Showing posts with label Andratx. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Andratx. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

The House That Eugenio Built

They sent the bulldozers in during the second week of November 2010. The wrecking and tidying-up crews worked efficiently and effectively. Where a chalet had stood became once more a plot of land in an area of special countryside protection: pastoral equilibrium was re-established. The chalet, over seventy square metres in size, should not have been built. The only licence for building had been for the renovation of a farm shed.

Who is to say that had the chalet not been demolished that it would not now be subject to "regularisation"? Many a property on Mallorca's rural land was granted an amnesty last year under the regional government's Ley de Suelo. The futures of some of these buildings would have been documented and stored in the pending trays of town halls or other authorities, some stamped in red with a threatening "denuncia", awaiting transmission to the courts. Their executions had been stayed at their death rows among bucolic greenery until one day came the pardon. Pay a suitable retribution and all will be forgiven. The bulldozers sighed. There was no work for them.

But the chalet I mention never had a chance. It had to be removed and to be levelled. It had to be restored as a place of natural habitat. There is no X to mark the spot of where it was. You wouldn't know it had ever been there. This was ground-zero chalet. There were strong political as well as legal reasons why all physical memory of it should have been expunged. This had been the chalet that Eugenio had built. 

Eugenio Hidalgo, the one-time and now disgraced and imprisoned mayor of Andratx, was one of the unlucky ones. Unlucky because, though he engaged in widespread planning abuses and got sent to prison as a result, he might well have believed that, abuse or not, the chalet would eventually be given official reprieve or become sufficiently well established in terms of the years it had been built that it would no longer be the target for the bulldozers. After all, wasn't this how such things worked in Mallorca?

Had the chalet been anyone else's, it might well have been reprieved. But it wasn't anyone else's. It was Eugenio's. A further pound of flesh was required in addition to the jail sentence. It became ground-zero chalet in a revenge attack. The demolition was symbolic restitution for the destruction of public confidence through the chain reaction of what Eugenio hadn't bargained for: the actions of anti-corruption prosecutors newly emboldened and supported by the national attorney-general. Matas, Munar, Ordinas, Nadal, Buils, many more have been burned by the firestorm that the prosecutors unleashed. And it was one whose source can be localised to protected land in Andratx. Ground zero.

Llorenç Suau is a mayoral descendant of Eugenio's. The current mayor of Andratx, he won't be re-standing. In October last year, Llorenç and two former mayors, Isabel Alemany and Francesc Femenias, were indicted to declare "in quality" by a Palma court looking into supposed irregularities surrounding the licence for developing car parking in Sant Elm, which just so happens to be the property of the Alemany family. Though not accused, Suau has opted against re-election as he supports the stance of his party, the PP, on not having candidates caught up in legal proceedings. He reckons, though, that whereas the presumption of innocence is a right for all citizens, it doesn't apply to politicians. There is now a presumption of guilt. And, sadly and generally speaking, he is right; sadly because it shouldn't be so and generally speaking because, notwithstanding attempts to clean up local politics, the public wants to believe in political crookedness.

For Llorenç, the problem is that there is someone whose guilt was proven. Eugenio's. Hidalgo is the cross that Andratx mayors have to bear. Llorenç knows this. Innocent or not innocent, the public smell urban planning indiscretions - real or not real - as acutely as they detect the burning of forest land. Their senses have been heightened by the Hidalgo-fallout and Tramuntana firestorms.

Elsewhere, and even with rules laid down by the PP regarding candidates, mayors are not as prepared as Llorenç to sacrifice themselves. Tomeu Cifre in Pollensa is one. Local rather than general party rules appear to apply to him. He has not been charged with any criminal offence, thus he can re-stand and, it should be noted, court documentation in respect of one accusation against him appears not to have been forthcoming from his accuser.

But perhaps mud sticks, regardless. Eugenio didn't build a house of corruption for mayors; it was there before him. What he did build, though, was an enduring edifice of perception, proven in and reinforced by the courts, that will not shift from public sight. Innocence, guilt. Who would be a mayor?

Thursday, December 04, 2014

Society Is Sick: Corruption in Spain

There was a time when I paid comparatively little attention to politics in Mallorca or indeed to politics in Spain. What made me take far greater notice was what happened on 27 November 2006. The mayor of Andratx, Eugenio Hidalgo, was arrested, as was the director-general of land planning at the regional government. The trail from the corruption case which exposed Hidalgo was to lead to Jaume Matas, then the president of the Balearics. More or less all the corruption investigations since had their origins in Andratx. Investigators and judges began to make links; Urdangarin, Munar, Matas, you can trace them all back to that day eight years ago.

It is conceivable that fewer cases might have cropped up had it not been for the former attorney-general, Cándido Conde-Pumpido, seeking and appointing regional prosecutors to root out corruption and later creating the anti-corruption and organised crime prosecution service. In 2004 the Balearics got the first regional prosecutor, Juan Carrau, who instigated the case against Hidalgo, by which time he had been joined by the second prosecutor, the more celebrated Pedro Horrach. There are now four prosecutors in all.

As we are all too well aware, new corruption cases still arise with regrettable frequency. The prosecutors have greater powers, but they can't prevent corruption, only investigate it. Nevertheless, maybe these greater powers have had some deterrent effect or at least helped to improve the perception of corruption in Spain. The latest survey of corruption in 175 countries by Transparency International (TI) shows that Spain has improved three places since last year; it is ranked 37.

A director at TI, Alejandro Salas, has suggested that when economic times were good, corruption was hidden. Economic difficulties have brought about greater awareness and willingness to pursue the corrupt and a more open public and political debate about corruption. Hence why, one might suggest, Mariano Rajoy has been talking about the subject, but then Rajoy's pronouncements have tended to be reactive, as was the case with the now infamous "Spain is not corrupted".

Rajoy didn't actually say that "Spain is not corrupt". It was "is not corrupted". The semantic distinction is important, as it implies a corruption of recent times. But this is a view with which Alejandro Salas disagrees. "Corruption is not new in Spain. It is an historical phenomenon." "What strikes me is that corruption in Spain is very structural, very systematic. It is not just one party, not one government, not one province. It is impregnated into different sectors of society." Rajoy might be advised to take note of what Salas says, just as he might like to consider words that were spoken in 1993. "It is not politicians who are corrupt, but it is society that is sick." Who spoke them? Jaume Matas, who, in addition to having twice been Balearics president, was a colleague of Rajoy's in Aznar's national government. Matas was quoting a Spanish philosopher, José Luis Aranguren.

Gabriel Garcias is a professor of law at the university in Palma. He has said that "so long as there is no ethical or moral transformation in society, the law will solve nothing". I used this same quote in an article from 2010. The prosecutors have been prosecuting since then, but have they really had a deterrent effect? Maybe, but at the time I was quoting Garcias I was also quoting the Balearics spokesperson for the UPyD party, Juan Luis Calbarro: "The Balearics have the highest number of people who are corrupt or allegedly corrupt per square metre in Spain." Calbarro explained the link between politics and society thus: "businesspeople who are friends of certain politicians, businesspeople who assemble companies in order to receive adjudications decided by their political friends, as well as the wives, husbands, cousins and nephews of politicians".

Since the emergence of the Hidalgo affair in 2006, I have written some 70 articles with corruption as a central theme. The society-politics nexus has been a not uncommon aspect of these articles. Some might aver that politics are divorced from society at large. In terms of general society's distance from the political machinery and from decision-making, this is probably so, but society and politics are most definitely not separated in other ways. They are one and the same when it comes to corruption. Garcias and Calbarro said so in 2010. Salas now says so, and even Matas implied this twenty-one years ago.

The historical phenomenon of corruption to which Alejandro Salas refers can be found over the centuries. For example, the Inquisition was inherently corrupt on account of the need to fund and perpetuate itself, while the sham democracy from the later nineteenth century run by the local political bosses, the "caciques", was so corrupt that no one even sought to hide the fact. "Spain is not corrupted." It's a semantic error.

Saturday, November 12, 2011

That's Entertainment: Industrial estates

Andratx is to get an industrial estate. Lucky old Andratx. Or should that be unlucky old Andratx?


The good news is that it might not be built because of land restrictions. The bad news is that the town hall is looking at how it might be able to sidestep by-laws.


Why my negativity? Haven't I often spoken of the need for greater diversification in the Mallorcan economy? Haven't I even spoken of industry being a potential source of tourism? I have indeed. The need for diversification is unquestionable, and around Andratx there is relatively little by way of industrial activity. So shouldn't I be all in favour of an industrial estate?


In theory, yes. It is not a case of being against an industrial estate but of being highly suspicious as to what might end up on it. Industrial estates have become a misnomer, as they are littered with anything other than industry.


Part of the reason why Andratx wants an industrial estate is that it does have some light industry but it clogs up parts of the town and port. Far better, therefore, to put it all in one place, thus easing congestion and offering better facilities for the light industry. However, it's the nature of this light industry that had me shaking my head. Carpentry, metalwork, small construction firms; much of it is of the small workshop-type business, and it is just this sort of business that has been leaving industrial estates elsewhere in Mallorca in droves.


Mallorca's local industry has suffered badly by comparison with other parts of Spain. A decline of some 30% in industrial activity in the five years up to 2010 was way higher than elsewhere, the 30% drop more or less equating to the 30% that is said to be how much more expensive it is to produce in Mallorca than much of Spain.


The greater cost of production and the fall in industrial activity are not solely due to higher transport costs; the Canary Islands, by contrast, haven't suffered to anything like the same extent as Mallorca. One factor that has been critical has been the cost of industrial land; twice as much as the Canaries, for example, or six times as much as Aragon on the mainland. And key to the cost of industrial land in Mallorca have been speculative developments and speculative property acquisition.


Take a look around some industrial estates, and you come to appreciate that they don't necessarily exist to aid industry; small industry especially. As you enter one of Inca's estates, what do you see? Car showrooms, one for Honda power tools and equipment, an office building for a major hotel chain, Garden. It is not untypical. Banks have colonised industrial estates, as have entertainment centres which can even include the ambiguously monikered "alternative" clubs. Part of Inca's third industrial estate will be set aside for entertainment. Why?


The reason is very simple. The level of speculation has driven the cost of land up to such an extent that the only businesses that can afford them are the bigger businesses or those that can generate good profits, and so I have to assume that "alternative" clubs can do just that.


According to the Chamber of Commerce, at least 20% of industrial land on Mallorca is in fact used for commercial purposes, and this percentage will vary significantly from town to town and estate to estate. The figure is probably on the conservative side, as it has also been reported that entertainment centres have gobbled up so much land that should have been for industrial purposes that only some 3% is available.


One has to treat this figure with some caution, as there are estates which are under-utilised and always have been, something they might wish to consider in Andratx. Nevertheless, and though economic hard times have clearly played their part, it is the sheer cost of the land that has resulted in plots being unoccupied or in businesses abandoning estates; and the small businesses, the carpentry and metalwork concerns and such like, have been the ones to the fore in getting out.


So Andratx is to get an industrial estate. Good for Andratx. Or is it good for speculators? Unless the town hall were to find some mechanism whereby land could be affordable, its wishes to have its small businesses transfer will probably be thwarted. These businesses might be well advised to stay put, and if they do, then the industrial estate will have achieved nothing. Congestion won't have been alleviated and there will be a part of the town that is given over to showrooms and entertainment.



Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Monday, May 26, 2008

Close To You

Unless you happen to be one of those eco-egotists who enjoys the silence of the ice caps, there is no such thing as holiday without noise. And even a holiday on an ice cap is not totally silent; there is the sound of the melting ice sheets below you, but that's a whole different story. There is of course degree of noise and there is also compromise. Noise, holidays and compromise. I'm not sure you can put these three words into one coherent verb-based sentence, which is why I haven't.

When they developed holiday resorts, there was a need for proximity. The hotel factories and their human raw material wanted the bars and restaurants that the factories begat to be close by, and the bars and restaurants were only too happy to oblige. But the proximity created its own problems, not least of which was noise.

At one point, noise was mainly a thing of the spoken human voice or shouted human voice. But gradually noise became also a thing of the microphone, the music machines, the stage, the karaoke and ever more shouted human voices. It was not simply the proximity of the clusters of bars; the hotel factories became net contributors to the noise as well. Noise begat noise. Then finally, someone said that something had to be done, so they started to clear the terraces before midnight, they installed limiters on the sound systems, they made them close doors on the strike of 12. They changed the holiday forever, because noise had always been the unbrochure emblem of the holiday; noise is after midnight and laughter and shouting and music and romantic-into-the-wee-small-hours of balmy nights. They looked for compromise, and still they look for compromise.

They look but often they do not find. The midnight curfew is not enough - for some. And it isn't necessarily just a case of the wind being in the wrong direction. The noise. The sound of the entertainers, the encouragement of the audience and the cabaret song. All that noise and all that sound. There is certainly no compromise when the Noise Patrol come and close you down. Apparently this has happened to one of the hotel factories, the Lagomonte. And then there's the sound from the Bellevue Show Garden, also apparently.

When they developed holiday resorts, they should have neglected proximity. They should have avoided the temptation to make them like factory towns with the houses built within walking distance of the furnace, mill or colliery. The factory begat the houses, and the noise was that of the factory itself, which everyone came not to notice. Not so the noise of the hotel factories and their bars and restaurants.


Sort of breaking news ... Remember all that corruption stuff in Andratx. It was on this blog for ages well over a year ago. Well, the ex-mayor, Eugenio Hidalgo, has gone down for four years.


QUIZ
Chain - Forgot yesterday. Anyway, how do you get from George Michael to "Brimful of Asha"? Yesterday's title - "Chaka Khan, Chaka Khan". Today's title - who?

(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

Give Us This Day

Today is? The day it normally rains gatos y perros in September? The day England go out of the European Championships? The day to celebrate Mallorca?

At the moment, there is no sign of the 12th September storm, and one can but hope that England don’t screw up. The only certainty therefore is that today is Mallorca Day, except no-one seems to know much about it. As it is one of the few “days” that doesn’t require most things to close down, and is therefore not a holiday, then it is likely to simply pass people by. Last year they tried to give the “day” a boost by giving out free flags. This year there is no such gesture. Moreover, there seems to be a lack of understanding as to what the “day” is all about. It is in fact a commemoration of 12th September 1276 when the then kingdom of Mallorca was granted a form of constitution. So, now you know.

Meanwhile, the Andratx case, now back in full investigative swing, has added an unlikely person to the list of those being investigated. Selina Scott, remember her? Allegedly there is some “irregularity”.

Yet more on Crocs. I was at the Miramar clinic in Palma today for a scan. Lasers, and all manner of electrical stuff flying around. Well, it didn’t break down or seem to be interefered with. No evidence of any static electricity gumming up the works. The bloke who was doing it had a really nice pair of blue Crocs.

And on a sort of personal note. Anyone who has read the profile thing that comes with this blog will have seen my mention of Weather Report. Joe Zawinul, the keyboard-player with the band (and prior to that with Cannonball Adderley and Miles Davis) died yesterday. Ah well.


QUIZ
Yesterday - Nirvana of course. Today. Rather than a title question. Weather Report was essentially two musicians. Zawinul and which sax player?

(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Summer Wind

Is there anything sadder than a lilo making a dash for it? The wind picks up suddenly. The lilo seizes the moment, and within the time it takes a small child to bawl out, the lilo is heading for France. It’s an uneven contest. A lilo with a following wind can out-manoeuvre even the strongest of swimmers. It bounds across the sea, a Barnes Wallis of inflated plastic bouncing on top of the waves.

As yet another one took to the high seas this afternoon, I saw it differently. White, it was no longer a lilo, it had become “Rover”, pursuing Number Six. By hook or by crook it was going to track him down. Then I went back to my book.


Well there are some sadder things. An Alcúdia celebrity died yesterday. “El coralero de Alcúdia”, Joaquín Rodríguez Castelao, failed to recover from the effects of decompression during a dive. Quino was a renowned diver, considered one of the world’s finest.


And so to the weather. Even hotter, Sa Pobla closing in on the 100 mark yesterday.


A good while since the ex-mayor of Andratx has been mentioned here. Some may have wondered what happened to him after the scandal erupted over corruption. Well next month will see some more action on the case, but meantime he has put a house on the market. Not any old house. A house worth 2.9 million euros. Hmm.


QUIZ
Some questions do surprise. I had thought “Piccadilly Collection” was rather obscure, but not so. Steve at Little Britain was one who thanked me for managing to Squeeze in a mention yesterday. Today’s title - well, it was a boy band, but the original was by ...?

(PLEASE REPLY TO andrew@thealcudiaguide.com AND NOT VIA THE COMMENTS THINGY HERE.)