Fast Track Justice

The justice system in Spain receives frequent criticism for its slowness and misplaced priorities, but at least in one case residents of Madrid can sleep easily in their beds safe in the knowledge that a threat to their way of life is being dealt with. I wrote a few months ago about the decision to convert a piece of public land in the centre of Madrid into a golf practice centre instead of the public park that had been promised. This brave decision to raise the sporting prowess of Madrileños, many of whom can’t tell one end of a golf club from the other, was criticised by the ungrateful local residents who insisted that a park was what they should be getting. Unfortunately, some of the more radical elements of this opposition decided to take things into their own hands. Armed with a variety of weapons (including picks and shovels), these - let’s not mince words here - urban terrorists decided to plant a tree replacing one that work on the site had removed. Fortunately, that is where the justice system has intervened and the 5 residents responsible for this act of wilful vandalism have been taken to court, thanks to the vigilance of a security guard. This same guard risked his life in an attempt to preserve the integrity of the driving range, because we all know that picks and shovels can be used for other things than just planting trees! I can’t find anything to confirm the rumour that the charge was one of “planting a tree with intent to improve a public space”, but let’s hope that the authorities crack down on this problem before it gets out of hand.

The State Of The Opposition

Starting again after my latest absence from Madrid, I didn’t expect to be posting on the “state of the nation debate” that was held this week in Spain. For all my interest in politics, I find these staged annual parliamentary debates a bit boring, and with this being the last one before next year’s general election I thought it would probably be a tedious and content free event with a careful eye on not doing anything to upset the electorate. Well I was right, mostly, but what makes it worth posting about is the evident incapacity of the opposition Partido Popular (PP) to find anything at all to talk about other than the collapse of the government’s attempt to negotiate with ETA. We had a brief political truce with the formal end of the ETA ceasefire , and even though I never thought for a minute it would last, it is a little bit surprising that the PP should still seek to make it their sole theme for opposition. I should have known better, given that the combined intellectual might of the party machine and all their associated think-tanks could not come up with a single parliamentary question worth asking on any other topic.

PP leader Mariano Rajoy dedicated no fewer than 9 pages out of 22 in his keynote speech to ETA, he had no proposals to make on other issues; and very little of substance to say about anything else. All the recent talk of him presenting a more moderate, centrist image just came to nothing as he shrugged aside urging from his own party ranks to take on the government on other issues in the debate. Undoubtedly the PP will attempt to present this faked centrist image as the election gets nearer, but this was one of those opportunities where you would expect the leader of the opposition to try and present some kind of project to the country. It didn't happen, there is no project.

The aggressive, obsessive, insistence on putting ETA at the centre of the political debate just doesn't seem to make any sense, even from the PP's point of view. Between them, the PP and ETA have created a variety of mutual dependency - without the crutch of continuing terrorism the PP has no theme, nothing to offer, no issue to run with. If ETA doesn't carry out a major attack soon then where does that leave their strategy, they have succeeded in making terrorism the centre of political debate but despite their assistance it will only stay there if ETA manage to carry out a successful (on their terms) attack. There are some subterranean signs of unhappiness with this strategy even inside the PP, whose lack of internal democracy means that dissent is difficult to express openly.

The opinion polls are confirming the failure. Although polls often seem to reflect the political bias of those who commission them, in this case the pro-PP El Mundo published a poll that shows Prime Minister Zapatero with a clear advantage over Rajoy in the debate. Crucially, the sector that gave him that clear advantage was that part of the population not strongly committed to either party; the very voters that you would think the PP needs to reach out to if they are going to stand any chance of returning to power. Another voting intentions poll gave the governing PSOE a clear advantage. The current strategy of the PP seems to be based entirely around keeping their confirmed support angry and motivated, which only works if they manage to get enough of the other side to stay at home come voting day. If I cared for the PP I would be tearing my little remaining hair out in despair, fortunately I’m quite happy to see them trapped where they are – if they carry on like this they stand every chance of ending up as the authors of their own misfortune. Precisely what saw them thrown out of government in the first place. In the meantime, there have been interesting developments which could affect the South of Watford sweepstakes on who might be the next leader of the PP – but that’s worth another post.

Political Malpractice

Those who read this blog with any regularity will know by now that the regional government of the Comunidad de Madrid does not count with my approval. Perhaps some of you think that I am too hard on them, with my constant cheap jibes at the pauper president Esperanza Aguirre. Maybe so, but I have my reasons, and at least some of these reasons go beyond what might be considered as routine political bias; although that undoubtedly plays its part. Sometimes those in power do things which demand a strong response, because of the degree of venality that their actions or words reveal. In the case of Espe’s administration one of those issues has already been written about extensively by me, their attempts to promote the conspiracy theories surrounding the Madrid bombings. That those who govern the region where that atrocity took place should join a campaign to spread poisonous lies about it sticks in my throat. However, there is another issue which has not attracted so much attention, but which is equally revealing on the way in which these people go about their business.

The story concerns a hospital called Severo Ochoa in the town of Leganés, not far from Madrid. Until the year 2005 this hospital was probably unknown much outside of the area which it serves. In March that year an anonymous accusation was made that 15 doctors in the hospital had “killed” 400 patients as a result of their policy of sedation of terminally ill patients. A serious accusation, effectively claiming that doctors in the hospital were practising euthanasia on those who were admitted into their care. The case was referred by the health department of the Comunidad to the prosecution service of Madrid. So far it seems entirely proper that they should act in this way, a serious allegation is made and it gets investigated by the appropriate judicial authorities. One of the senior doctors involved, Luis Montes, was temporarily suspended from his position. Others were later removed from their positions.

After this things start to go badly wrong, the prosecution service found no case to present against the doctors involved. However, the villain of our piece and the politician in charge of the Madrid health service, Manuel Lamela, had already gone public claiming that 25 people had died in the hospital as a result of receiving “irregular sedation”. Faced with the prospect that the accusation was going to be shelved, Lamela set up a handpicked medical commission which then found no fewer than 73 alleged cases of medical malpractice in the hospital. Once again the prosecutors looked at the evidence and rejected any possibility of an offence being committed in 57 cases; the other 16 were open to doubt and the case was opened for judicial investigation. In the meantime most of the doctors in charge of the departments involved at Severo Ochoa had been removed from their posts. Finally, last week, the investigating magistrate lifted the cloud of suspicion hanging over Severo Ochoa. He found no evidence that the sedation applied by these doctors had been the cause of death of the patients, who were all very seriously ill and close to death.

It’s a difficult, and emotional, issue. If someone is admitted to hospital in tremendous pain and on the verge of death, the doctors have to make a judgement on the treatment to apply. The doctors in Leganés (and almost certainly in most other hospitals) were applying a policy of humane, palliative, sedation that has no sinister overtones. They were simply acting to reduce the agony of the last hours of patients who had reached the end of the road in that no other treatment options were available for them. Whilst it is possible that the application of such sedation can speed up the death of the patient, it also possible that it can delay it; the circumstances of each case are different.

Unfortunately, those who raced to condemn the doctors of Severo Ochoa were not interested in distinguishing between involuntary euthanasia and humane treatment for the dying; the whole case took on the aspect of a witch hunt led by Lamela who tried to drive through the result that he wanted to see. He was supported, perhaps not surprisingly, by those who have so enthusiastically done their best to turn the Madrid train bombings trial into a farce based around politically interested conspiracy theories. When you become a target of Federico Jimenez Losantos and friends, then you can be sure that you are almost certainly doing the right thing. The doctors in this case were called murderers by Losantos and company. Chief witch finder Lamela has not done badly out of the whole affair, following the recent elections he has been put in charge of transport for the region.

Those who are not doing so well are the doctors involved, who await reinstatement to their positions. It is worse than that, those who are now admitted to hospital in a condition that might previously have been considered worthy of palliative sedation are now much less likely to receive that treatment. Lamela and his band of supporters have succeeding in creating a climate of fear which means that doctors across the region are now unwilling to propose such treatment in case they get accused of being “murderers”. The morality those responsible employ reminds me of that used by the Catholic Church in the case of HIV sufferers; it doesn’t matter how many people die provided that the church’s teaching on contraception is upheld. They feel equally satisfied with the terminally ill dying in agony.

I have another post waiting to be written on the recent antics of the Spanish church, but for personal reasons I have to be in the UK for the next week and it will have to wait.

Spanish Troops The Target In Lebanon

Perhaps it is a bit surprising that it has taken so long for something to happen to the Spanish troops belonging to the UN force in Lebanon. It was never going to be the quietest of missions, but yesterday the death of 6 Spanish soldiers made it a competitor with the already dangerous situation in Afghanistan. It is not known who is responsible for the car bomb that killed these soldiers, although attention has so far focused on Fatah Al Islam, the group linked to Al-Qaeda who have been involved in fighting with the Lebanese army in recent weeks. Given the number of players involved in Lebanon, there is no shortage of candidates between those who might simply be against the presence of any European troops in the country, to those who are more interested in maintaining the tension in this region on the border with Israel. The area is still controlled by Hezbollah, who quickly denied any involvement in the attack.

The fact that 3 of the 6 who were killed are Colombian nationals highlights again the extent to which foreigners have become a significant presence in the Spanish forces. Despite only forming about 5% of the total number of those in the armed forces, about 30% of those serving in missions overseas are of immigrant origin. It appears that the units which they are permitted to join are restricted, and include many of those most likely to be involved in active operations. Only last year, a Peruvian soldier serving in the Spanish army was killed in Afghanistan.

I don't whether those who last year were hoping for a few deaths in Lebanon to cause problems for the government are feeling happy today. Opposition leader Mariano Rajoy has reacted in typical style, with the now traditional attempts to pretend that participating in a UN mission in Lebanon is just the same as Aznar's decision to take part in the invasion of Iraq. It should be a lost cause, but they never stop trying.

The Vultures Have Had Enough

A curious story that I noticed in the press yesterday, a large group of between 100-200 Griffon vultures has been spotted in the last few days flying over Belgium and Holland. It is believed that the vultures have probably come from Spain, which has easily the largest population of these birds in Europe. The mystery is why the vultures should be found so far from the Iberian Peninsula, their population here has recovered dramatically in the last 30 years and it is easy to see them when walking in the mountains near to Madrid. Perhaps the answer comes down to that great British invention, BSE (or mad cow disease if you prefer). A few years ago livestock owners in Spain were instructed to stop their traditional practice of leaving the carcasses of dead animals in specially designated places where the vultures could come and enjoy their meal in peace. With cases of BSE occurring in different European countries there was concern about the disease spreading to other species and it was decided that animal carcasses had to be disposed of securely. The vultures were not consulted about this, and have been left to make do with whatever else they can find. There have even been some reports of them starting to attack live animals as it becomes harder to get the really tasty ones that have been dead for a couple of days. Now it looks like they’ve taken to tourism to see if the situation improves; I don’t know if it’s a sign of hard times ahead for a country when the vultures start leaving?

What A Difference A Day Makes

Let's go into Michael Moore mode for a moment. Did it really happen? Was it all a dream? The last time Madrid voted for its regional government back in 2003, the election was held twice. The reason for this has, at heart, a fairly simple explanation; the wrong side won the vote the first time around. Yes, it does seem odd to recall when we have the pauper president Esperanza Aguirre seemingly so strongly in command in the region - but she owes her position to the strange, and still unexplained, events that followed the first election held in that year. As the members of the regional assembly voted on their choice for president it emerged that 2 members of the PSOE, Eduardo Tamayo and Maria Teresa Sáez, were not present in the chamber, leaving candidate Rafael Simancas short of the majority vote he needed to get the post.

It quickly became clear that the two rogue representatives had powerful friends, they had been accommodated in a hotel that was not being paid by them, and had also been assigned bodyguards. Despite clear evidence pointing to construction interests, and via these towards the Partido Popular (PP), the whole affair has never been fully clarified. The current Justice Minister, Mariano Fernandez Bermejo, was at the time the chief prosecutor in Madrid and recently stated that he was expressly forbidden from investigating what had happened. There was a general feeling that something very murky had happened, but that it was also the PSOE's fault for filling their lists with candidates who simply couldn't be relied upon. It briefly put the focus on a very unsatisfactory method of candidate selection which allowed people with no evident loyalty to become candidates for election. In the second election Aguirre won a narrow majority.

Tamayo and Sáez - Espe's best friends?

Anyway, the reason I raise this incident is not to rake over the details, but to point out the curious way it could affect the future political leadership of the country. I said the other week that I would examine the bizarre possibility that Aguirre could become the next leader of the PP should they lose the next election, and explain why I think she is likely to get there before apparent favourite Alberto Ruiz Gallardón. We are talking real possibilities here, the only opinion poll I have seen since ETA formally broke their ceasefire still leaves the PP trailing 3 points behind the government, unless that changes in the next 9 months then leader Mariano Rajoy is going to need a new job. Who you think will succeed him really depends on your view of how the PP works.

If you believe that the PP is being run by rational people making pragmatic political decisions based on cool, level-headed analysis of their situation then it's clear; the answer to a second successive election defeat would be to let Gallardón have his chance. You then present a reasonable, centrist image to the electorate with a proven vote winner at the helm. Against a second term government he would stand every chance of winning.

If, on the other hand, you believe like me that the party is being run by a resentful Aznarist clique whose overriding objective is to obtain revenge against all who have betrayed them, then suddenly Aguirre comes to mind as a candidate. Not least because she is a prominent member of that same group, and is far more entrenched in the party machinery than Gallardón is. You then present yourself for election with a rehashed second-hand Thatcherism that passed its sell by date at least 15 years ago.

Let’s not forget that the PP is not big on internal democracy, there is no mechanism for electing a leader. Gallardón is neither trusted nor liked by many of those in the upper echelons of the party and these are the people who will make the decision. If the PP loses but with a respectable result then those running the party now will remain in control, it would take an electoral cataclysm to really change things and let Gallardón claim his political inheritance. So place your bets, my money is on Espe. Whether she ever makes it to the top job or not I hope that she remembers to send a Christmas card every year to Tamayo and Sáez. Without their help when it mattered, she would now just be remembered vaguely as one of the more mediocre ministers in Aznar's administration; sometimes a small event can have far reaching consequences.

Ken Loach In Madrid

Ken Loach was in Madrid yesterday, to give a presentation at the Casa Encendida. More out of laziness than curiosity about the technology involved, I watched the whole thing live on the internet from the comfort of my sofa. It worked very well, apart from the occasionally erratic simultaneous translation of Loach's talk. He talked, not surprisingly, about the dominance of US cinema in the market and about the contrast between the ideological image that such cinema often presents and the crude realities of the "war on terror". It wasn't a blanket condemnation of American cinema; both Michael Moore and John Sayles were mentioned as examples of those whose work does not follow the formula. He appealed for a more local cinema, one that receives the kind of assistance that the theatre gets from local municipalities. For him, independent cinema needs to justify its existence and the idea of cinema that motivates him to make films is one that deals with the human condition, putting things into the social context of the relationships of people with their friends or family, or what happens to them at work. It is also a cinema that tells stories from the past; making people think about the version of events they have been fed. Films can agitate, but they are not there to educate on the “big questions”, there are issues that require more than a film to explain them.

Much of the discussion focused on the disparity of resources between Hollywood and national cinema in countries such as Britain or Spain, although Loach paid as much attention to the power of the distributors as anything else. The big players in distribution decide what people get to see, and the fight for access to screens for independent cinema is the key issue. Yet the reason why there is so little good Italian or French cinema compared to the past is not just because of Hollywood or even problems of distribution, it surely has as much to do with national conditions as anything else. I have had (Spanish) people here look at me with amusement when I tell them I'm going to see a Spanish film, if a large part of the native population regards their nation's cinematic products as not worth considering then it is always going to be an uphill battle. It doesn't help that we do not seem to be going through a particularly splendid period anyway, I'm still waiting for a Spanish film this year that impresses me enough to make me want to write about it. Ken Loach makes deeply committed cinema, and yet probably finds it easier to get his films made now than he did 20 years ago; there is a space that exists for his kind of cinema and as he himself pointed out, nobody is "obliged" to end up in the US to get money to make their films. The battle is to keep that space open, the way things are going in Madrid with the closure of several cinemas in the centre, suggests that the big chains are going to end up controlling almost all of the screens in the capital. Outside in the provincial cities the situation is worse as a single cinema probably owned by one of these companies makes the decision on what the local population can see.

The Siege Of Cibeles

One consequence of Real Madrid winning the Liga yesterday is that their players have to go and party with regional president Esperanza Aguirre. Serves them right, I have no sympathy. Meanwhile, a consequence of Real Madrid not winning much silverware in recent seasons has been that those in charge of looking after the historic monuments of the city have not had to worry about whether they will have to reconstruct the Cibeles statue and fountain after the fans have finished celebrating. Now I like the game, or at least I did untill this season, but I have never seen the trashing of the city's historical heritage as being a suitable response to my team winning a trophy. Until the city authorities clamped down a few years ago, risking the wrath of Raul, it was quite normal for the entire Madrid squad to clamber all over poor Cibeles as part of the celebrations. The need for a bit more respect was illustrated when some over enthusiastic fans thought it would be a great laugh to emulate their heroes and trample on Cibeles. They broke an arm off the statue, and then quickly drove off and dumped the broken piece miles away. I think the city now has a complete mould of the statue so that any part of it can be easily repaired in future cases. It's bad enough that the whole piece has been transformed by Madrid's ever enlightened urban planners into a glorified traffic island, without the football team turning up there as well.

Question Time

Life is not easy for an opposition leader who has dedicated all of his efforts to a single theme. With the issue of ETA off-limits for the moment because of the need to present at least a formal show of unity against the threat of new attacks, Partido Popular leader Mariano Rajoy had to find a new topic for yesterday's parliamentary questions session with the Prime Minister. What would it be? Would he turn to the economy and ask something about job security and about those who have to survive on low salaries and short term contracts? Perhaps he would take up the problem of young people getting access to affordable housing? Or we could just get some old fashioned right wing populism on crime or immigration. In reality we got none of this. Before the session, Rajoy was caught unawares by a microphone that had not been turned off as he commented to his sidekick Eduardo Zaplana that he had been given an "absurd" question to put to Zapatero. You can see the video here on Escolar.net. Rajoy was right, the only thing the combined might of the party machine could propose for him to ask was on the plans that the government hoped to implement before the next election. You can hardly see legions of party researchers beavering away all night on that question. Next week we might get "What plans does the President of the government have for this weekend?"

Something about nature of this episode tells me that it will not be too long before Mariano and Eduardo return to their favourite topic.

La Liga 2007....The Tightest Possible Finish

I’ve been meaning to write for several weeks on a surprisingly exciting end to this season in the Spanish Liga. With only one game to go it’s got to be done, although it does help me that the Spanish season seems to go on for longer than anyone else’s. Last weekend saw one of those classic dramatic days when 2 almost simultaneous 89th minute goals changed the fortunes of the main contenders for the title in around 18 seconds. An equaliser for Real Madrid at Zaragoza was quickly followed by a goal for Espanyol at Barcelona. I was still in Italy and the drama was enough even to stop the participants in the programme I was watching from bickering even more about who Inter Milan should buy for next season.

It seems impossible to believe that Real Madrid is the team most likely to win the league. This Real Madrid, the team that 3 or 4 months ago was sending everyone to sleep with their disjointed and half-hearted performances. Almost completely reliant on Van Nistelrooy for their goals, and on Beckham as the supplier of the ball to him; it is a team that has managed to hide or temporarily forget its multiple defects rather than solve them. A knack of scoring late goals has given them the points on several days when they deserved to come away with nothing. Nobody gave any serious consideration to Capello remaining as Real's trainer beyond the end of this season, but if they win the league this weekend then that could be a serious prospect. Ironically, those turgid goalless draws or narrow 1:0 victories that they scraped during the winter have in the end provided the base for what should be a successful assault on the title, with only Mallorca to overcome in the last game. Beckham, who we were told would never play again for the club after his decision to leave, is set for a hero's farewell as he has been one of the key players in the revival of the team's fortunes. Whether they win the league or not, this is a Madrid team that is still in need of some serious reconstruction, ironically a victory this weekend might make that harder.

What's his favourite number?

It would be fascinating to know what "incentives" are being offered to the Mallorca players to get them put up more than token resistance to Madrid in the final game. Meanwhile, the new dream team at Barcelona has not lasted anything like as long as expected. With key players either seriously out of form or injured they appear to have progressively lost almost all of the cohesion and flair that had them dominating Spanish football over the last couple of years. There is talk of internal problems at the club and it looks as if a major clear out could be on the way during the summer. Leo Messi has done his best to emulate Maradona first by scoring a wonder goal and then following it up with one helped into the goal by his hand. Let’s hope for his sake that he doesn't take imitation too far by starting to consume small mountains of white powder.

Sevilla have had a good campaign, and recorded a noteworthy achievement in winning the UEFA Cup for the second year running. Had they managed to win their game at Mallorca last weekend they would have a very much better chance than the slim possibility they have now of claiming the league. However, they had several opportunities this season to open a gap at the top of the league, and they blew it every time. Never mind, they can still claim the Spanish Cup too if they overcome Getafe in the final. Valencia were another team with possibilities and had good runs but also suffered from the same inconsistency as Sevilla as well as a serious mid-season injury crisis. Despite that they have finished in 4th spot. Over on the other side of Madrid, Atletico have lived up to the expectations of their fatalistic fans, starting the season with some hope they have managed to arrange things so that they are just below the position for European qualification. Their supporters expect nothing more, although I had high hopes for them this season.

The surprise packages of the season have been Villareal and Zaragoza. The former have put together a very impressive late run that sees them back in the running for a UEFA Cup spot, a few months ago they were more concerned about the possibility of relegation than anything else as they lost Riquelme, the player who had been so influential for them in recent seasons. The resurgence of Zaragoza has seen them in with a chance of Champions League football at some points in the season, it’s not to be but they could be a force next season if they strengthen their squad a bit. Incidentally, all followers of British football should look at the players who have been knocking in the goals this season; Kanoute, Forlan , Van Nistelrooy. The latter we might have expected to score a few, but the first two hardly shone as goal scorers in their time in the UK.

Down at the bottom of the table there will also be some last day excitement. These are grim times for football in the Basque Country, Athletic Bilbao are in danger and their rivals from San Sebastian (Real Sociedad) look doomed. They need to win and have the 3 teams above them lose. My Spanish team, Celta Vigo, have done their very best to turn what began as a promising season into a total disaster. Despite having won an important game at Atletico last week their fate is still not in their hands alone, and the fact that they have their last game at home isn't as comforting as it should be - victories for Celta at Balaidos this season have been about as common as snowstorms in Sevilla. Incidentally, Sevilla’s city rivals Betis could still go down if Celta win, they haven’t helped their case much by sacking the coach with one game to go.

I won't even mention who my English team are, it will make me look like a complete loser - suffice to say it's not Watford! What a season, I don't even know why I like the game. I’ve managed to arrange my weekend trip back to the UK in such a way that ensures I won’t see any of the action, probably just as well given the way the season has turned out for me. Unfortunately I may still be back in time for the celebrations of the Madrid fans if things go well for them, they might yet have something to put in that vast trophy room after all.

Chronicle Of A Peace Process....There's No Happy Ending Here

This is going to be a long post, although I suspect it will probably be the last time I use this header for a blog article in at least 12 months. ETA formally declared an end to their ceasefire last week, although in reality it had already ended with the bombing at the end of December of a car park at Madrid's Barajas airport; which killed 2 Ecuadorian immigrants. Last weeks declaration is simply the (post-electoral) confirmation of what everyone had already assumed to be the case.

Almost as predictable as the announcement of the end of the ceasefire has been the mass outbreak of 20/20 hindsight to try and suggest that the government has been naive or foolish in its dealings with ETA. Much of this “analysis” of course comes from those who never had any interest in the peace process succeeding. Nothing I have seen or read in the last few months changes the opinion I expressed shortly after the airport bombing; the real reason why the process has failed is that ETA are simply not yet ready for a "no winners, no losers" deal. They thought they could extract concessions which would allow them to present their dissolution as a victory, something that was never on offer despite the insistent propaganda of those opposed to the negotiations. Another factor could be that they walked up to the precipice of dissolution, took a look down at a future without the presence of an armed wing to apply pressure when needed, and just decided that bumping along indefinitely with 15-20% of the Basque vote was not what they needed. Here we have a significant difference with the Northern Irish situation, the dominant party in the Basque Country is the conservative nationalist PNV who are very firmly entrenched in the government of the region. A legalised Batasuna would always be playing second fiddle to the PNV, unless as part of the process they got a significant concession which they could use to try and justify all those decades of armed struggle.

It began with this....

Far from blundering blindly into a trap, this process was actually far more prepared than the talks with ETA which took place when José Maria Aznar and the Partido Popular (PP) were in power. That attempt, which involved more concessions than the current government has made in its effort to tempt ETA to dissolve, failed fairly swiftly and the PP now does its very best to pretend that it never happened at all. The initiative by the current government was based on a clear distinction between negotiations with ETA on an end to their existence (which also involved discussion of ETA prisoners), and the political component which would involve their political wing, Batasuna, in negotiations on reshaping the autonomy statute for the region. This distinction was made clear from the beginning, but it seems that at some point ETA decided to turn that process on its head and attempt to engage the government in direct political negotiations. The involvement of other organisations, including natural allies such as Sinn Fein, goes against the idea of it just being a trick to give ETA time to rearm and recover some lost ground.

The worst accusation that can be made against Prime Minister Zapatero, leaving aside the absurd nonsense from the PP about him "surrendering" to terror, is that he was over-optimistic about the whole process. His unfortunate declaration the day before the Barajas bombing that things would be much better in one years time has now come back to haunt him. However, this misreading of ETA's position has not really had any effect on the outcome, because even if the government had correctly assessed the way things were going it is very unlikely that they could have done anything to change it. Ever since the ceasefire was declared last year, the PP adopted an entirely cynical position that was spelt out very clearly by their leader Mariano Rajoy. If ETA didn't kill it was because the government had made concessions to them, and if they did kill it was because the government had not delivered on these concessions. This sort of "heads I win, tails you lose" logic permitted the PP to oppose and actively attempt to derail the process. They should be content at the outcome, what we have now is what they have sought.

and finished here....

Nobody should be surprised at the way the PP has acted. Those who lied and attempted to manipulate events following the Madrid bombings to try and stave off an electoral backlash, and who have since systematically toyed with the victims and memory of those same bombings in order to spread poisonous and nonsensical conspiracy theories, should never be in pole position to give lectures to anyone on how to handle terrorism. There have been many calls in the last few days for Zapatero to “rectify” his position. If the PP was to rectify its own position the first thing it would have to do is exile those responsible for this abusive use of terror for short term political gain to a suitably dark and cold place. Unfortunately for them, that would effectively mean the removal of much of the current party leadership; so we can safely assume it’s unlikely to happen.

PP mythology presents ETA as an organisation reborn thanks to Zapatero, after allegedly being on its knees and on the verge of disappearance when Aznar left power. Quite how they square this with their insistence over 3 long years that ETA either carried out or was involved in the worst terrorist attack the country has ever known is something that I will not attempt to explain. Logic does not even get a walk-on part in this particular picture. That they are irredeemably addicted to the exploitation of terror for their own political gain is further evidenced by one of their latest pre-conditions for supporting the government; that the governing PSOE rejects a deal to govern in coalition with nationalists in Navarra. This has nothing to do with terrorism and everything to do with the loss of the PP’s overall majority in the recent elections in the region; the nationalists in question are democratic organisations opposed to the use of violence.

There is now much talk about the need for unity between democrats against the threat of renewed ETA actions, and Zapatero had a meeting with Mariano Rajoy yesterday to try and defuse the PP’s attempts to extract political advantage from the situation. The PP has carefully distanced itself from the scorched earth style of opposition that won it no new friends following the airport bombing. The pact that the PP and the PSOE signed up to during Aznar’s period in government is now completely dead, in reality it was never really about combating ETA anyway. The initiative came from the PSOE as a way of neutralising the impact of the PP’s attempts to make terrorism their private issue, and formed part of a misguided pincer strategy by the two main national parties seeking to remove the PNV from power in the Basque Country; a campaign that had the sole effect of mobilising the nationalist vote in unprecedented quantities. In reality, any genuine agreement by the parties opposed to ETA’s continuing existence should not just include parties such as the PNV or Izquierda Unida, it should reach as far as Aralar; a radical nationalist breakaway from Batasuna that has rejected violence as a way of achieving their aims.

Meanwhile, those who (now) oppose negotiation as a means of bringing the conflict to a close have no other option to offer than continuing police pressure on ETA. This can bring some results, but it is a simplistic delusion of armchair warriors and opportunist politicians to claim that ETA will be dealt with by police methods alone. Did anyone notice the arrests the other day of members of an almost forgotten group called GRAPO? If they can survive 30 years without having any appreciable social base, it is clear that ETA are much better placed to continue activity, albeit low intensity, for another 30 years or more. This is a movement that, like it or not, can obtain around 150,000 votes in the Basque Country given the chance to present candidates; a reality that no amount of illegalisations can conceal. A terrorist organisation can survive for many years with 10% of that support. Presumably those who oppose any kind of negotiated end to ETA must believe that the situation in Northern Ireland 15 years ago was better than the situation that exists now?

The issue in the end is not one of whether ETA can survive, but why they should continue to do so. Without going into too much direct comparison with Northern Ireland, what brought that conflict there to a conclusion was the realisation by both the IRA and the British government that outright victory was not an available option. In such situations of impasse, those who attempt no solution to the conflict run no risk of failure; they do however buy a share of responsibility for its continuation. It would be irresponsible for any government not to have explored the possibilities offered by the ETA ceasefire, at some point ETA will be ready to disappear from the scene but somebody has to leave the door open to enable it to happen in the least messy way. After 3 years of the parliamentary session which has seen the lowest level of terrorist attacks of any since democracy was restored, the bodyguards are being recruited again as the depressing “normal service” is resumed again.

Dolomite Fever

I've been in a small village in the Italian Dolomites for the last week, and with everything that has been happening in my absence I have quite a bit of catching up to do. In the meantime I don't want to be accused of neglecting my blog, so here are some images of my trip:

He Came, He Lost, He Left

So the unsuccessful candidate to be mayor of Madrid, Miguel Sebastian, decided yesterday that 4 years in opposition in the town hall wasn't really what he was looking for. I never thought, given the nature of his selection, that he was going to be involved in Madrid city politics for very long; he was put there as candidate because no party heavyweight could be persuaded to contest the post with Gallardón. The awful result in the election meant that he did not even have much support in his own party. Sebastian's reward will undoubtedly come if Zapatero gets re-elected, I still suspect he might emerge as finance minister in a second term administration. Unfortunately, he assured the media that he would stick it out in opposition in the event of losing the election, so the nature of his going only serves to emphasise the terrible handling of the election in Madrid.

Meanwhile the winner of the election, Gallardón, wasted no time in staking his claim to run in second place on the party list in the general elections; something which has been rumoured for several months. In the event he has been slapped down a bit by Mariano Rajoy who probably feels it's a bit premature to have someone who so desperately wants to succeed him as PP leader getting too close. The battle to replace Rajoy if he loses the next election involves both Gallardón and, amazingly, the pauper president Esperanza Aguirre. The latter is not allowed to run for parliament whilst being regional president, Gallardón has no such restriction and is seeking a position to launch himself at national level. Aguirre, however, has much more influence within the party machine and in my opinion is more likely to get the job. I might expand on why I think this is so when I have returned from what I hope will be an enjoyable and relaxing week in Italy.

Municipal Elections 2007....Everyone's A Winner!

Suppose they held an election and nobody lost! It's normal in elections for every party involved to try and claim some kind of triumph, by focusing on whatever aspect of the results looks best for them. However, after yesterday's municipal elections in Spain it's hard to find a party that isn't claiming victory. If you're from the PP you focus on the total number of votes cast and the victories in Madrid and Valencia. The PSOE will concentrate on the significant rise in support in the Canary Islands, an overall increase in the number of councillors, and the possibility that they can form alliances to govern in Navarra or even the Balearic Islands. Meanwhile, Izquierda Unida will point to increased votes in Madrid to show that they have arrested a trend of declining shares of the vote.

The PP won the day on the sum total of votes, by over 150,000, but this seems to be mostly due to them increasing their hold on Valencia and Madrid. Elsewhere they had more mixed fortunes, and didn't show any increase in their vote. Indeed they have lost their overall majority in Navarra and the Balearic Islands. For the PSOE a very significant increase in their vote in the Canary Islands and the possibility of sharing power in Navarra has been offset by the disappointment of Madrid. Not that they really expected to win Madrid, they just didn't want to lose it so badly. Overall, the voting intentions hardly changed during the campaign, the initial opinion polls reflect the outcome quite well. Not only that, in many places the result has hardly changed since the previous round in 2003. It is hard to think of a single result that could accurately be described as a shock.

Picking a winner....

Abstention was an issue in some areas, in Cataluña the vote was significantly lower than the national average. In Madrid the PP is crowing about the record percentage of the vote at municipal and regional level, but the reality is that this is not due to a significant increase in their support. If you look at the voting figures in the city the PP has increased their vote in some areas, but in others it went down or stayed the same. The big difference is that a significant section of the PSOE vote stayed at home, and a smaller part of it switched (back?) to Izquierda Unida, who are actually the party recording the biggest proportional increase in votes in the city. The problem is that going from 7 to 8 per cent doesn't look so impressive on paper. This presents a problem for the PSOE in Madrid, whether it was due to the fiasco of the candidate selection, or just to an uninspiring campaign is hard to say. High abstention tends to affect the left more than the right in Spain, the PP support is more loyal when it comes to voting in local elections. Perhaps because they are always so angry?

Navarra is going to be interesting, it was the focus of a ridiculous and hysterical campaign by the PP based around the idea that the government had made a secret deal with ETA on the future of the region. It seems that the area where this campaign has had the least effect was Navarra itself, as the PP associated UPN lost its absolute majority; and an alliance of Basque nationalist parties gathered a significant increase in support. Now, however, the only alternative government that excludes the PP is an alliance between the nationalists and the PSOE. Should this happen we can expect an equally hysterical campaign from the right wing press as they try to convert the government of Navarra into a new version of the Catalan tripartit to try and scare the rest of the country into voting for the PP.

The PSOE needs to do some serious thinking about Madrid, the shift to the PP in an election where there has not been a national shift in that direction should be worrying. The victory of Aguirre in the regional election is of greater concern than what happened in Madrid city, as the PSOE would have expected to do better. Madrid has been used in the past as a political weathervane for the following general elections; a PSOE victory in the city preceded the national victory of Felipe Gonzalez, and a victory for the PP at regional level came just before Aznar won his first term. However, it is starting to look like a bit of a special case at the moment, although on sheer quantity of votes alone it always remains important.

What all this means for the general elections next year is an open question, the most likely outcome is something not so far away from what we have at the moment. The PP are not looking like nationwide winners, despite the solidity of their core vote. Meanwhile, it doesn't look as if the government is getting the support it needs to go for an absolute majority. On the basis of yesterday's results the most likely possibility would seem to be a repeat of what we have at the moment....it ccould be worse. The PP will of course hope for an intervention from ETA at some point that permits them to carry on with the farce of making terrorism the key issue in what will now be an almost permanent election campaign.

On a more local note, I checked this morning the results for Manzanares la Verguenza - there seems to have been some movement betwen parties but I can't yet tell if those pursuing the destruction of La Pedriza will be returning to power or not. The lords of the ladrillo have at least been set back slightly in the Toledo municipality of Seseña. An ugly campaign by a constructor who wants to build thousands of homes in an area with no water has failed to dislodge the Izquierda Unida mayor who opposed the development. It may not seem like much when you see how they still dominate in Madrid and the Mediterranean, but it is in reality a small victory worth celebrating.

Municipal Elections 2007....Getting The Voters Out

South of Watford has had exclusive access to a recording of a meeting involving two strategists from the Spanish Socialist Party (PSOE), lets call them Pérez and García. They were holding a meeting on how to mobilise their party's voters for Sunday's elections.

Pérez: "Things are a bit quiet with the campaign, I'm worried that we are not going to get out voters out on Sunday."

García: "Yeah, we need someone to inject a bit of life into it to motivate our supporters."

Pérez: "Something that scares them a bit."

García: "What about....what about getting that guy who used to be Prime Minister to do something."

Pérez: "What, Felipe Gonzalez?"

García: "Noooo, nobody even remembers who Gonzalez is these days. I mean the one who came after, with the moustache and the long hair."

Pérez: "Oh Aznar. But he's on the other side."

García: "Well exactly, we need to get him out to frighten our people a bit."

Pérez: "He certainly frightens me. What is he up to these days anyway?"

García: "He hangs out in that pseudo foundation they created for him to play in when he's not pretending to work for Rupert Murdoch."

Pérez: "So how do we get him to do what we want?"

García: "We need to rattle the bars of his cage a bit. Watch this."

He picks up the phone and dials a number - "Is that the FAES? Can you put me through to José Maria Aznar please".........there is a pause, then suddenly he shouts "Peace Process!" and slams the phone down.

García: "If I do that every hour for the rest of the day that should be enough to get him going"

Pérez: "Then he'll come out and say something stupid like that thing about drinking and driving the other week?"

García: "Something offensive, hopefully. If we could get him to insult our voters, by calling them all ETA supporters or something similar; that would be great."

Pérez: "Yeah, just what we need."

Municipal Elections 2007....It's Nothing Personal

The gloves came off last week in the election for mayor of Madrid. In one of the televised debates held for the elections, the PSOE's candidate, Miguel Sebastian, brandished a photograph of a woman accused of involvement in Marbella's massive corruption scandal and demanded that current mayor Alberto Ruiz Gallardón explain his involvement with her. The reaction was interesting, not least because it exposed a significant difference in the treatment of politicians between Spain and the UK. The photograph in question was of Montserrat Corulla, who is accused of having run front companies for one of the main people behind the scandal in Marbella. Now, for reasons that will become clearer, it is difficult to be precise about the relationship between her and Gallardón. In the debate itself Gallardón denied that he had ever had any kind of "professional" relationship with Corulla and following the debate his party, the Partido Popular, loudly accused Sebastian of trying to introduce the mayor's personal life into the campaign.

By raising the issue in the way he did, Sebastian did seem to put the focus on the nature of this relationship and allowed his opponent to brush it aside on the grounds that it is a personal matter. In Spain the mainstream press does not touch the personal lives of politicians; whereas if this was the UK we would by now know more than we ever wanted to know about Corulla and Gallardón. In this particular case there are grounds for thinking that the British approach might be the better one, not because I have any interest in Gallardon's private life, but because there is actually a serious issue involved. Corulla was fronting projects in Madrid to turn protected buildings into luxury hotels, and seems to have made numerous visits to the department in the city administration dealing with planning proposals. She also seems to have had easy access to the most senior officials and councillors. The issues involved are explained in a bit more detail in this post from Periodismo Incendiario.

The issue at stake is whether a person involved in one of the biggest corruption scandals the country has ever known was able to use her relationship with the mayor of Madrid to obtain favourable treatment for projects that may well have involved the laundering of money from Marbella. By any standards it is an issue of public interest, but the general lack of transparency in the administration here makes it difficult to know what really happened. Couple this with being able to get rid of an issue by claiming that it is interference in your "personal" affairs, and we are none the wiser about what has been going on; the additional noise of it being raised during the election campaign doesn't help. So perhaps what we need to do is get the News of the World onto the case?

Meanwhile Gallardón is on course for a comfortable victory in Sunday's election, according to the latest opinion polls. Esperanza Aguirre also looks set to be returned as president of the regional government, and many observers are already focusing on the rivalry between the two and what might happen in the next few years if the PP fails to win the general election in 2008.

Manzanares La Verguenza

As we followed the Manzanares river down towards El Tranco on Sunday after a fantastic walk in the mountains, the horizon was dominated by a huge crane; and I'm not talking about the living variety. La Pedriza is one of the most beautiful parts of the Sierra de Guadarrama and deserves maximum protection, but those who run the municipality of Manzanares el Real clearly hate it. They have decided to allow significant construction of new houses right into the foot of this spectacular rocky landscape. Those who buy these houses will not have a view of the mountains, they will be living in them. It's probably the most appalling piece of vandalistic construction that I have seen in the region. Of course each successive encroachment into this previously pristine space provides the pretext for the next one.

Now I do not know which party runs Manzanares el Real, and for the moment I have avoided looking it up. I can only express the desire that whoever it is gets kicked out of office in Sunday's election, even if it is too late to stop the destructive development. The curse of South of Watford on those building the houses, on those buying them, on those who approved it, and those who vote for them. May plagues of termites invade your homes. As for the poor river Manzanares, if it only knew what awaits it in Madrid it would turn around and go back up the hill.

The Nearly Legal Party

The court hearings to pronounce on alleged links between candidates for the municipal elections and the illegalised political wing of ETA, Batasuna, turned out much as expected when I wrote about this issue at the beginning of the month. The Supreme Court decided to accept the recommendations of the state prosecutors and disallow all of the candidates presented under the name of Abertzale Sozialisten Batasuna, in what was a fairly open attempt by Batasuna to rebadge themselves under another name. The court also went along with the prosecutors on the candidacies presented by Acción Nacionalista Vasca (ANV), and banned around half of their candidates.

The latter decision is much less straightforward, ANV has been around since before the Spanish Civil War and is an entirely legal organisation even if it has not previously demonstrated much interest in presenting hundreds of candidates in local elections. The inconsistent nature of these decisions is evident. One obvious question that gets asked is how the party can itself be legal if half of its candidates are not? Or looking at the issue from the other side, how can you ban any candidates at all for a political party if the organisation itself is legal? The prosecutors presented a fairly arbitrary criteria for the judges to make their decision, any local list with more than three candidates judged to be linked in some way to Batasuna was said to be invalid, all others were accepted. Whilst this obviously makes the work of the judges much easier, it has to be said that it looks like a number plucked out of the air at random, and what happens if those who are judged to be linked to Batasuna no longer participate in actions organised by that party?

I have always been slightly curious about the conduct of these court hearings, at least this time the court called for their dinner to be sent in and seemed to do a long session; there are other times when I suspect they have just rubber stamped whatever is put before them by the prosecutors and then had a chat amongst themselves for an hour before announcing the decision. If you are seriously going to examine the political affiliations of thousands of election candidates in a single court hearing then you need to be prepared to stay up late; I'm not convinced that is what always happens.

The government seems quite content with the situation; it leaves the opposition PP with less strength to their argument that the government is allowing Batasuna to stand in the elections, and at the same time it leaves ETA with less justification for using the closing of the electoral door as a pretext for further armed activity. None of this hides the confusion that is the result of judges being asked to take political decisions based on an appalling piece of legislation that was only ever introduced with the intention of making Batasuna illegal, but which in theory can affect any political party. Yesterday, the farce took a new twist as another of these right wing organisations that exist solely for the purpose of taking other people to court tried to get the case taken away from judge Baltasar Garzon and handed to another judge who they felt would be more sympathetic. They failed in their attempt, but it just reaffirms what can now be called the "boric acid test" of justice; get the right judge and you get the decision you want.

Almost unnoticed in the backgound, the Ley de Partidos that is used in all these cases for banning candidates is facing a legal challenge in the European Court; the result of this challenge could be interesting as a badly drafted and almost impossible to implement law comes under what will hopefully be some close and critical inspection. Meanwhile, any Spanish speaker who takes the simplistic view that opposing this law means you are some kind of ETA sympathiser would do well to read this reply from Ricardo Royo-Villanova y Martin.

Municipal Elections 2007....There's Only One Party In The Race

Continuing on the theme of the coming local elections, my weekend away meant that I didn't get a chance to write earlier about the political storm created by Formula One boss Bernie Ecclestone. Bernie turned up for a press conference in Valencia last week to announce details of a proposed Grand Prix to be held in the city. So far so boring, but things got more interesting when he decided to reveal that the race would only go ahead if the Partido Popular (PP) won the regional and city elections in Valencia.

He had done a deal with Francisco Camps, the current president of the region, and made it clear that his deal was with people rather than cities. Clearly, for Bernie just being a multi-millionaire is not sufficient; you have to be able to demonstrate the power that money brings by showing how you can manipulate opportunistic politicians, and in the process milk some public funds for putting on another race in a country which already has a Grand Prix. Camps decided not to remind Bernie about any integrity issues, and expressed his gratitude for this little piece of electoral blackmail.

If the race ever takes place it will soak up a significant public contribution, which following the best sporting traditions will be channelled through one of these private companies that always seems to be on hand when called for. The rights to Formula One in Spain are now in the hands of Alejandro Agag, whose main previous claim to fame has been to marry the daughter of José Maria Aznar in a wedding at El Escorial that saw Aznar acting more like a king than a prime minister. Agag claims he has nothing to do with the Valencia deal, which seems a bit strange just from the business point of view - without going into the clear political connections that exist.

Anyway, just in case the voters of Valencia decide to revolt against this cynical manoeuvre, and also for the benefit of those living elsewhere, South of Watford is proudly able to provide you with an exclusive do it yourself, play at home version of the Valencia Grand Prix. Any breach of property rights is entirely intentional, so here we go:

Rrrrrrrinnnnnnnn.................... rrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnnn................ rrrrrrrrrriirinrinrinnnnnnnnnnnnn.......... rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrunnnnnnnnnnnnnnn......

and etc etc for the next 2-3 hours. Who has won? Bernie, of course.

Municipal Elections 2007....The Battlegrounds

It's time to take a more general look at the impact these elections on the 27th might have, now that we have had the first opinion polls of the campaign. What these polls suggest is that we cannot expect to see a very notable change with respect to the equivalent elections that were held in 2003. Based on this data, the opposition Partido Popular (PP) is not likely to make any significant gains, the only regional government not already controlled by them that they have a reasonable chance of winning is Asturias. Even this does not look very likely based on the poll figures I have seen, and assuming that this is a reasonable reflection of voting intentions.

The governing PSOE does have its eye on some significant prizes. They placed a high profile candidate in the Canary Islands, Juan Fernando López Aguilar, who was Justice minister in the government until a few months ago. The race in the Canaries is split between the PP, the regional Coalición Canaria, and the PSOE; so even being the biggest party does not guarantee that you can form the government. The election in Navarra could also be dramatic, as I have mentioned previously. There is every chance that the PP could lose their absolute majority there; and given their current inability to form alliances that means they could lose power too. The Balearic Islands, currently providing the strongest competition to Marbella as municipal corruption capital of the country, could also see the PP lose power to a coalition of opposition parties. In their strongholds of Castilla and Leon, as well as in Madrid, there are no signs of any danger for the PP.

López Aguilar....a heavyweight candidate for Canarias

Losing Navarra and the Balearics would be sufficient to make this a bad election for the PP. It is important to remember that the elections in 2003 took place at a time when the PP was still suffering the consequences of Aznar's participation in the Iraq disaster, although the PP did better at holding its vote than many observers expected and was actually quite satisfied with the results at the time. The participation level in the elections is going to be one of the most important issues, where there has not been much shift in voting intentions then it is the motivation of each party's core vote that becomes the most significant factor. It also has to be taken into account that Galicia, Cataluña, the Basque Country, and Andalucia do not vote this time around for their regional governments, so those regional contests that do occur are not giving a picture for the country as a whole.

The government would want these elections to be a platform for going on to win a national majority in next year's general election, and the poll figures do not at the moment support that ambition. Neither do they support the idea that the PP can emerge as the biggest party in a national election. If the poll data is correct then the PP emerge as the biggest losers simply because a failure to make headway against an incumbent government 3 years into its term suggests that a similar failure could occur in the general election. That prospect might be tempting enough for the government to go for early elections in the autumn, especially if there is no reason to think the outlook will change for the better before March next year. There is plenty at stake here, while the electoral cycle keeps these elections so close to the national ones, then they will always be about much more than local issues.

Municipal Elections 2007....Premature Birth

Returning refreshed from my brief stay in the low countries, I find I have a small pile of things I want to write about, mostly to do with the forthcoming elections. When I posted back in February about the fashion for inaugurating public works in election campaigns, it never occurred to me that we were going to get quite such an intense frenzy of bogus inaugurations like that which we have experienced in the last couple of weeks in Madrid.

The prize for the most fraudulent inauguration so far is not going to Madrid mayor Alberto Ruiz Gallardón for opening traffic tunnels without drains, Alberto has been outdone by his party rival and regional boss; the pauper president Esperanza Aguirre. La Espe turned up a couple of weeks ago for the opening ceremony and accompanying photo fest of a newly built hospital in Parla, to the south of Madrid. She posed proudly for the photographers with her hand resting on an incubator, as evidence of how her administration was improving health services for the region.

Once the show had moved on, I suppose to yet another opening ceremony, it turns out that the incubator also had to move. It was shipped out the back door of the hospital and returned to the one from which it had been temporarily borrowed for the photo opportunity. Inside the hospital, an unsuspecting invitee tried to go to one of the shiny new bathrooms, she was informed that this was not possible because a few small but important pieces of porcelain were still missing from the, as yet, uninaugurated facility.

Happy Blogiversary To Me

This blog celebrates its first anniversary on Sunday. When I started it on May 13th last year I was just playing with the idea of having a blog more out of curiosity than anything else, and it took a while before I established what sort of content I wanted to include in it (having a go at the PP seems to be the central theme of the year - although they do make an easy and tempting target). Also, one feature of my life in Spain was that, email apart, I had almost completely stopped writing in English - and I was becoming aware that my English was getting worse (without producing any corresponding improvement in my Spanish!).

Now, over 180 posts later, it's almost taken over my life; if I didn't have to work for a living it would be even worse. I could mark the anniversary by doing a complete redesign of the blog, but I haven't even got round to changing that vague header I put at the beginning when I couldn't think of anything better. Instead it's going to be clogs not blogs; I'm off to Amsterdam for the weekend and the laptop stays at home.

Community Service

This week saw the celebration in the building where I live of the annual meeting of that very Spanish institution, the Comunidad de Propietarios. This was the meeting of all the owners of apartments in the building to discuss anything that needs doing to the building, examine the accounts, bitch about anyone who didn't turn up (especially if they owe money to the Comunidad), complain about the tenants in the rented flats and maintain 5 separate but simultaneous conversations/arguments. The presidency of the comunidad goes by strict rotation, when we moved into our apartment we found out that we were presidents for that year because it was the turn of the people we had bought from. It's not a big building and it's amazing how quickly our turn comes around again. My first ever meeting was true culture shock, I never knew that a communal rubbish bin could provoke such lengthy and strong discussion; it came up again at this weeks meeting, there are some items which are permanently on the agenda. Given the time it takes to sort things out between 8-10 people I can't imagine what it must be like in bigger buildings.

I usually play the role of the quiet foreigner in the corner in these meetings, it's a part I do quite well and I reckon that if at least one person doesn't talk very much then there is a slight possibility of the meeting being just a tiny bit shorter. My building is probably quite typical of many in the central area of Madrid, you have a dwindling number of residents who have lived there for much of their lives, a growing number of owners who live elsewhere and rent out their property, a couple of apartments whose owners have died and where ownership is still unclear, and some relative newcomers like myself. The result is a Comunidad that doesn't really want to spend much money on the upkeep of the building, those who don't live there and some who do just want to pay the minimum necessary to keep everything ticking over. It could be worse, at least we have decided to raise the monthly contributions to prevent what littlle reserves we have from dwindling away.The only real investment made during my time in the building was a new door for the front entrance, I can tell we bought a decent quality product as it more or less survived a recent and fairly determined attempt to kick it in at 5 a.m. on a Sunday morning.

If you have not seen the excellent film La Comunidad, directed by Alex de la Iglesia, then I recommend it. Things are not really as bad as portrayed in the film, but I can't help thinking that behind the wild, comic exaggeration there is probably a small grain of truth.

Just Another Day In Espelandia

I went to Madrid airport on Friday, on my way to London for the weekend. As usual I travelled by Metro to the stop inside Terminal 2 of the airport. Everything was much the same as on many similar trips I have made in the past. The difference this time was that leaving the Metro station at the airport has become just a little bit more complicated.

The story begins with the construction of the new Terminal 4 at the airport, which has now been open for a couple of years. The new terminal was built together with a Metro station, but without that annoying little detail of the tunnel and tracks needed for it to actually form part of the network. The government decided that this was the responsibility of Madrid's regional government, led by the esteemed Esperanza Aguirre, because the line terminates in what used to be the village of Barajas, beside the airport. Esperanza disagreed, and although it hurts me deeply to say so, I think she was probably right; if you can connect both halves of the new terminal underground, then why can it not be possible to at least put some sort of transport system in place between old and new terminals? Anyway, in the end Aguirre decided to take on the job but with a little twist; the extension to the new terminal would be built by a private company who would then have the rights to operate the line during a set period. Espe is by all accounts a keen admirer of Margaret Thatcher, and it shows.

So after two years in which there was no direct public transport link to the new terminal, we finally got the new section opened last week (it got inaugurated twice, but that just seems to be standard in these pre-election times). I was curious to see what the pricing policy was going to be, as there had been strong rumours that it was going to involve a different pricing policy to that used on the rest of Madrid's Metro. Sure enough, we were informed that the journey to Terminal 4 on the new section of line would cost 1 euro extra on top of the normal ticket price. That might not seem much to many of you who live outside of Spain, but a 10 journey ticket on the rest of the network only costs €6.40. So the price you pay to go to the new terminal is a little bit over 150% more than you would pay to go to Barajas "pueblo". So far much as expected, a hefty little price increase for the one extra section of tunnel that had been built, and a nice little earner for the companies that built it. Now, going back to where I started this post, I said I was getting off at Terminal 2; and the line to Terminal 2 was built using general taxation and has been open for several years. Well that won't do, and thankfully we have Esperanza to stop that sort of cheap transport nonsense, because it turns out that they are also charging users to to the old terminal a 1 euro supplement as well. Because the line goes through some stations where the supplement applies and others where it doesn't, they can only charge it on exit. Hence the chaos when I passed through on Friday as everyone wondered why they couldn't get through the barriers. Some people are just so ungrateful, they don't realise the obvious efficiency benefits of making people pay to enter the system, and then pay to get out of it again.

and this is where we keep those who can't afford to get out....

I don't know whether the extra money from Terminal 2 goes to the consortium who did nothing at all on that section of line except change the signs. Maybe it goes into the Comunidad's coffers so that they can then fund a lavish advertising campaign telling us how well they are running the Metro. Perhaps - and I can't resist the opportunity - it goes to pay Espe's heating bills in winter and thats why she turned down the money that was collected to help her. Presumably, her solution to this bizarre, chaotic mess will be to eventually privatize the whole lot. Another day in Espelandia.

Municipal Elections 2007....I Want To Know What You Believe In

Maybe it's just coincidence, but I seem to run into them all the time recently. Wearing their distinctive red jackets with the word "quiero" written vertically in white down one side, they look like these people who get recruited by mobile phone companies, or one of the new television companies, to distribute marketing material to passers by. They have bicycles too, with flags attached to the back of the bike bearing the same slogan as the jackets. The first time I saw them I instinctively started to take that semi-circular route around them that says "I am not not the person who is going to take whatever it is you are handing out only to put it straight into the bin". They also travel with a large mobile screen which broadcasts a constant series of members of the public telling whoever cares to stop and listen what it is that they want.

These people are not hired by a private company to sell their product - they are in fact the campaign team for Miguel Sebastian, the PSOE candidate for mayor of Madrid. You wouldn't know without stopping and looking a bit closer that they even represent a political party. It is the ultimate triumph of style over content as someone has probably been paid very well to deliver a parody of the last commercial marketing campaign that they worked on. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against imaginative political campaigning but where is the difference if people confuse you with their telephone company? The illusion of participation is given by the screen and the camera team who give 5 seconds of fame to those who want to say their piece. It's an illusion because if you are going to take suggestions from ordinary people about what they want for their city then you do it before you present your electoral program, not afterwards. Letting Mr Garcia say he wants one thing, and then allowing Mrs Perez to say she wants the opposite just ends up giving the impression that you don't really stand for anything in particular.

Digging for victory?

El Dos De Mayo

I wanted to post something about the 2nd of May, not least because it is a public holiday in Madrid; giving me the chance to do it at my leisure. So I went to English Wikipedia looking for some background, only to discover that there was no specific article on the events that happened on this day in 1808. Faced with such a situation, and having spent some time with Wikipedia for other reasons, I decided the best thing to do was to write it myself. It is still a work in progress, but has already been greatly improved by other Wiki users. So if you are inside or outside of Madrid today, and don't understand why the city is still on holiday this article will tell you why: Dos de Mayo Uprising.

Garzón Hits The Nail On The Head

"We cannot have a never-ending chain of suspensions and illegalisations if there is no unanswerable evidence". With these words the judge Baltasar Garzón has responded to the pressures to ban the tiny Basque party Acción Nacionalista Vasca (ANV). The party, which has been in existence since 1930, has become the focus of attention because it has presented a comprehensive list of candidates in the Basque provinces for the municipal elections on May 27th. Given that the organisation has a very small membership, the suspicion is that it has lent its name as a cover to ETA's political wing Batasuna, whose attempts to present themselves at the election under a new name are almost certainly going to be rejected by the courts.

The problem, as I have pointed out before, is with the law that was used to make Batasuna illegal. Any other organisation that opposes that law, as they are entitled to do, also risks being made illegal if they present candidates for election to try and offer representation to that section of the electorate that supported Batasuna. The Partido Popular (PP) has, predictably, called for the ANV to be banned by the courts. The final decision does not rest with Garzón, although the failure of the police to find a direct link between ANV and ETA coupled with Garzón´s recommendation makes it difficult to see the party being banned.

Now it is fairly clear that ANV shares similar ideological principles with Batasuna, but that is not the same as saying the two organisations are identical. ANV's statutes explicitly rule out support for violence, and the fact that the party has existed as an independent entity during many years means that it cannot simply be regarded as a creation of ETA. The PP's attempts to portray any radical nationalist organisation as being an extension of ETA would lead to a situation where no legal expression of these political positions would be possible; something which would give ETA hardliners the excuse they barely need to continue using violent methods.

What seems likely to happen now is that a percentage of ANV's candidates will be challenged in the courts, those that have had some past connection to Batasuna. This in itself is an interpretation open to question as it seems to say that once someone has been a Batasuna candidate then they cannot stand for another party. The law and the interpretations made of it end up being almost entirely political. One thing is almost certain, if ANV is allowed to present candidates for the elections we will get a demonstration in Madrid called by one of the PP's satellite organisations, and immediately backed by the PP itself who are desperate to try and introduce the issue into the election campaign as another example of the supposed "surrender" to ETA. After all, it's been over a month since the last one.