Spanish flu

Spain's National Epidemiology Centre warned today of an emerging flu epidemic. According to figures released by the Centre today, during the third week of December the number of cases of people with flu symptoms rose from 28 per thousand to 68 per thousand, taking it to the brink of an epidemic.

A spokesman has asked flu sufferers to stay at home so as to avoid collapsing hospital emergency units. The best remedy for this flu virus which, in principle, is a straightforward virus, is lots of rest and liquids.

Meanwhile, the wave of cold air which has swept over Spain during the past few days, leaving some villages in Northern Spain isolated and with no electricity because of the snow, seems to be abating. 239 villages in the province of Leon and over 100 in the province of Palencia were still incomunicado yesterday, and people in San Sebastian woke up to find the famous Concha Beach covered with a blanket of snow.

Drivers are advised to put chains on wheels in the northern regions, and to consult the latest road information available on the Dirección General de Tráfico website.

Sales of anti-depressives in Spain rise dramatically

According to an article in ABC this morning, the Spanish Health Minister, Elena Salgado, has requested a report from the Spanish Medication Agency to try to explain why sales of anti-depressives in Spain have tripled over the past 10 years. According to the same article, in 1994 7,285,182 packets of anti-depressives were sold to depression sufferes. In 1999 this figure had risen to 14,555,183 packets, and in 2003 no less than 21.238.858 packets of anti-depressives were prescribed under the Spanish National Health system to patients here. Prescriptions of tranquilizers have almost doubled during the same period.

The Health Minister wants a detailed description of the average patients receiving prescriptions for anti-depressives, with details of diagnosis and duration of the treatment.

Less than six months ago, the medical journal JAMA published a study on mental health in Europe which formed part of a global World Health Organisation report on the same theme. Infact the results showed that the number of mentally ill patients in Spain is relatively low compared with other countries. According to the report, 9.2% Spanish population suffers a mental illness, compared to 26.3% in the USA, 18.4% in France and 9.1% in Germany.

The study also found that in Europe 79% sufferers of mental illnesses receive no treatment. Apparantly 14% Europeans will suffer depression at some time their lives, and 16% will suffer anxiety.

Spanish Christmas lottery

Today is lottery day, and all over Spain for a couple of hours this morning the radio will be on in shops, taxis, offices etc. at top volume as the results are given. In what is a firm Christmas tradition, children fish balls out of big round things and sing the numbers out, under the careful eye of a jury, an audience and several notaries. There are dozens of combinations and different prizes, but the one everyone would like to win is El Gordo ("The Fat One").

Children chosen each year from a school in Madrid called San Ildefonso have been singing the numbers at the Christmas lottery ceremony for over two hundred years. Children from the school first took part in 1771 and the school was paid a few pennies for its collaboration which gives some kind of indication of just how established the whole lottery system is in Spain.

This year 15 girls and 16 boys aged between 9 and 12 will represent San Ildefonso, and the percentage of non-Spanish children reflects the multi-cultural society Spain is becoming. This year 5 children from Morrocco, 2 from Argelia, 2 from Guinea, 2 from Colombia, 1 from Ecuador and 1 from Brazil will be singing the numbers with their Spanish classmates.

This year the overall sum of lottery prizes will reach 1,801,800,000 euros (that's 1,248,201,077.59 pounds), which is why people get so excited about it. The first prize is 2 million euros, which works out at about 200,000 euros per lottery ticket (each number has a series of tickets, not just one).

According to all the inevitable statistics printed in the Spanish press this morning, over 74 percent of Spaniards usually participate in the Christmas lottery and the average amount spent on lottery tickets this year has been 63.56 euros (that's much less than the yearly average published by the Spanish Confederation of Housewives, Consumers and Users and quoted in our blog on Christmas spending in Spain yesterday).

Christmas spending in Spain

A report published this month by the Spanish Confederation of Housewives, Consumers and Users says that the average Spaniard spends the grand total of 832 euros on Christmas purchases. The report breaks this overall sum down into the following figures:
- 200 euros spent on food
- 240 euros spent on presents
- 60 euros spent on clothes
- 160 euros spent on travel
- 70 euros spent on leisure
- 112 euros on the Christmas lottery.
Actually that adds up to 842, so they've either added the total up wrong or have added 10 euros to one of the groups. Whichever way round it is alot of money.

The Spanish wage system is organised so that most wage-earners receive 14 payments per year rather than 12. So twice a year (usually in July and December) they receive a double wage . This system was introduced under Franco, presumably to make Spaniards feel richer as they approached the two most expensive times of year (Summer holidays and Christmas). Maybe a more practical system would be for the second "paga extra" to be paid in November rather than December, so that people can make their purchases before the horrific rise in prices which occurs just before Christmas.

According to the same report, the price of some products doubles in the days before Christmas. Examples given are king-sized prawns (traditionally served as a first course during the main Spanish Christmas meal on the evening Christmas Eve) and cava. The price of Lamb (another traditional Christmas dish in Spain) usually rises by 80-90 percent, fish by 50 per cent, and turkey by 45 percent.

Incidentally this year some shops have actually lowered the price of cava, because of the boycott against catalan cava which is being carried out by quite a large proportion of private sector companies and associations and some regional government institutions.

Last month Carod Rovira, leader of the Catalan seperatist party ERC which shares government with the Socialists in the Catalan regional government, encouraged fellow catalans to oppose Madrid's bid to host the 2012 olympic games. After his declarations, an increasing number of companies and associatons (the Association of Hotels in Benidorm is a recent example) all over Spain said they would boycott Catalan cava in protest and buy French champagne, or Asturian cider instead.

Carod Rovira was forced to apologise last week when another catalan regional party, CiU, claimed the boycott had led to cancellations of orders totalling 80.000 bottles. Carod Rovira said that his words had been taken out of all context and he did support Madrid's candidature after all. But his apology may have come too late for many Catalan producers of cava who, according to the financial newspaper Cincodias, usually sell 58 percent of their yearly production over the Christmas period. The newspaper says that the smaller cava producers are already feeling the effects of the boycott, although the real damage done to overall sales will not be known until the end of January.

Back to Christmas spending, the Spanish consumer's association advises consumers to buy early (a bit late now), and to buy fresh products days before Christmas and then freeze them, rather than waiting until the last minute. It also encourages shoppers to shop around and use markets, local shops, department stores and supermarkets according to what they want to buy, rather than buying everything at a hypermarket.

A last-minute piece of advice from us is to buy Catalan cava now that the price has gone down, and not just because it's quite a novelty to get a bargain at Christmas either. Catalan cava is much cheaper than French champagne, and infinitely nicer than Sidra (cider), especially if you prefer Brut to sweet fizzy wine. And it isn't the fault of the small producers of Catalan cava that Carod Rovira has an unfortunate habit of saying or doing the wrong thing at the wrong time anyway.

Misuse of public money and power

According to reports in El País and Cadena Ser this morning, the Spanish Accounts Tribune, the judicial body which is supposed to control public spending in Spain, has accused the Popular Party of illegal expenditure of public funds in a draft report due to be sent to the ministries concerned this week.

The report drawn up by members of the Tribune concludes that the PP Works Minister spent more than 60 million Euros of public money on illegal advertising campaigns during the second half of the last government. The former Works Minister is the current PP Spokesman, Eduardo Zaplana.

According to the Tribunal's report, not only were most of the advertising contracts signed by the Works Ministry and private-sector companies illegal, but they were usually given directly to publicity agencies hired at the same time by the PP to work directly for the Popular Party itself(as opposed to the Government) in several regional election campaigns.

One of the things specifically cited in the Tribunal's report and quoted in El País and Cadena Ser reports is an advertising campaign carried out at the beginning of 2003 to inform people about the rise in pensions. In the opinion of the members of the Tribunal, this campaign was unecessary given that all Spanish pensioners had already been individually informed of the reforms in a letter, a copy of which was posted to every single one of them.

The Tribunal criticises the impartiality of the contents of this campaign (worth 6 million euros) ordered by the Ministry as well as the way in which the contract tender was handled. In Spain whenever a public institution is going to hire the services of a private company, it is required by law to organize a tender process in which companies are invited to present their proposals. In the case of the 6 million euro pensions campaign, the call for tender was made public late on a Friday (few Spanish companies work on Friday afternoons) and one of the conditions was that all proposals had to be handed in by the following Monday at 9.30 a.m. The 6 million euro contract was subsequently given to a company chaired by a former PP party and government spokesman.

The Tribunal also rebukes the Works Ministry for having used the funds of certain organizations, such as Inserso, an institution which subsidises activities and holidays for pensioners who can't otherwise afford them, and the Institute for Women, for advertising campaigns which had nothing to do with the organizations themselves. As far as total figures are concerned, in 2002 (before Zaplana was appointed Works Minister) the Works Ministry spent 15 million euros on advertising. In the first three months of 2004 (during the Spanish general election campaign) the Works Ministry spent a mind-boggling 25 million euros of public money on advertising.

It would be amazing if the Spanish government started to tackle public spending and other grey areas of public service (incidently they might have to hurry. Zaplana said at a PP meeting in Alicante this weekend that he expected elections to be called in 2006, two years before they are due). The whole Spanish public sector is riddled with ways of getting round formal rules, and Spain remains in many ways a post dictatorial society in which who you know often counts for more than what you know. They even have a word for it. In Spanish the word enchufe ("plug") is used to describe whether or not you have got in somewhere, passed an exam or been given a job thanks to being literally "plugged in" by an influential person. If David Blunkett had been a Spanish minister, he would certainly not have been expected to resign for having tried to accelerate the visa application of his lover's nanny. Infact according to Spanish standards of public service, it would have been very unusual for him to have refused to intervene in the first place.

Meanwhile, according to an item of news published on some news sites this morning, apparantly Prince Charles has just paid no less than 15 million euros (of public money?) to a pension fund for his partner Camilla Parkes. Now that, to Spain's credits, certainly would raise a few disapproving eyebrows amongst Spaniards.

Spanair special offer

Spanair has just launched a new website and to celebrate the airline is offering flights for just 9 euros to customers who reserve their ticket via Internet.

From today and until Monday 20th December Spanair is offering 1000 tickets per day at this exceptionally low price. During the next four days customers can buy their tickets online to any of Spanair's national destinations. The special offer applies to flights between 1st January and 28th February.

Spanair flies to the following destinations: Alicante, Asturias, Barcelona, Bilbao, Fuerteventura, Gran Canaria, Ibiza, Lanzarote, Madrid, Malaga, Mallorca, Menorca, Santiago, Sevilla, Tenerife, Valencia and Vigo.

Victims' voice heard at Spain's 11-M Investigation Commission

Yesterday the chairwoman for the Association of Victims Families taught Spanish political parties and media a lesson during her intervention before the 11-M parliamentary commission. Having won the right to speak publically (the Association successfully fought the original plan which was that the testimonies of victims' families would be held behind closed doors), Pilar Manjón read out an eloquent, extremely critical and very moving document which had the approval of all members of the association comprised of victims who were injured in the terrorist attack, their families and the families of victims who were killed.

Mrs Manjón, whose son Daniel was killed in the bombs, appealed for the commission to be closed. She said that it had become a farse, and accused all parties of trying to gain political advantage from the investigation. She accused the main political parties and the Spanish media of using the victims' association to their own political (parties) or commercial (media) advantage. She said that the victims' were no longer prepared to be manipulated in this way. She also criticised the delays in care, psychiatric help and financial compensation experienced by the victims, and she underlined their need to know exactly why the terrorists were able to carry out the attacks and how the tragedy could be prevented from happening again. She maintained that a commission already corrupted because of the way it has been used by its members to score political points would be incapable of giving them the answers they needed in order to honour the victims who died or injured by the train bombs.

When she finished her speech, the spokesmen of the political parties represented in the Commission accepted the criticism unanimously, and the Spanish media seems to have done the same. Her criticism was headline news on all television and radio news programmes yesterday, and all Spanish newspapers contain the full version of her speech this morning. The Spanish government spokesman made a public apology to her and to the victims for the mistakes made by Spain's governments before and after the terrorist attacks. And shortly after her intervention, Spanish president José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, announced the creation of a High Commissioner for the victims of terrorism whose role will be to make sure that the needs of victims of terrorist acts are met and to improve communication between families of victims and government. The person to fill this post has already been named, Gregorio Peces Barba, vice-chancellor of the Carlos III University in Madrid and one of the fathers of the Spanish constitution.

Here are a couple of short extracts taken from the speech made by Pilar Manjón yesterday:

"We appear today before you today in the home of peoples' sovereignty where our only mission is to try to become the voices of those who are missing and those who were wounded and continue their calvary of pain... so that their voices..... alive and powerful in our memory, resound within these walls. One hundred and ninety two dead and one thousand five hundred wounded. A mere figure to many of you; a whole world to each one of us."

"We and our families have never before entered this house which is supposed to belong to all of us. Today is the first time you have made room for us.... because you would prefer to continue to use the victims as a weapon and argument to discredit your opponents. Your honours, let us just for a brief moment, be the only and real owners of this Commission, a commission which should have belonged to all Spanish citizens, but which you have taken over in order to pursue your own playground politics".

"We have come to reproach you as members of parliament and, above all, as representatives of the people, something you should not forget... to reproach your behaviour, your laughs, your noise, your cheers during some of the interventions before this commission, as if you were in a football match. What were you laughing at my honours? Why were you booing? What were you cheering for in this Commission?" etc etc.

Yesterday Pilar Monjón became the voice not only of the victims but of many of us who live in Spain and have been appalled at the way the 11 March parliamentary investigation commission has been carried out. While we can never properly understand the degree of the pain and desperation of Mrs Monjón and all the victims of the terrorist attacks, we certainly share her message and applaud her bravery yesterday as her small voice filled the parliament and everyone listened in silence.

Cheap flights to Spain

Monarch Airlines has announced its intention to set up a new base at Birmingham International Airport offering flights to Tenerife and Malaga as from next Summer. Until now Monarch only offered flights to Spain from Luton, Gatwick and Manchester airports. Airline directors have said the new routes linking Birmingham airport to Spain will result in an additional 250.000 passangers next year.

According to Tim Jeans, managing director of Monarch Scheduled "Today’s announcement represents a massive expansion in our programme, but is just the beginning of our longer term plan to drive the business forward.Birmingham can look forward to the addition of many more routes in the future, making travel from the region easier and more affordable than ever before."

Monarch has also announced new routes from Manchester to Almería (4 days per week) and Madrid (daily) aswell as more frequent flights to Málaga.

Flights from Birmingham to Spain start from £39 one way and go on sale today at http://www.flymonarch.com

Related links
Beautiful places in Spain
Number of Brits moving to Spain on the rise
Air travel to Spain
Plan a holiday in Spain
Buying property in Spain

Spain asks EU to include Spanish dialects as official working languages

Yesterday Spanish foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos delivered a memorandum to his EU colleagues requesting modification of the EU institutional regulations so that the "co-official" Basque, Galician and Catalan languages become official European Union working languages. For the proposal to be successful it has to be approved unanimously by all 25 member states.

In a press conference yesterday (which didn't receive much coverage as the entire Spanish media centred its attention on Zapatero's seemingly endless 14-hour appearance before the 11th March investigation commission), Moratinos said that the proposal reflected one of the Socialist party's electoral promises. He said that Spain was requesting "the maximum possible recognition" of the three Spanish languages within the EU, and he said that his colleagues had received the proposal with "respect and interest".

The Spanish government wants to see clause 1/58 of the linguistic regulations changed, so that Basque, Catalan and Galician can be used and translated during sessions of the European Parliament, Regional Committee and Ministerial meetings when regional government representatives from the Basque, Galician, Catalan regions attend. The government also requests that Spanish citizens who use these languages be able to write in them to European institutions, and that all legislation passed by the European Parliament and Council be published in all three languages, as well as Spanish.

Meanwhile the Valencian regional government has said it intends to challenge the proposal because it "doesn't fully satisfy the interests of Valencian people", presumably because Valenciano, which is almost exactly the same as Catalan, is not included as a language in its own right.

No mention was made yesterday about how much this may cost the European Union, whose funds are already tightly stretched. Providing translation services for the three languages in all European Union institutions, parliament and meetings would be extremely expensive, quite apart from being completely unecessary because everyone in Spain speaks and understands Castilian Spanish anyway, even if they prefer to speak their regional language.

Even if the Socialist government feels obliged to present these kind of divisive, expensive and complicated reforms to the European Union because of its minority government's dependance on the support of regional parties, it could surely have argued that this was not the moment to do so. Spain is still putting pressure on the other EU member states to continue to receive grants from the Cohesion Fund, and ever since he became President, Rodriguez Zapatero has been campaigning for the EU budget to remain at 1.24% GDP of member states which would help to avoid a drastic reduction in the amount of EU money received by Spain each year. Given that no decision has been made regarding the new EU budget yet, and given the linguistic complications which have arisen in EU institutions since the 10 new EU member states joined (with 10 different languages), it hardly seems tactful or sensible of the Spanish government to request linguistic reform just now.

Spanish president Rodriguez Zapatero in investigation commission

José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero declares today before the 11-M investigation commission in what will be the first ever appearance of a Spanish president before a parliamentary investigation.

Yesterday Zapatero told reporters that he will use the 45 minutes granted to him before questions start to explain in detail the state of the police investigations into the terrorist attack and the lessons that have been learned so far from the tragedy. He will also outline what measures his government proposes to take to help prevent an attack of this nature from ever happening again. The Spanish president stressed that he would not use his intervention to point his finger at anyone, because that would undermine the core objective of the commission which is to see how security can be improved.

The relatives of victims killed or injured in the terrorist attack will be able to listen to the president's declarations from the comfort of a special room in the Congress building. When Aznar appeared before the commission two weeks ago, victims families who had organised a small demostration on the steps of congress were insulted by some PP supporters who had organised their own demostration in support of Aznar.

Tension is expected to be at its highest when the Popular Party spokesman puts his party's questions to Zapatero. PP leaders have already suggested that they will ask Zapatero what role, if any, the Socialist party had in the demostration which was held on the day before election day outside the PP headquarters when thousands of Spaniards took to the streets demanding to know the truth from their government (it was not until Saturday night that the then Interior Minister said that it was possible that the terrorist act had been carried out by Islamic extremists. Until then he, Aznar and the rest of his government had insisted that the main line of investigation was ETA).

The day before elections in Spain is called "reflection day" and all political activity (rallies, demonstrations, meetings, interviews, party political broadcasts...) is forbidden. The Socialist party has always denied any role in the demostration held outside PP headquarters on 13th March, and the demonstrators themselves (who in theory could all have been arrested for participating that day in a demo), some of whom were well-known actors and singers, have always said that it was a spontaneous demostration, and people sent text messages to friends telling them to attend. PP party members have always insinuated that their political opponents were behind the demo, even though the Socialists never once criticised the government's handling of the crisis during the 3 days between the terrorist attack and elections, and like all parties, they cancelled all their political meetings out of respect for the victims.

It will be interesting to see how Zapatero deals with the questions posed by Eduardo Zaplana, PP spokesman, because the political style of both men is so different. Zaplana is much more agressive and tends to enjoy situations charged with tension. It will also be interesting to see whether anything useful will come out of the declarations of the Spanish president today, although it probably won't. The investigation commission will probably once again be scene to the sight of Spain's two major parties trying to score points and impress public opinion, while the smaller parties look on and take turns to ask the same questions again and again just as they did when Aznar appeared a fortnight ago.

The political atmosphere in Spain is so tense at the moment, that it is almost impossible for PSOE and PP party members to debate issues without resorting to mutual insults, derision and accusations. There is no reason to expect today to be any exception.

Related articles
Aznar, investigation commissions and democracy
Aznar declares before Spanish investigation commission

Spanish film The Sea Inside

Yesterday Alejando Amenábar and Javier Bardem won the European best director and best actor respectively for their latest film The Sea Inside. The film was voted best film in the last Venice Film Festival, and Bardem won the best actor award there too. Many film critics are predicting an oscar for best foreign film and the subtitled version was released in the US last week.

The Sea Inside is based on a true story about the paraplegic, Ramon Sampedro who became a household name in Spain because of his long campaign to be granted the right to end his own life and whose requests to do so were repeatedly denied by the Spanish government. Sampedro's family collaborated with the film-makers, and the outcome is a wonderful film which manages to convey two apparantly contradictory messages - a celebration of life itself, and the right of a persona to choose to end it.

Amenábar directs the film with flair and confidence, and the beauty of some of the scenes showing the Galician coast is often breathtaking. The music is beautiful and the acting is excellent, especially Javier Bardem who plays the part of Ramon. It is certainly a film worth seeing.

See the trailer of The Sea Inside.

Related article: The Sea Inside wins Oscar.

Drink driving in Spain

In an attempt to restrict road accidents in Spain over the Christmas period, the body which controls road safety here, the DGT (Dirección General de Tráfico), is going to vastly increase the amount of random breathalyser tests all over Spain.

The DGT has announced this morning the following details of its Christmas anti-drink driving campaign:

• More than 800 police alcohol control points on Spanish roads
• 110.000 breathalyser tests to be carried out from today until 20th December
• Tests to be carried out during the day aswell as during the night. It is very unusual for Spanish police to do day-time random breathalyser tests and by increasing daytime breathalyser tests, police hope to disuade people from drinking and driving in the typical company Christmas lunches.
• Radio and road panel advertising campaign all over Spain with the slogan "Do yourself a favour. If you drink, don't drive" (the literal translation of the first part is "Save yourself a bad swallow". "Un mal trago" in Spanish means literally "a bad swallow", so the whole slogan is quite a clever play on words)

In Spain the legal limit of alcohol is 0.5 g/l blood and 0.25 mg/l breath out for normal drivers. In professional drivers the limit is reduced to 0.5 g and 0.15 g respectively.

Drink driving is a big problem in Spain and it is no coincidence that this country's record of road safety and mortal accidents is one of the worst in Europe. According to government figures, alcohol causes between 30% and 50% deaths in Spanish road accidents. In December 2003, 366 people died in traffic accidents in Spain, and 1000 people were injured.

The only thing the DGT could be criticised for is the limited length of the campaign. By limiting its duration to 20th December, the measures will not be in force on the days when alcohol consumption is at its highest - 20th December until 1st January.

Related links:
Road safety in Spain
Driving offences in Spain
Roads in Spain

Gibraltar, negotiations in Britain

Yesterday representatives from the Spanish and British governments and Peter Caruana, the Chief Minister of Gibraltar, had the first round of a series of talks planned to discuss the future of Gibraltar. This round of talks is a result of the recent meeting between Spanish foreign minister, Moratinos, and British foreign minister, Straw, when it was decided that from now on any negotiations held between the two countries about the future of the Rock would include representatives from Gibraltar. Apparantly nothing was agreed in the talks, but the Spanish government, and a large section of the media, seem to find the mere fact that they were held very encouraging.

Meanwhile Moratinos has had a 10-minute meeting in Brussels with Colin Powell before the NATO meeting which began at 9.00 this morning. Moratinos wanted to inform Powell of the results of his recent trip to the Middle East and also to discuss the situation in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans.

After the NATO meeting, the Spanish foreign minister will have separate talks with Jack Straw (they are expected to discuss yesterday's meeting and may give a statement to reporters afterwards) and the Turkish foreign minister Abdulá Gul.

Franco-Spanish summit

Spain's president José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero received a welcome boost to his foreign policy yesterday with the visit of Jacques Chirac to Spain. In what was billed as a summit meeting between the Spanish and French governments, the two presidents held a meeting in the morning, followed by a press conference and a walk around Zaragoza, the city chosen by Zapatero to host the meeting. Members of both governments also attended the summit, and had fringe meetings with their respectives.

For the first time in Spanish history, the central government invited the presidents of all the Spanish regions bordering with France to attend a Franco-Spanish summit meeting. Presidents Maragall (Catalonia), Sanz (Navarra) and Iglesias (Aragon) all accepted the invitation, and participated in the summit. One of the items on the agenda was to think how to improve air, rail and road connections over the border or, in the words of the Spanish government, "how to make the Pyrenees permeable". The only regional president to refuse the invitation was Juan José Ibarretxe, who decided not to attend the meeting because, according to sources from the Basque government, he "wouldn't be allowed to express his own opinion". The same sources did not explain how or why they had reached that conclusion. The participants who were present agreed to hold the first ever Franco-Spanish Border Regions Summit in 2005. Maybe the Basque Government will attend that one.

The press conference held after the summit was predictably affable. Chirac declared France's support for the new Spanish foreign policy towards Cuba, and said that the recent liberation of Cuban dissidents by the Castro dictatorship was proof that Spain's new approach was having a positive effect. Both presidents expressed their support for UN chairman Kofi Annan, accused by US republican senators recently of allowing corruption in the "oil for food" program. Both Chirac and Zapatero said they believed the attacks to be unjustified.

Primadomus center needs a new location

Despite national and international pressure (including over 54,500 participants in an electronic petition), the mayor of Relleu has failed to give in, and for some reason known only to himself and his colleagues, he refuses to give the permission needed to continue the building of the Primadomus Center (dedicated to caring for primates and backed by Asturias prize-winner, Jane Goodall) in Relleu. This situation has led the promotors of the project to start looking
for an alternative location elsewhere in the province of Alicante.

Nobody seems to know exactly why the mayor has withdrawn his support from a project which he initially supported, but having ignored requests from Jane Goodall and even Queen Sofia of Spain, the organizers seem to have become resigned to the fact that the mayor's opposition to this unique sanctuary for chimpanzees is total, and so they have started to talk to authorities
in nearby municipalities.

We have received an email requesting our support for the Primadomus project, and we are pleased to copy below the update which is published on the Primadomus website. People supporting this primate center are asked to send an email to the mayor of Relleu asking
him to reconsider his position.

Mayor maintains opposition against PRIMADOMUS Project in Relleu.

More than 46.700 e-mails from all over the world have been sent to the Mayor of Relleu, asking the unblocking of the project.

The impossibility to resolve the current situation with the Mayor of Relleu, whom stated at various occasions the complete rejection of the Primadomus Project, has resulted in contacts between various other municipalities in the Alicante province to investigate the possibility of establishing the project for a Life Time Care Centre for Primates, in another place.

Several municipalities in the province of Alicante have shown their interest to adopt the project given the national and international image in the educational and scientific world that will result by housing this centre. The responsible persons at these town halls understand perfectly the cultural, social and economic benefits generated for their towns by this unique European project.

Despite the negative opinion of the Mayor of Relleu, blocking the project, AAP still believes in the optimal conditions (climatologically, environmental, social) in the province of Alicante for housing the project and therefore it started talks with the municipalities showing interest and with the authorities involved in the analysis and studies needed to establish the Primadomus Project on an other location in the province.

On the other hand, the Internet e-mail campaign, which started in August in which citizens ask the Mayor Santiago Canto for the go-ahead of the project, is a great success. Up until now more then 46.700 emails have been sent from 18 different countries. The campaign has been supported by people all over the world, national and international organisations and institutions, which sent through the Internet (www.primadomus.org) their support for the project to town hall of Relleu.

Primadomus (home for primates) main objective is to provide a permanent home for animals rescued by AAP that can't find a new home. The project is supported by Her Majesty Dña. Sofía and backed by the British Ethologist, "Premio Príncipe de Asturias 2002" and UN Messenger of Peace, Jane Goodall.

AAP has been working for 3 years now on the construction of the project, which was approved by the Mayor of Relleu in 2002 and again blocked in 2004

Related links:
Primadomus center in Relleu
Web: http://www.primadomus.org/eng/

Spanish Constitution

Today is a national a holiday throughout Spain in commemoration of 6th December 1978 when the Spanish people voted in a national referendum to approve the draft constitution which had been passed by the interim parliament representatives in October of the same year.

This Spanish constitution provided the way forward for the creation of a democratic system in Spain and while not many Spaniards participate in the constitution day celebrations which tend to be formal, protocolary affairs, the great majority of the (non-facist) over forties remember the 1978 referendum with passion and regard their constitution with pride.

The preamble of the Spanish Constitutions reads as follows:

The Spanish Nation, desiring to establish justice, liberty and security and to promote

the good of its members, in the exercise of its sovereignty, proclaims its will to:

-guarantee democratic co-existence under the Constitution and the law,

consistent with a just social and economic order;
-consolidate a State of Law which assures the rule of law as an expression

of the popular will;
-protect all Spaniards and peoples of Spain in the exercise of human rights,

of their cultures and traditions, and of their languages and institutions
-promote the progress of culture and of the economy in order to ensure a

worthy quality of life for all;
-establish a democratic and advanced society, and
-collaborate in the strengthening of peaceful relations and effective

co-operation amongst all the peoples of the World.

Since 1978 the constitution has been reformed just once in order to give citizens of EU member states living in Spain the right to vote and stand as candidates in local elections. The present socialist government has announced its intention to undertake constitutional reform and proposes the following changes:

• succession in the monarchy on the basis of age rather than gender
• transformation of the Senate into a chamber of territorial representation
• official incorporation of the European Constitution
• modification of the organization and powers of the autonomous regional governments.

This will not be as simple as it sounds. Some of the reforms proposed by the Socialists affect the so-called "protected" clauses of the Spanish constitution which means that if changed, a whole new constitution will have to be drawn up. Also, in order to change even the "unprotected" clauses, the government needs 60% support of members in the Congress and the Senate which means it would need the support of the Popular Party.

José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has always said that constitutional reform must involve all political parties and can only be passed if some sort of cross-party consensus is achieved. Given current relations between the two main political parties in Spain, and given the scepticism of the PP towards any constitutional reform at all, it is very unlikely that this will happen.

Related links:
King Juan Carlos refers to the possibility of constitutional reform in Spain
Zapatero announces constitutional reform in Spain

ETA explosives in Madrid cause traffic chaos

Basque terrorist group ETA yesterday planted small explosives in five petrol stations situated in key exit roads in an attempt to show that the terrorists are not beaten yet.

During the past few months ETA's most notorious leaders have been captured in France, various hideouts have been discovered, and a great amount of materials, money and weapons belonging to the terrorist group has been confiscated from houses in France and Spain.

Apart from a few minor explosions set off in tourist areas in the Summer, ETA has been relatively silent all year, and last month a letter appeared in the Spanish media signed by some of the group's key members from their prison cells, in which they stressed the need to call a ceasefire because, in their opinion, the group has become so weak that military action can no longer be considered a viable means of achieving their ultimate goal, an independant Basque state.

It looks like yesterday ETA wanted to cause chaos rather than take human lives. A spokesperson from the group rang the Basque newspaper Gara to say where the bombs were planted and what time they would explode. Basque police informed the Spanish national police who had an hour to evacuate all the petrol stations and close the roads before the explosives went off.

The terrorists made the explosives with ammonium nitrate, which has been used by ETA before (and was also the chemical compound often used by the IRA before the ceasefire). According to Wikipedia, ammonium nitrate can be induced to decompose explosively by detonation and large stockpiles of the material can be a major fire risk, but fortunately each explosive yesterday was made up of just 50 - 200 grams.

The petrol stations were carefully chosen by the terrorists so as to cause havoc on the first day of this long long weekend. Monday is a bank holiday here in Spain, as is Wednesday, and schools are closed on Tuesday so Police were expecting as many as 8 million cars on the road over the next few days. Whenever a long weekend like this arrives, all of Madrid's exit roads have long traffic jams as madrileños rush out of the city on their way to a few days in their holiday homes in the warmer south of Spain, or in and beyond the Sierra, looking for some country peace and quiet or maybe the first skiing of this winter. The bombs were planted in a petrol station on each of the five major exit roads. Police closed the roads for two hours, and although they advised people to delay their departure, the time of the warning (5.30 pm) was cleverly planned because by that time most families were already on the roads leaving the city (primary schools finish at five 0'clock in Spain, and most people finish working at 3.00 pm on Fridays).

Spain's Interior Minister Jose Antonio Alonso said that these explosives did not necessarily mean that ETA had a new "stable infrastructure" in the city of Madrid. "Without wishing to undermine the seriousness of today's attacks, it is not necessary to have a stable infrastructure to do what (ETA) has done today" he said.

Traffic was back to normal by late evening as many families seemed to have decided to turn back and start their holiday this morning instead to avoid long delays.

Related links:
Spanish Basque terrorist group ETA leaders arrested in France
ETA terrorism
ETA campaign against tourist targets

Teenagers and drugs in Spain

New figures released by the Spanish Minister of Health, Elena Salgado, yesterday indicate that drug-taking amongst Spanish teenagers continues to rise at a worrying rate and further confirms the need to revise the National Drugs Initiative.

The figures released yesterday are the result of a survey carried out by the government in secondary schools. Teenagers between 14 and 18 participated in the nationawide survey. According to the results, the number of teenagers who admit to taking cocaine is now four times as high as it was in 1994, and the number of people who smoke cannabis has doubled. 87 per cent of teenagers consider that it is easy to buy alcohol, 64 per cent find it easy to buy cannabis, and 53.8 per cent have no problem in getting sleeping tablets.

Anyone who has teenage children will be particularly worried by the results of this report, although not necessarily surprised. It is not unusual to see young teenagers smoking at the gates of secondary schools - private and state schools alike - and parents who try to exert more control over this age group will be used to having arguments with 12, 13 and 14-year olds about wanting to "go out" (the kind of argument which we didn't have with our parents until we were at least 16 or 17). It is not uncommon in Spanish towns to see young teenagers out on Saturday nights, drinking alchohol and smoking cannabis in big groups in parks in a relatively new phenomenon called in Spanish a "botellón" (literally, "big bottle").

The most worrying thing about the ridiculously high number of young teenagers who take drugs is that they do not see any danger related to it. Maybe this is because cannabis has always been relatively easy to get hold of in Spain, and alot of them have seen their parents smoking it. Or maybe it is because their parents and teachers don't explain the dangers to them in terms they can understand. Maybe parents don't talk to their children enough and don't have time to find out enough about what goes on at school or when they are out with friends. Maybe what used to be one of Spanish society's real strong points - the strength of the family unit - has ceased to be. Maybe society needs to think about what to offer this age group so that they don't start looking for excitement through damaging substances.....

Whatever the reasons, it seems obvious that, given the results of this very comprehensive survey (25,521 school children from 573 schools participated in it), urgent action must be taken - by parents, teachers and government together - to solve this very serious problem which threatens to ruin the lives of thousands of adolescents in Spain.

Related links:
New smoking laws in Spain
Drugs in Spain
Spanish Minister of Health, Elena Salgado

Spanish property market tax fraud

The Socialist government is planning a series of reforms aimed at "cleaning-up" the property market in Spain and tightening legislation in an attempt to control private sales and reduce tax evasion.

According to a report in El Pais yesterday, the price which figures on the deeds of second-hand house sales is actually 30% - 40% lower than the real price - . This means that sellers have to pay less plusvalía (capital gains) tax, and buyers have to pay less VAT (6% of the second-hand property price), less stamp duty and less notary costs. The "contrato privado" (private sales contract) drawn up between buyer and seller contains the real price, but until now has been exactly what its name suggests - private.

The result of this, plus the fact that cash is usually used to pay the undeclared percentage, is that there is an awful lot of "black" money circulating around the property market in Spain, and Hacienda, the Spanish tax office, is losing alot of taxes.

On Tuesday of this week the government proposed no less than 300 new draft measures to reduce tax fraud, and many of them will be applied to the property market including:

1. The means of payment (cheque, cash....) must be included in the property deeds at the time of the sale
2. It will become compulsory to take the private contract (with the real price) to the property register
3. The catastral number must be included in the deeds and also in all gas, water, electricity bills, to make it easier for tax inspectors to determine whether or not a house is occupied (many people rent out property but do not declare the rent paid to them)

The reforms are unlikely to be very popular with anyone, because what some would call "petty fraud" has become so common and widely accepted in the Spanish property market that builders, house-buyers and house-sellers will all feel as if a "right" is being taken away from them if they have to start declaring the real price of property and pay the corresponding taxes.

If the measures are put through, it will be interesting to see what sort of impact they make on Hacienda's income deriving from private property sales next year. It could be huge.

Related links:
Plus valía tax
Property taxes in Spain
Revaluation of property in Spain