Date Published: 16/10/2021

Spanish News Today Editors Roundup Weekly Bulletin Oct 16

The weather remains fairly stable in southern Spain with temperatures still hovering just below the summer mark as we move into mid-October, and coronavirus restrictions are being lifted left, right and centre. You could almost believe we’re being rewarded with a second summer for all those months of assiduously wearing our facemasks and waiting patiently for our turn to get vaccinated.

It’s even tempting to think we’re out of the woods, but a quick look to countries like the UK, Germany and the USA should make us pause for thought. They are struggling to contain fresh spikes of new Covid cases even as border controls are loosened to allow freer travel between these countries and Spain. True, Spain is in the top five countries in the world for percentage of the population vaccinated (78%!), well above those other countries that seem to be backsliding, which should give us some peace of mind. But it’s worth bearing in mind that the Covid jab is not a magic pill, and vaccinated people can still get ill and die from the virus.

Anyway, enough of the doom and gloom – we should enjoy our newfound freedom while we have it. Let’s dance!

Coronavirus

As the working week comes to a close, the cumulative incidence rate in Spain continues its steady decline and now sits at 40.52 cases per 100,000 inhabitants, and crucially, hospital pressure is easing with Covid patients occupying just 4.98% of ICU beds.

Covid restrictions were relaxed even further this week with bars and dance floors reopening in the Murcia region from Wednesday, but not everyone was happy with the news. The hospitality sector criticised the restrictions, pointing out that opening dance floors while simultaneously banning customers from drinking while dancing is of no use to the nightlife sector, who were hoping to recover some of their lost earnings. Hopefully, as Covid figures continue to decline, the regional government will return Murcia to some form of normality in the upcoming weeks and months.

Following a weekend of high spirits in Alicante with the lifting of the “majority of restrictions” on the very day the region celebrated Community of Valencia Day (October 9), all eyes were on the health data as we moved into the first week of a new “improved” normality. Though it’s still too early to tell whether the scrapping of opening hours and capacity restrictions in bars and restaurants and the long-awaited opening of dancefloors in nightlife venues has had any real impact on the figures, there was promising news on Monday when the Ministry of Health reported that the number of new Covid infections and hospital admissions had continued to decrease. In addition, the 14-day cumulative incidence rate fell from 37.02 cases per 100,000 people on Friday October 8, to 34.78, meaning the region has the sixth lowest incidence in Spain, below the national average 46.08.

However, experience has taught us that every silver lining is sure to have a cloud, and experts are now concerned that Spain is in for a bumper flu season, as the sanitary measures employed over the last year and a half may actually have compromised people’s immunity against the common flu virus. There were practically no cases of flu registered in the winter of 2020, and scientists are worried that we could see complications this year with vulnerable people contracting flu and Covid at the same time.

And as the country embarks on its flu campaign, then, the Valencia government announced it will administer third booster jabs for Covid to the over 70s at the same time from October 25, in a two-pronged attempt to “protect the most vulnerable”.

The positive evolution of the pandemic has led the Spanish authorities to lift all restrictions at airports, meaning that people not flying themselves can also enter the terminals to greet or say goodbye to loved ones from Friday October 15.

Macrobotellones

It’s all very well to start enjoying a bit of well-earned freedom, but the botellones in Spain are way out of hand now. The botellón has been a rite of passage for Spanish youth for decades, sitting out in parks or in the street late at night with a few friends and several 1-litre bottles of beer and spirits. Even though drinking in public places is technically illegal, police have often turned a blind eye in the past as it has rarely turned violent or dangerous.

Now though, things have gone too far. The trend that started this summer for large groups of hundreds of young people to gather in central areas of the country’s biggest cities to get drunk, fight and blast out music until the early hours of the morning shows no signs of slowing down. We saw rubbish bins and cars being set alight in Barcelona, police attacked in Madrid and countless other recent incidents in Denia, Alicante and all over the country.

The Murcia region is feeling the effects as much as anywhere else, after three people were stabbed in Cartagena last Saturday night, leaving a bloody mess in the car park of the Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena. These scenes are becoming are common sight in Cartagena, with groups of up to 600 or 700 teenagers and others who are old enough to know better regularly gathering on the Calle Muralla del Mar and around the university area.

Cartagena Mayor Noelia Arroyo has called for a greater police presence, warning that the situation is “a social reality that we encounter every weekend” that the city “needs new resources and tools to deal with”. The workers’ unions spoke in harsher terms, denouncing the “scarce police presence that was unable to stop the uncontrolled avalanche of people in the area around 6.30am on Sunday morning, where fights led to stabbings”.

Even when they take the party inside, things don’t get much better. A house party in San Javier, Murcia province turned into a brawl leaving several people in need of medical attention. Five youngsters aged between 21 and 24 were identified as the ones who used knives, rocks, broken bottles and chairs to attack partygoers at a rental house, but it hasn’t yet emerged what started the fight.

Meanwhile in Seville, 700 people were kicked out of just five separate bars and clubs last weekend, one of which was even accused of selling alcohol to minors. On an inspection of 15 bars, five were found to be either breaking Covid-19 safety rules by not social distancing and letting customers share hookahs, or selling whiskey and vodka to 16-year-olds. With one-third of nightlife venues breaking rules like this and encouraging dangerous behaviour among young people, do we really want to open the bars and clubs up even more? Or will the problem be even worse if people don’t have bars as a safe place to go and drink, and are getting smashed and smashing each other up in the street instead?

That said, young people are not entirely to blame for the antisocial behaviour as a 52-year-old man caused war-like scenes in the municipality of Molina de Segura, Murcia this week when he set fire to seven vehicles as well as his own family home using Molotov cocktails, all while brandishing a shotgun.

What’s sure is that the botellones that began as a social gathering are now anything but: an anti-social menace that is repeated weekly. You could almost have forgiven the young people at first for wanting to go out and have a few drinks together after a year and a half of restrictions and lockdown. But there’s no excuse for the scenes we’re seeing now. And worst of all, there isn't even any rhyme or reason to it. It’s not a protest directed at the government, or a fight for or against any cause, or even a remark on police brutality; it’s just an alcohol- and drug-fuelled frenzy of violence, though it probably does speak to some deep-seated resentment that young people feel towards how they are treated by Spanish society. If only they could vocalise it into a more productive activism.

So that was last weekend. Let’s see what this weekend brings…

Holiday. Celebrate?

We also had a festivo this week, with the whole country taking Tuesday off and some shops, businesses and restaurants even taking the Monday off too, to make it an extended bank holiday weekend, or ‘puente’.

October 12 is a national holiday every year in Spain because it’s ‘Día de la Hispanidad’ or Spain Day. It’s better known across the pond in South America and the USA as ‘Columbus Day’, the day when Christopher Columbus first landed in the Americas in 1492. It’s an especially contentious event this year as a debate is currently raging in Spanish and Mexican politics about the legacy of the ‘conquistadores’ who colonised the Americas. The Mexican president is demanding that the Spanish apologise for their ancestors’ behaviour 500 years ago, and the Spanish opposition party has warned the government that they’d better not say sorry because actually they brought civilisation and proper-sounding names to the natives.

Every year, the Spanish monarchy marks this event with a parade of tanks, soldiers and military aircraft along the Paseo de la Castellana in Madrid, which is attended by the King, his family and important high-ranking Spanish officials.

This year, it’s fair to say the day wasn’t without its usual gaffes. (Custom has it that the parade is kicked off by a special forces soldier skydiving out of a plane and onto the Madrid streets, but in 2019 the parachutist got stuck hanging from a lamppost and had to be rescued.) This year, the Spanish flag which was drawn in the sky in smoke by the Air Force’s Eagle Patrol, another annual tradition, ended up with one of its stripes looking decidedly more purple than red. That wouldn’t be so bad if the red, yellow and purple flag wasn’t the standard used by Spain’s former Republican government when they ousted the royals from power 90 years ago, and if King Felipe VI himself wasn’t looking on and saluting. The Air Force claims that the unfortunate mistake, which was caught on live TV, occurred simply because the colours in the tank didn’t mix quickly enough and have insisted that it was all just an “optical effect”.

Socialist President Pedro Sánchez wasn’t left sniggering behind his hand at the egg-faced royal for too long, though. While the King was greeted by the crowds with rapturous applause, President Sánchez was met with boos and calls for him to resign. Like any good politician would do, he brushed off the jeering, heckling masses and carried on on his merry way.

Happy holidays, indeed!

Deep pockets

No, we’re not talking about the pockets of anoxia in the Mar Menor lagoon, although those are still there.

News has come out this week that several consumer goods and basic dailies are going to get more expensive in Spain. Electricity has already surpassed the 200 euro per MWh mark seven times this month, with the Government vowing to ‘tweak’ the tax decree to ensure that the astronomical wholesale costs aren’t passed onto domestic consumers.

The inflation is having more far-reaching consequences, however, with the Organisation of Consumers and Users (OCU) claiming that the cost of recharging an electric vehicle has skyrocketed by 257 euros in just one year, a fact which is unlikely to encourage more consumers in Spain to go electric.

But the bad news doesn’t just affect more environmentally aware drivers, as an increase in Registration Tax in 2022 is set to hike up the finance cost of new cars by 12 euros per month. Add to this the fact that the Government intends to collect some 1 billion euros in traffic fines next year and the future doesn’t look any brighter for the average driver.

That’s not even the worst of it, though, as even Netflix announced that it would raise its prices in Spain. As of last Monday, the standard plan, which allows users to view content in high definition and on two devices at the same time, will jump from 11.99 euros to 12.99, while the premium option, which offers movies and TV shows in 4K on up to four devices at once, increases from 15.99 to 17.99 euros. This leaves only the most basic option at the original cost of 7.99 euros per month. Better off paying for Netflix from back home, really.

Finally, toys will be more expensive than usual this Christmas. Many toy manufactures in Spain have experienced a 40% increase in production costs due to transport costs, more expensive raw materials and, of course, the energy prices. Naturally, all these increased overheads will be passed onto consumers, some of whom may be considering getting the Christmas shopping in early this year.

Murcia

Three minor earthquakes hit the Region of Murcia at the beginning of the week, one in El Palmar and another in Lorca on Sunday, and continued throughout the week, with the municipality of Fortuna registering three earthquakes in the space of 48 hours. Although the seismic tremors were certainly strong enough to be felt, especially the 3.4-magnitude Fortuna earthquake on Tuesday, fortunately no human or material damages were reported.

The Mar Menor has once again been pushed into the spotlight as Tuesday October 12 marked the two-year anniversary of the first appearance of dead fish on the lagoon’s shores and the European Commission was the bearer of more bad news for the Region as a recently published report names Murcia as one of the areas with the most contaminated water supply in Europe between 2016 and 2019, with subterranean water carrying over 50 milligrams of nitrate per litre on average. These embarrassing figures also placed Spain amongst the European countries with the worst water quality, probably due to the lack of agricultural policing which has allowed farmers to use nitrate-laden fertilisers which seep through soil and into subterranean water supplies. That didn’t stop the Department for the Environment denying that a dead bird on the La Manga shore had anything to do with the pollution, though.

Notably, the Mar Menor has been excluded from the national Spanish budget for 2022, despite a grand total of 465.5 million euros being allocated to the Region of Murcia. It appears that the central government thinks that investing over 340 million into Navy submarines at the Navantia shipyard in Cartagena is more important than saving the Mar Menor’s fragile ecosystem.

However, it hasn’t all been doom and gloom this week as Murcia firefighters completed a 1,350km trek to the Santiago de Compostela Cathedral in Galicia to raise money for a local charity (Afacmur) which supports children with cancer and their families; the emergency service workers managed to raise over 40,000 euros in total.

Another heart-warming tale showcased a young soldier’s heroic actions while serving in Afghanistan, as 22-year-old British national, Harry Dear, who was raised in Cartagena, was hailed as a hero by the Spanish military after helping almost 200 Spanish collaborators reach the airport in Afghanistan. Thanks to his unique position as a Spanish-speaking British soldier, Harry was able to guide Afghan refugees through areas controlled by UK and US forces and deliver them safely to Spanish officials.

For the many Murcia towns and urbanisations in need of more municipal cleaning services, there may be good news on the horizon. Mazarrón council is promising to invest 37 million euros into solving the myriad of problems faced by the Camposol urbanisation, to be doled out over the next 18 months. San Javier, too, may receive the solution to rising prices in Spain: the Russian discount supermarket ‘Mere’, billed as the “Russian Lidl”, is opening in the municipality sometime between the last week of October and the first week of November.

Spain

The 2022 budget is still a hot topic for conversation this week, and many finer details have been released over the past few days. The Spanish Government has announced it will halve its spending on Covid vaccinations next year in light of the vast number of people who are now fully immunised against coronavirus.

Negotiations over the situation with Gibraltar have also taken a big step forward, with the UK delegates reaffirming their commitment to reaching an agreement regarding the governing of the Rock. UK foreign minister Liz Truss has indicated that a new treaty is by no means a foregone conclusion, and that Britain intends to stand firm against any agreement that might jeopardise its sovereignty over Gibraltar.

Further details have emerged about the upcoming pet laws in Spain, including specifics on what exactly will be included in the mandatory training course for those hoping to get a dog. It will apparently only be a short online course, much like the food-handling training courses currently required by Spanish hospitality establishments.

Alicante

The welcomed return of cruise tourism in particular saw the arrival of two liners in Alicante Port on Monday, with 3,300 holidaymakers onboard. The first ship, the Celebrity Apex, made its debut stopover in the city, and 1,400 American tourists disembarked for a day of sightseeing. This was swiftly followed by a regular to the port, the Aida Perla, carrying 1,900 Germans. Airline traffic is a surefire indicator of how international tourism is shaping up, and whilst 909,985 travellers passed through Alicante-Elche Airport in September, the figures are down 40% on the same month two years ago.

The Costa Blanca’s tourist capital, Benidorm, celebrated a bumper weekend with close to pre-pandemic occupancy levels, as thousands of domestic and international travellers flocked to the resort for the long-weekend. In fact, many hotels were forced to hang ‘no vacancies’ signs and diners were reportedly queuing for a table in some restaurants.

Whilst this is fantastic for businesses and the local economy, there was sobering news just days later when it was revealed the Covid incidence rate in Benidorm is three times higher than the national average (according to data on Wednesday). The municipality, which has a population of 67,600, has a worrying rate of 156 cases per 100,000 people, and in contrast to elsewhere in the region, appears to be bucking the positive trend just as international tourism is recovering.

Meanwhile, residents have been voicing their outrage at the continued development of Orihuela’s coastline, and blasted the latest “ugly monstrosities” as a blight on the landscape and an eyesore. Hitting out at the local authorities for allowing the construction of a nine-storey apartment block on the seafront, dozens of locals took to Facebook to slam the “builds under construction in Cala Mosca”, and expressed concerns over the impact on infrastructure, traffic and the local environment.

Whilst new homes continue to be built, there are thousands of properties which are sitting empty across the region, and to try to replenish a “saturated property market”, the government this week passed a new ruling which means flats that are vacant for more than a year will be declared uninhabited. What this means is that large property developers and landlords with more than 10 properties will be forced to place these homes/holiday lets on the market for sale or rent within a specified period of time, or face hefty fines.

Andalucía

The Costa del Sol made international headlines at the beginning of this week after it emerged that UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson was on holiday with his family in Marbella. It’s alright for some, but Brits at home and abroad were fuming at the PM’s audacity to go swanning off while the country is in the grip of a serious fuel crisis and shortage situation.

Curiously enough, Marbella picked this same week to freeze all tax increases for 2022 after the national budget was announced for the year. Hoping to attract more British millionaires to the region, perhaps?

Across the rest of Andalucía, the annual flu jab campaign is kicking off. Andalucía is the first autonomous community in all of Spain to launch its flu vaccination campaign this year, and is doing so with “tetravalent” vaccines that have “two strains of influenza A and two of B”, the first time that these extra-strong vaccines have been administered in Andalucía. Not only that, but “a greater quantity” of the vaccine will also be administered to ensure that the body “manufactures more antibodies”. All this is in response to what is expected to be a particularly hard flu season ahead, since the virus will bounce back strong after two years with hardly any influenza while people self-isolated and social distanced.

You may have missed…

1. Saucy music video filmed for ‘Atheist’ song in Spanish Cathedral.

The cathedral’s dean has resigned over a scandal which allowed a risqué music video for the ‘Ateo’ song to be shot on holy ground.

2. Snap of bench swallowed up by overgrown bushes in Alicante goes viral.

Social media once again played its part in making the news when photographs of street furniture literally swallowed up by overgrown and neglected shrubbery were shared on Facebook.

3. Barcelona woman arrested with cocaine hidden in her wig.

The 760 grams were divvied up into 58 different baggies to avoid detection, but it didn’t stay under her hat for long.

4. Prolific thief arrested in connection with 50 garage burglaries in Granada.

The man was arrested four times in as many weeks, using the same modus operandi in the same places!

5. Drink-driving priest arrested in Alhama de Murcia.

At the police station, the priest became increasingly agitated and even violent, with police officers having to immobilise him on two occasions. The man kept insisting that he had to leave because he was officiating Mass the following morning.

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See you next week!

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