Díaz, Feijóo and others will make damn sure it never is.
* This article was written before Sánchez announced that there are to be "primaries" for electing the secretary general, i.e. that he is putting his position to the test.
Monday, September 05, 2016
The Coconuts Of Congress
Well done, Mariano. Bravo, Pedro. Congratulations, Albert. Hats off, Pablo. The boys done great. Here's to Election Number Three. The Guinness Book of World Records awaits. The most consecutive elections to not return a government. Democracy doesn't get any better.
At least you can say that Mariano got closer than Pedro did. The 180 that beat his 170 was vastly more impressive than the stuffing that Sánchez had incurred after Election Number One. And we were, as previously, rewarded with the rich entertainment that are the investiture debate(s) and voting. Given that the results are known before both votes in the space of two days, the only point to these exercises is that they give lesser-known politicos the chance to shine (?) in the public's full and nonplussed glare.
Thus we were regaled once more by the likes of Gabriel Rufián, of whom one would never say that he can bore for Spain because The Ruffian is as Catalonia independentist as it gets. He instead bores, at great length, for Catalonia. Drone, we almost fell asleep. Amidst his (two) tedious monotone monologues delivered to a less than enthralled Congress and public gallery (they did all fall asleep), The Ruffian mooted that Sánchez might wish to be "brave" and support an independence referendum, thus implying that next time round his band of republican commies would give Pedro the impetus to cross the investiture finishing-line (assuming, that is, the King ever invites him again; "experts" are in something of a tiz as to how repeat attempts at investiture work).
Pigs, as they didn't say in Congress, might fly. Poor, poor Pedro. Stuck between a rock and a rockier place, never sure which is the rockier. Is it Mariano or is it Iglesias (with The Ruffian hanging onto Podemos's coat tails)? Pablo upbraided Sánchez for his indecisiveness, thereby insisting that the rock of Podemos is softer than that of the PP. The softest spot of all would be Albert and his citizens Ciudadanos. But what does the future now hold for Rivera? Who can he now turn to and offer a "pact". PSOE - failed. PP - failed. Podemos? Not bloody likely, and the feeling would be entirely mutual.
We can all look forward to more sessions like this week's. They will be some time in March next year, just as they were in March this year. "Experts" are looking at ways of avoiding having to go to the polls on Christmas Day, and the same "experts" are acutely aware that there are the small matters of the regional elections in Galicia and the Basque Country looming on the autumnal horizon that will complicate matters (both on 25 September).
To return, though, to Congress and the sterile debates and even less fertile votes, these gargantuan displays of democratic self-indulgence afford those who would otherwise never utter a word to do just that. One word and one word only, albeit that it is the same one word in the space of two days. Sí or no. No or sí. All 350 of them are called one by one, up they pop like jacks in their boxes, announce their sí or no and sit down again. The experienced ones, like for example the PP's Dolly Cospedal, achieve this feat with the minimum of fuss and not a single betrayal of embarrassed or self-congratulatory body language. Up, sí, down. Seamless.
The anonymous inhabitants of Congress, recognising their one second of fame, do this with, variously, a flourish, a strident boom of sí or no (mainly those in the no camp), an awkward smile when they resume their seats, an expelling of air that betrays their stage fright, or a turn to a mate and a slap on the back and the sharing of a "well done, Juan, you got the right word out".
Congress is arranged like an enormous fairground attraction, the heads of its members barely visible above the terraced banks of seating. Like coconuts on shies, perhaps there is an alternative means of deciding investiture votes. Taking pot shots and seeing how many heads can be hit. Alas, this will not be so, meaning that they will reconvene to go through the same meaningless procedure in six or so months time, the main question being who they might not vote for then. In pursuit of real democracy, there should be a rotation of party leaders seeking investiture. Let Albert have a go next time, then Pablo, even The Ruffian. It won't make any difference who it is.
At least you can say that Mariano got closer than Pedro did. The 180 that beat his 170 was vastly more impressive than the stuffing that Sánchez had incurred after Election Number One. And we were, as previously, rewarded with the rich entertainment that are the investiture debate(s) and voting. Given that the results are known before both votes in the space of two days, the only point to these exercises is that they give lesser-known politicos the chance to shine (?) in the public's full and nonplussed glare.
Thus we were regaled once more by the likes of Gabriel Rufián, of whom one would never say that he can bore for Spain because The Ruffian is as Catalonia independentist as it gets. He instead bores, at great length, for Catalonia. Drone, we almost fell asleep. Amidst his (two) tedious monotone monologues delivered to a less than enthralled Congress and public gallery (they did all fall asleep), The Ruffian mooted that Sánchez might wish to be "brave" and support an independence referendum, thus implying that next time round his band of republican commies would give Pedro the impetus to cross the investiture finishing-line (assuming, that is, the King ever invites him again; "experts" are in something of a tiz as to how repeat attempts at investiture work).
Pigs, as they didn't say in Congress, might fly. Poor, poor Pedro. Stuck between a rock and a rockier place, never sure which is the rockier. Is it Mariano or is it Iglesias (with The Ruffian hanging onto Podemos's coat tails)? Pablo upbraided Sánchez for his indecisiveness, thereby insisting that the rock of Podemos is softer than that of the PP. The softest spot of all would be Albert and his citizens Ciudadanos. But what does the future now hold for Rivera? Who can he now turn to and offer a "pact". PSOE - failed. PP - failed. Podemos? Not bloody likely, and the feeling would be entirely mutual.
We can all look forward to more sessions like this week's. They will be some time in March next year, just as they were in March this year. "Experts" are looking at ways of avoiding having to go to the polls on Christmas Day, and the same "experts" are acutely aware that there are the small matters of the regional elections in Galicia and the Basque Country looming on the autumnal horizon that will complicate matters (both on 25 September).
To return, though, to Congress and the sterile debates and even less fertile votes, these gargantuan displays of democratic self-indulgence afford those who would otherwise never utter a word to do just that. One word and one word only, albeit that it is the same one word in the space of two days. Sí or no. No or sí. All 350 of them are called one by one, up they pop like jacks in their boxes, announce their sí or no and sit down again. The experienced ones, like for example the PP's Dolly Cospedal, achieve this feat with the minimum of fuss and not a single betrayal of embarrassed or self-congratulatory body language. Up, sí, down. Seamless.
The anonymous inhabitants of Congress, recognising their one second of fame, do this with, variously, a flourish, a strident boom of sí or no (mainly those in the no camp), an awkward smile when they resume their seats, an expelling of air that betrays their stage fright, or a turn to a mate and a slap on the back and the sharing of a "well done, Juan, you got the right word out".
Congress is arranged like an enormous fairground attraction, the heads of its members barely visible above the terraced banks of seating. Like coconuts on shies, perhaps there is an alternative means of deciding investiture votes. Taking pot shots and seeing how many heads can be hit. Alas, this will not be so, meaning that they will reconvene to go through the same meaningless procedure in six or so months time, the main question being who they might not vote for then. In pursuit of real democracy, there should be a rotation of party leaders seeking investiture. Let Albert have a go next time, then Pablo, even The Ruffian. It won't make any difference who it is.
Tuesday, August 30, 2016
An Agreement For Prominence
It was the Sunday of the last big summer weekend. Everyone should have been at the beach or preparing to head home. Mariano Rajoy and Albert Rivera were not. They watched as the parliamentary spokespeople for their parties - the Partido Popular and Ciudadanos (C's) - put pen to paper and signed an agreement under which Rajoy is assured of the support of the 32 C's deputies in Congress for the investiture votes this week. It was a curious ritual. Neither leader had wanted to give his signature.
Maybe neither wanted to bind himself to anything long-term. The agreement is short-term as it is. If Rajoy fails to gain the support of 176 deputies in either of the two votes (one tomorrow, the other on Friday), the agreement will be ripped up. Albert Rivera will be free to come to an accord with someone else. He's making a habit of this. He had one with PSOE's Pedro Sánchez until Sánchez failed so drastically with the two investiture votes in March.
Added to the PP's 137 deputies, the 32 C's deputies give a total of 169, to which one more can be added - the vote of Ana Oramas of the Coalición Canaria. She had given Sánchez her backing in March. Like Rivera she has switched sides. Where will the remaining six come from? Anywhere? If they do not, it looks like a Christmas Day election.
Rummaging around among other regional parties might produce something. The conservative nationalists in Catalonia and the Basque Country have thirteen seats between them. While there wouldn't be formal support for Rajoy, could there be abstentions? Given Rajoy and the PP's attitudes towards Catalonia in particular, it might seem odd that this could even be a possibility. But the C's Inés Arrimadas was aware enough of it to have warned Rajoy last week that the C's could withdraw their support if there were nationalists' abstentions "in exchange for something".
Rajoy was talking to Sánchez yesterday, trying to convince him to get PSOE deputies to at least abstain. The painful truth for PSOE is that whichever way it goes, it cannot win. To be seen to be allowing Rajoy in would bring accusations of the "casta" at work - the two-party system of the PP and PSOE, so despised by Podemos (and once upon a time by the C's). Sánchez would receive nothing in return. His party could lose a lot if he did. President Armengol in the Balearics will have been reminding him of this; Podemos have been making warning noises about the Balearic pact of government if PSOE enables a Rajoy investiture.
None of the four main parties, with the possible exception of the PP, can afford to have a third election. PSOE lost seats in June, so did the C's. Podemos in effect stayed as they were, regardless of the alliance with the United Left. Who's to say that the PP wouldn't add to the fourteen seats it gained in June? A third election might just make it even more inevitable that the PP will finally carry on, though the C's cannot guarantee losing more than the eight seats they did in June.
The left, unless there were to be an unexpected rebound by PSOE and a leap for Podemos (also unlikely), would not be able to form a government, just as they were unable to after the December and June elections. Rajoy and the PP are, in truth, the only game in town. Sánchez may as well select six sacrificial names at random and get them to say sí rather than no.
If Rajoy were able to somehow drum up the 176 votes, what would it mean for Rivera and for the C's? The point to be made is that the agreement does not mean that there would be a coalition; it is only one to facilitate the investiture. It is possible that there might be a coalition, though this seems unlikely. Rajoy and Rivera don't like each other; the chemistry would be all wrong.
The PP would therefore form a minority government, with policies determined by the agreement. The C's have pressed for and obtained acceptance in respect of, for example, social policies, but Rivera has not got all that he wanted regarding anti-corruption measures: both the C's and Podemos have these at the heart of their respective agendas.
For Rivera, the agreement is designed to show the electorate that the C's are the only party capable of and willing to negotiate with both the left and the right. It might also demonstrate they are a party of vacillators; Rivera will prefer the positive spin. And he badly needs to get that across. The slump in the C's vote in June made it imperative that the party was not sidelined and so might undergo a decline as rapid as its rise. Prominence, more than anything, is what Rivera gets.
Maybe neither wanted to bind himself to anything long-term. The agreement is short-term as it is. If Rajoy fails to gain the support of 176 deputies in either of the two votes (one tomorrow, the other on Friday), the agreement will be ripped up. Albert Rivera will be free to come to an accord with someone else. He's making a habit of this. He had one with PSOE's Pedro Sánchez until Sánchez failed so drastically with the two investiture votes in March.
Added to the PP's 137 deputies, the 32 C's deputies give a total of 169, to which one more can be added - the vote of Ana Oramas of the Coalición Canaria. She had given Sánchez her backing in March. Like Rivera she has switched sides. Where will the remaining six come from? Anywhere? If they do not, it looks like a Christmas Day election.
Rummaging around among other regional parties might produce something. The conservative nationalists in Catalonia and the Basque Country have thirteen seats between them. While there wouldn't be formal support for Rajoy, could there be abstentions? Given Rajoy and the PP's attitudes towards Catalonia in particular, it might seem odd that this could even be a possibility. But the C's Inés Arrimadas was aware enough of it to have warned Rajoy last week that the C's could withdraw their support if there were nationalists' abstentions "in exchange for something".
Rajoy was talking to Sánchez yesterday, trying to convince him to get PSOE deputies to at least abstain. The painful truth for PSOE is that whichever way it goes, it cannot win. To be seen to be allowing Rajoy in would bring accusations of the "casta" at work - the two-party system of the PP and PSOE, so despised by Podemos (and once upon a time by the C's). Sánchez would receive nothing in return. His party could lose a lot if he did. President Armengol in the Balearics will have been reminding him of this; Podemos have been making warning noises about the Balearic pact of government if PSOE enables a Rajoy investiture.
None of the four main parties, with the possible exception of the PP, can afford to have a third election. PSOE lost seats in June, so did the C's. Podemos in effect stayed as they were, regardless of the alliance with the United Left. Who's to say that the PP wouldn't add to the fourteen seats it gained in June? A third election might just make it even more inevitable that the PP will finally carry on, though the C's cannot guarantee losing more than the eight seats they did in June.
The left, unless there were to be an unexpected rebound by PSOE and a leap for Podemos (also unlikely), would not be able to form a government, just as they were unable to after the December and June elections. Rajoy and the PP are, in truth, the only game in town. Sánchez may as well select six sacrificial names at random and get them to say sí rather than no.
If Rajoy were able to somehow drum up the 176 votes, what would it mean for Rivera and for the C's? The point to be made is that the agreement does not mean that there would be a coalition; it is only one to facilitate the investiture. It is possible that there might be a coalition, though this seems unlikely. Rajoy and Rivera don't like each other; the chemistry would be all wrong.
The PP would therefore form a minority government, with policies determined by the agreement. The C's have pressed for and obtained acceptance in respect of, for example, social policies, but Rivera has not got all that he wanted regarding anti-corruption measures: both the C's and Podemos have these at the heart of their respective agendas.
For Rivera, the agreement is designed to show the electorate that the C's are the only party capable of and willing to negotiate with both the left and the right. It might also demonstrate they are a party of vacillators; Rivera will prefer the positive spin. And he badly needs to get that across. The slump in the C's vote in June made it imperative that the party was not sidelined and so might undergo a decline as rapid as its rise. Prominence, more than anything, is what Rivera gets.
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