New Spanish immigration laws

The Spanish Government intends to further modify the immigration laws in Spain and has announced that one of the measures it wants to include in the reform is the legalisation of immigrants who are illegally employed, including agricultural workers (mainly seasonal fruit and veg pickers) and women working as cleaners or child-carers in many Spanish homes. It is much more common to employ domestic staff in Spain than in other European countries and literally thousands of illegal immigrants find it relatively easy to find employment cleaning houses or looking after children while parents work. The Socialist government hopes that by legalising the situation of these workers, they will reduce illegal employment because for the first time, employers will have to give their employees a legal contract, a legal wage, and will have to pay their seguridad social (national health payments).

The Spanish Defence Minister also announced new government policies regarding boats ferrying immigrants to Spain from the North African coast which until now have been turned back when intercepted by Spanish authorities. The whole illegal Africa to Europe ferry trade is a dirty business, with thousands of Africans paying ridiculously high sums of money to ruthless owners of flimsy vessels who tend to overcrowd their boats and enter Spanish waters off the coasts of the Canary Islands, Cadiz or Gibraltar. Each year Spanish police turn back boats packed with African immigrants, or rescue from the sea hundreds of Africans who have been ordered by the boat owner to jump off the boat and to swim the rest of the way and simply do not have the strength to continue. Most of them are returned to their country. Bodies are often washed up onto the beaches of Spain of Africans who have drowned in their attempt to reach the shore.

The announcement made by the Spanish Defence Minister Jose Bono last week that boats will no longer be intercepted by Spanish navy boats unless they request help, has been met with fierce criticism from the PP opposition party who have said the new policies are a clear example of Spain stepping out of line with European Union immigration policies. The Socialist government however say that the new policies are an attempt to break the illegal traffic and illegal employment of immigrants and to tackle a situation which the previous government was unable to solve. The proposal will be explained to the Spanish parliament this week in what promises to be a very heated debate.

Housing market still growing on the Costa Blanca

According to today's edition of El Información, Alicante's local newspaper, the housing market on the Costa Blanca continues to grow thanks to demand from foreign residents and tourists.

A report commissioned by the Association of Building Promotors and Constructors (Asociación de Promotores y Constructores de Edificios (Apce)) and released yesterday claims that Alicante leads the list of most popular Spanish provinces among non-Spanish property buyers in Spain.

According to the report, tourists from abroad currenty own about 300.000 holiday homes in the province of Alicante, a figure which is expected to rise by 26.32% over the next four years. House sales to foreign tourists or residents in the Costa Blanca are estimated at 65.700 during the same period (2004 - 2008).

On the other hand, this season has not been a good one for hotels in the region - few Costa Blanca hotels have reached 100% occupation. Hotel management representatives consulted by El Información blame this year's relatively poor figures on the fact that more and more tourists who come regularly to this area of Spain are being attracted by the possibility of purchasing a holiday home instead of going to a hotel year after year.

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Property market in Spain

Climatic change in Spain

According to the latest report Publisher by the European Environmental Agency, the UE member status most affected by climatic change are Spain and Portugal.

The report says that average temperatures in Europe have increased almost 1º more than the average in the rest of the world, and that global warming in Spain and Portugal has been even higher. The report warns of increased drought in southern Spain, more forest fires, wide-spread heatwaves and further risks for human health due to the heat.

According to the authors of the report, cold winters will have disappeared by 2080 by which time summer temperatures will be on average 10 percent higher than they are now.
In the 1990s the number of floods, drought or heatwaves in Europe doubled compared to the 1980s, and the cost of these natural disasters in terms of money now adds up to 11.000.000.000 euros each year.

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Heatwave in Spain

ETA continues its campaign against tourist targets

Today at mid-day the fifth bomb planted by ETA in the past few days exploded in Llanes (Asturias), without causing material damage or injuries.

Traditionally ETA makes its presence known in the Summer, often using tourist resorts in order to maximize international awareness and threaten the Spanish tourist industry. This year the bombs have been quite small compared to other years, and rather than concentrating on the South coast, ETA has planted the bombs in the North of Spain in Asturias and Cantabria.

Today true to its usual tactics, ETA telephoned a newspaper to warn authorities of the existence and the location of the bomb, an hour before it was due to explode in the Port of Llanes. Police had time to shut off the area and when the bomb did go off in a police-controlled explosion in a litter bin, some 400 metres from where the ETA spokesman had said it was located, it turned out to be a small explosive.

This explosive is similar to those used in similar incidents in Ribadesella and Gijón last week. Until this Summer ETA had not launched a terrorist attack since the 11th March train bombings carried out by Islamic extremist terrorists, and many Spaniards had hoped that the sheer scale of the March attacks and the fact that the Spanish Government pointed the blame at ETA had shocked the Basque terrorist group into a sort of unofficial truce. Events during the last few days seem to show that this is not the case.

Spanish Interior Minister, José Antonio Alonso, told Spanish reporters that as usual ETA was trying to disrupt Spain's democratic system, and he said that the terrorist group would not achieve its objective.

Tourist safety in Spain

This morning a woman was killed in Alicante's Postiguet beach by one of the tractors cleaning the beach. The woman was 54 and was lying on the sand when the vehicle caught her unaware.

Tourists are warned to take the following precautions while on the beach during their holidays in Spain this Summer:

1. If you do go for early morning strolls along the beach, bear in mind that the beach cleaning forces are usually in action from about 7.00 a.m. to 9.00 a.m. They are dangerous machines and visibility is limited from the driver's position.
2. Always check the beach-safety services flag. Green means it is ok to go for a swim, yellow means be careful and don't go too far out into the sea, and red means stay out. These warnings are not made to inconvenience beachgoers - if the red flag is out it really does mean that it is dangerous to go swimming in the sea, because of currents. Each Summer tourists drown when swimming in the sea in Spain, and often it is because they did not notice the red flag.
3. Don't forget you aren't allowed to take animals to the beach. For the past two years Spanish police have become much stricte. If you are found walking your dog along the beach you are liable to a fine on the spot.
4. If you are on a rocky beach, buy some secure rubber shoes to use when going swimming. Otherwise you may be stung by one of the many species of sea anemone or sea urchins and while not fatal obviously, the stings can be very painful and may need treatment.
5. Most beaches have a Red Cross post somewhere for any first-aid emergencies. Look for one if you need it.

European residents in Spain

Euroresidentes has been contacted by a company commissioned by the European Commission to carry out a study on e-government services available to "mobile citizens" in Europe. “Mobile” citizens are defined as "European citizens who live and/or work in a European country other than their country of birth".

As of January 1st, 2005, the IDABC program of the European Commission will enable and support the Interoperable Delivery of Pan-European e-Government Services to Public Administrations, Businesses and Citizens. The study PEGS has been commissioned to determine stakeholder requirements for e-government services at pan-European level. Pan-European e-government services (PEGS) are defined as cross-border electronic public services, informational or interactive, supplied by either national public administrations or European public administrations and provided to European businesses or citizens by means of interoperable trans-European telematic networks. In order to prepare a list of necessary and beneficial PEGS that could be implemented under the program, the Decision 2004/387/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (21st of April 2004) states that comprehensive consultations should be undertaken, which should involve all concerned stakeholders in all relevant sectors, and should focus on the needs of and benefits for citizens and businesses.

Our role in this project will to provide an online survey which any users from other EU countries living in Spain will be invited to fill in. We will be publishing the survey in September.

We have also been asked to provide the PEGS coordinators with the names of people prepared to be interviewed in more detail about their experiences, as a foreign resident in Spain, with public administration (Spanish - as in residence, NIE, work permits etc. and your national administration, as in passport renewal, registering births with your Embassy, consulate services .....). The interviews will be carried out by phone at the end of this month or beginning of September. Anyone interested in participating in this particular phase of the project please send us an email to euroresi@euroresidentes.com

Exploitation of Spanish grandmothers

According to an article in El Mundo today, 38% Spanish grandmothers over 65 look alter their grandchildren almost full time and are exposed to the risk suffering a new condition called “slave-grandmother síndrome”. Another 22.7% look after their grandchildren sometimes, but not every day. The stress suffered by some grandmothers who feel weighed down by the responsability and exhausted by their task, causes some of them to suffer this syndrome according to a book published by the Help against Addiction Foundation and discussed during the 2nd edition of the Conference “Family in 21st Century Society”.

The book claims that there are more than 4 million women over 65 in Spain, and 30.9 of them provide fundamental support to their family network. In other words, 1.282.000 women over 65 are still the main “carers” within their family unit. Only 17.6% grandmothers over 65 are cared for by their families.

These figures have been disclosed in a paper given by the sociologist Lourdes Perez during the Conference. Perez said that “slave-grandmother syndrome” is a real condition suffered by elderly grandmothers in charge of the care of their young grandchildren. Perez said it is difficult to diagnose the condition, but that it is characterised by the appearance in these women of chronic symptoms of common illnesses which refuse to respond to conventional treatment and produce chronic suffering and depression in the patients and a notable deterioration in their standard of living.

As many as a third of Spanish women over 65 still live with at least one of their sons or daughters, usually in their own home (as opposed to the home of their offspring), which means they still have the traditional role of main carer, and are expected to carry out the majority of domestic tasks for the whole family, despite their age.

Speakers at the conference coincided in saying that Spain’s ageing population should not be seen as a problem, in that grandparents could offer a great deal to the modern family in terms of support, logistics, affection and even economic support. But that the line must be drawn between enjoying such advantages and blatently exploiting grandmothers to such an extent that they suffer illness as a result.

E-commerce sector in Spain takes off at last

ABC publishes an article today about the latest report of Nielsen about the number of Spanish visits to e-commerce websites. According to the report, visits of Spanish Internet users to commercial web sites are up by 31% which means that about 2.77 million users have consulted sites offering products or services online this year. This is certainly good news for people offering services online to customers who until now had proved to be one of Europe's most reluctant converts to electronic commerce.

This new report confirms articles about the ecommerce sector in Spain published last month claiming that Spain was starting to catch up with its European partners in terms of use of Internet.

According to this latest Nielsen report, the three most visited ecommerce sites in Spain are eBay, el Corte Ingles and Ciao!.

Gibraltar's 300th anniversary of British Rule

Most Spanish newspapers today print articles about this week's visit to Gibraltar of the British Defence Minister, George Hoon. The Spanish Foreign Minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos, has expressed to the media here the Spanish Government's "unease" and "deep disappointment" regarding the visit of Hoon who has gone to Gibraltar to attend the 300 anniversary of British rule of Gibraltar. Hoon arrived yesterday and is expected to take part in the celebrations tomorrow to mark the exact date of British occupation.

Last month many sectors of the Spanish media and Government criticised the recent visit of Princess Ann to Gibraltar. She also visited in order to attend events planned to celebrate the 300th anniversary of British rule.

Today the Spanish Ambassador in London Carlos Miranda, met with the Secretary of State for Europe, Denis McShane, in what is seen by Spanish media as an emergency meeting called to discuss Hoon's visit to Gibraltar. Infact in declarations to the press after their meeting, both MsShane and Miranda said that the whole issue of Gibraltar should be dealt with at another time in a calm and peaceful manner!!

CBC NEWS looking for soldiers who fought in Iraq

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation produces a weekly TV current affairs show called CBC News: Sunday (www.cbc.ca/sunday) and is preparing a documentary about the stories of soldiers who fought in Iraq as part of the "coalition of the willing". The producers have contacted Euroresidentes to ask us to help them look for soldiers from Britain and Spain who have returned from Iraq and would like to participate in the programme which aims to tell their individual, personal storiesremoved from the politics of the war.

Anyone interested in participating in this programme should contact Perlita Ettedgui of CBC News, either by email (perlita_ettedgui@cbc.ca) or by phone (1-416-205-7349)

Housing prices in Spain still on the rise

According to report published at the end of last month by TINSA, the price of property in Spain has risen this year even more than it did last year, despite well-publicised reports published recently predicting the contrary. This year newly built houses cost 16% more than they did a year ago, and used homes 19% more. Infact housing prices in Spain have risen overall by a staggering 220% over the past five years ,and by as much as 256% in the Balearic Islands (Mallorca, Minorca and Ibiza).

TINSA, Real Estate Appraisals Ltd, founded in 1985 after an initiative by the Spanish Savings Banks Confederation (CECA), is Spain's biggest real estate appraisal company. In 2003 TINSA surveyed and valued 330,000 properties and increased its turnover by 25%.

According to TINSA's most recent report, in the first semester of this year the average value of each square metre in brand new housing has reached 1,726 € (an increase of 16.05% compared to the same period last year). Other properties which are not brand new average 1,458 € per square meter, an increase of 18.85%.

The report is not yet available in English, but the Spanish version is here. The most recent English translation of Tinsa's regular reports is this one, referring to the price of property during the first quarter of this year.

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