News
Quiet winter
Around 80 % of hotels along the coast will be closed over the winter , according to the hoteliers ' association , Aehcos . It added that occupancy for September is likely to have been around 23 %, compared with 72 % in the same month last year . In addition , visitors during autumn and early winter have tended to be older , high-spending clients and there is presently no clue to when they might return .
Fewer Brits
For the first time in decades , the UK was not the country which sent most tourists to Spain this summer as a result of the Covid pandemic . More French holidaymakers travelled here in July than either the British or the Germans . In that month last year , 2.2 million people flew into Spain from the UK , compared with just 378,000 this year , according to the National Statistics Institute in Madrid .
Gibraltar claim
Spain will not renounce its claim to Gibraltar , according to Foreign Minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya . Speaking last month , she said Madrid would continue negotiating with London with “ reason and a cool head .” However , she avoided ruling on the possible entry of Gibraltar into the Schengen area of European free movement or into the Customs Union once Brexit is completed in January .
High unemployment
The Bank of Spain says Spain ’ s unemployment rate could be around 20 % until 2022 as the economy struggles in the wake of the Covid pandemic . The Bank said the Spanish economy could shrink between 10.5 % and 12.6 % this year , which would produce one of the deepest contractions in the Euro area . The Bank ’ s forecast in the middle of last month heaped pressure on the government to extend the furlough programme , which was due to expire on September 30 .
In court
As Soltalk went to press , Spain ’ s Supreme Court was considering whether to remove the regional leader of Cataluña from public office . Last year , a lower court ruled Quim Torra had violated electoral law and should be suspended for 18 months after he flew a political banner from a public building during an election period . Torra has been allowed to remain in office during the appeal procedure .
Franco family lose Galician manor
The heirs of Francisco Franco have been ordered to hand a rural property in Galicia to the State . The manor house known as Pazo de Meirás ( pictured ) was used as a summer residence by the dictator and since his death in 1975 its ownership has been disputed .
In 2018 , Franco ’ s family attempted to sell the property , and the efforts of President Pedro Sánchez to seize it for the State were rejected . However , last month ’ s ruling indicates that the court in A Coruña was satisfied that the property was never the personal property of Franco or of his descendents .
At the time of Spain ’ s Civil War , the Nationalist faction in Galicia raised the money to buy the manor house by creating a forced subscription which obliged local workers , business and authorities to donate cash . It was gifted to Franco in 1941 , and the new court ruling confirms that it was already a property of the State , as confirmed in a recently discovered document from 1938 .
The ruling goes further by describing an attempt in 1941 to register the property in Franco ’ s name as “ fictional ,” an event which the Spanish state has previously described as
“ fraud .” The judge concluded , “ Nothing was paid by Franco .”
After dismissing the 1941 paperwork , the court also refused to compensate Franco ’ s family for its upkeep over the last eight decades because it was acquired by them “ in bad faith .” The dictator ’ s grandchildren had claimed expenses following a fire in 1978 , although no figure has been publicly stated .
It is the second time in a year that the Franco family have failed in their bid to promote the work of Franco in the public domain . In October last year , his remains were finally removed from the Valley of The Fallen , an enormous and controversial war memorial near Madrid , and reinterred in a local cemetery in the capital . The government last month announced plans to turn the mausoleum into a civilian cemetery .
Fine for tragic owner of bore hole
The owner of the country property in Totalán where a two-year-old boy died after falling into a narrow bore hole has been fined € 300,001 for a serious offence against mining safety . David Serrano was charged with drilling the bore hole in a search for a water source without permission and with having taken no security precautions .
The accident happened on January 14 , 2019 , when two-year-old Julen Roselló was visiting the area with his family who live in the El Palo district of Málaga . His father said he saw the boy fall into the hole and rushed to grab him but his fingers only brushed against the child as he disappeared downwards . The entrance to the borehole was just 25 centimetres in diameter , ruling out any chance of an adult being lowered into the void , so a massive rescue operation was started .
Spain then held its breath for days as two wider shafts were drilled downwards , parallel to the borehole , in a technically complex operation hindered by the instability of the ground . The efforts ended tragically with the discovery of Julen ’ s body on January 26 , almost two weeks after he disappeared .
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