Life in Spain
Terrorism in Spain
The suspected political leader of the Basque separatist movement, Eta, has been arrested in a joint Spanish-French operation, Spanish authorities said.
Javier Lopez Pena, alias "Thierry", was arrested with three other Eta suspects in a late-night raid in the south-west French city of Bordeaux.
I know that such things are always phrased like that in Britain, and that the BBC never accepts that ETA are terrorists, but it is really a bit like describing Erwin Rommel as the suspected leader of the German defence movement, the Afrika Korps. López Peña, as he is known in Spanish, is without doubt the political leader of ETA. How do we know? Well, when the Spanish government was negotiating with ETA during their truce, he was at the negotiations in his capacity as … the new political leader of ETA; that is public knowledge. He is the man who called off the truce by ordering the bombing of Barajas airport (Madrid) in December 2006. He told the government’s negotiators in Switzerland that they would all be killed if his name was made public. Nevertheless, it is known - as is his threat.
By the way, saying that López is the political leader of ETA means that he is the man in ETA’s clandestine organisation who decides who to kill and when. That is different from the political party Batasuna and its equally illegal successor organisations which act as ETA’s public political wing and whose leaders are publicly known.
Altogether six people have arrested in this operation. Spain has managed to mount an effective opposition to ETA, which has severely weakened the organisation though no-one says that the end is in sight or that it has lost its ability to commit atrocities. It has done so by purely constitutional police and political activity. There has been no special legislation apart from adding terrorism to the criminal code as a specific offence with a higher sentence than ordinary murder, and there have been no special courts or changes to detention procedures.
In Britain at the weekend I found that two topics regarding Spain kept recurring in conversation: that many Brits are suffering problems with their homes in Spain and that Barcelona is suffering a drought. Let’s look at them.
Living in Spain
The housing problems of British expats fall into two categories. One is that of houses being found to have been built illegally; I have written about that here. The other is that because of the collapse of the Spanish housing market they are having problems selling their houses. The BBC reports here on such a case in a typical example of the intellectual failing that bedevils British journalism: generalising from a specific example. A woman bought a house. She wants to sell it. The housing market has collapsed and she can’t find a buyer, even to sell it at a loss. Well, that’s unfortunate but it has nothing especially to do with being in Spain; the same could happen to anyone anywhere. The areas on the coast may be suffering but this woman put her house on the market two years ago when the boom was still rising. Moreover, reports of falls of ‘30% in many areas’ are a little suspicious. Last quarter the price of housing in Spain as a whole fell slightly for the first time for many years, but that was in real terms after allowing for inflation. In actual terms of thousands of euros the prices still rose. Of course, that is not to say that some people don’t have unsaleable properties on their hands, but the situation is not quite as catastrophic as it is being made to seem. In fact, rising house prices are seen as a problem rather than a blessing here.
But, as I said, all of this has nothing to do with being in Spain, nor is being unable to pay a mortgage particularly an expat problem. As the Euribor rises many Spanish people are finding that their income has to be stretched to meet rising mortgage payments. What is special about these British people though is that they have a mortgage in euros and an income in sterling. In the last eight months the cost of a euro has risen from about 65p to 80p, and that is the problem: not only has the interest rate gone up but they are paying in a devalued currency. The Germans aren’t moaning about their investments in Spanish property – but they use the euro. The UK insists on its nationalist policy of monetary autarky, clinging to a currency that has historically always fallen against the dollar and is now doing the same against the euro, and now it is paying the price.
What can we say? If someone goes to live in a country where they don’t speak the language and know little of the culture, they are taking a risk. I know all about it. When I arrived here in 1984 I had never been to Spain before and I spoke only the most rudimentary Spanish. To decide in such a situation to take out a mortgage in the country – in a currency which is not that in which you are receiving your income! – is little short of insanity. But that is what people have done, and those people are now expecting our sympathy. They don’t have mine.
The drought in Spain
The rain in Spain does not fall mainly on the plain; a lot falls in Galicia in the north-west and a lot more on the Mediterranean coast. But in the last couple of years the weather in Catalonia has been unusually dry. The result is that at the beginning of April water stocks were down to 20% of maximum capacity. When they get down to 27% a level of emergency is reached that bans the use of water for gardens and swimming pools; this regulation was in force, to the considerable detriment of the garden centres. In April and in May it has rained. This is not so unusual; the Levanter is a strong easterly wind that often brings storms, which can be violent, to the Western Mediterranean at this time of year. As a result water stocks are now up to around 30% and there is enough water to last till next February; to be precise, existing stocks and planned input from ships, wells and aquifers, and from treated waste water (not from rainfall), comes to 274.5 cubic hectometres (hm3). Average daily consumption is about one hm3 a day, so there are stocks to last till February. February is important because that is when a desalination plant will come on-line. That and other similar plants will provide Catalonia’s water needs comfortably for the foreseeable future, and will also provide drinkable tap water.
In general the Catalan Water Agency (link to English site) is well organised. The problem is that it has been caught out by an exceptional drought which has coincided with delays in building the desalination plants. Water is being brought in by ship, which is hardly a satisfactory solution, and there are plans to build a pipeline from the Ebro near Tarragona, which will run along the central reservation of the motorway and be finished in October. However, in view of the present situation this will perhaps not now be built.
The consequences of this drought have hardly been as serious as the British media have apparently been suggesting. The farmers are moaning that they have too little rain, or too much rain last week, or something like that – but then they always do. Apart from the restrictions that I have mentioned, which are hardly onerous, there has been no impact on daily life. Nor are things drying up catastrophically. The photos that I took yesterday of the Tamarita Gardens (English site) near where I live show that the fountains are not in operation and that what was once a lush lawn is now a desert, but the greenery in the park shows that all is not lost by a long chalk. It rained this morning and the sky has been overcast all day. More rain is forecast for the weekend.
Water is metered in Spain, and why on earth shouldn’t it be?
Comments