Spanish News Today Editors Roundup Weekly Bulletin Jun 18

CLICK HERE FOR THE FEATURE ARTICLES "Strikes by Ryanair cabin crew in Spain cause more flight cancellations" and "Top holiday destination bans tourists from wearing footy shirts & bikinis"

The official start of Spanish summertime is on June 21 – next Tuesday – but you could be forgiven for thinking summer has already arrived with this near unbearable heat. Luckily, it seems the worst of the heatwave is due to pass in Spain this weekend and next week will at least be tolerable, if not cool.

Just as well, because there are a score of wildfires eating through the country’s forests, mostly in the north and northwest, but also several in Andalucía.

But fires are the least of the concerns for many who are thinking about their summer holidays. On the one hand, Ryanair staff in Spain are planning to strike at the end of this month and for a couple of days in July, affecting flights in and out of the country and jeopardising vacations for hundreds of people. At the same time, those headed for the holiday destination of Palma de Mallorca are in for more restrictions to try and kerb drunken holidaymaking.

Not content with limiting Brits to six drinks a day at all-inclusive hotels, some establishments in Palma have also instated a dress code which bans, among other things, football shirts and bikinis.

Pack shoes and shirt, everyone!

Grieving on a jet plane

The travel chaos that has been affecting airports of late certainly hasn’t abated in recent days. Once again this week, British Airways cancelled more than 100 flights, several destined for Spain and many at very short notice. The company has advised that affected travellers may be entitled to compensation.

Despite these travel woes, Spain still expects to welcome more than 30 million airline passengers in the summer months – almost back to the levels of pre-pandemic tourism to the country.

This may yet only be the tip of the iceberg, since Ryanair cabin crew in Spain have announced 6 days of official strike action at the end of June and the beginning of July. The staff are calling for higher wages, better working conditions and longer holidays, but the Irish airline has ceased negotiating with them so the industrial action seems inevitable. However, Ryanair itself claimed in a statement that the largest union in Spain won’t be involved in the strike, so it remains to be seen how much disruption this will actually cause.

One Ryanair employee in particular made headlines this week when he shocked passengers by making an announcement over the tannoy system to complain about the airline’s treatment of its staff. The disgruntled flight attendant was filmed on video ranting on the loudspeaker during the flight from Murcia’s Corvera airport to Manchester, saying “I do apologise. If you want to file a complaint please do so – go to Ryanair.com. They don’t listen to their staff, they probably care about you more because you give them money. Instead, we’re costing them money. So give that a go, see how that goes. After four years I literally – I haven’t got high expectations for them.”

Assuming you do get to Spain safe and sound, it’s not all necessarily plain sailing as numerous horror stories have been making the rounds about UK passengers waiting for hours to clear airport passport controls. Now, countless Britons who have made Spain their home are officially resident here, meaning they are not subject to the 90-day stay in 180 days rule. This might suggest that, on arrival in Spain, they should be allowed to pass through the often quicker ‘EU citizen’ line, since they live in Europe. Sadly though, this isn’t the case, and UK travellers, even those who hold a TIE card, will have to suffer the non-EU line, queues or no queues.

It’s always a good idea to show your TIE card along with your passport to ensure that it isn’t incorrectly stamped.

Many tourists choose to fly into Spain’s central airport in Madrid and go on to their final holiday destination from there. However, some travellers headed for the Costa Blanca have been disappointed as rail company Renfe suspended Madrid-Alicante highspeed AVE train ticket sales from June 30.

The move has been slammed as “totally unacceptable”, what with summer literally around the corner; the firm denied that it had suspended sales and that it was waiting for traffic patterns to be finalised, but all the same, hundreds of thousands of holidaymakers had their holiday plans thrown into disarray having already booked hotels or apartments in Alicante.

Within just three days of the furore erupting, Renfe announced that it is “committed” to reinstating Madrid-Alicante ticket sales, once authorised by the State Railway Safety Agency (AESF). And although the “exact date is unknown” the Minister for Mobility has assured that “this problem will be fixed this week”.

Caravan of love

One of the most popular ways to travel this summer, and which has gained in popularity since the pandemic, is camping. Sales of campervans and motorhomes in Spain rose by 20% during the pandemic, with more people looking to take advantage of staycations and DIY driving holidays.

There are almost thirty quality campsites to park up in and pitch a tent in the Murcia Region, and we also did a round up this week of the 5 best beach-side campsites in Cadiz, Andalucía.

But it’s important to be aware of the specific rules for camping overnight in different parts of Spain, such as time limits on how many hours or nights you may stay in any given space.

Camping on beaches is strictly forbidden, as is parking up in most parts of national and natural parks. In general, you’re only allowed to stay in official, regulated caravan parks and campsites, but it’s worth noting that you may actually sleep in a car park as long as you don’t set up an awning outside your motorhome or make it look like you’re camping in any way. Basically, as with so much when it comes to the Spanish legal system, as long as you make it seem like the law’s not being broken, people will turn a blind eye.

Wave your flag

In a week when Blue Flags ceremonies are being held to recognise good work on quality beaches in Spain, the Mar Menor has won its own ‘award’ – a Black Flag from the environmental association Ecologists in Action. Like the Razzies to the Blue Flag’s Oscars, the Black Flag is presented by the eco-group every year as an ironic distinction and a form of protest against coastal areas that have suffered environmental mismanagement and unchecked pollution.

It seems like something has recently made the legal apparatus in Murcia sit up and take note of the dreadful situation in the Mar Menor, as several injunctions have been sent down from above this week to try and regulate the contaminants that still flood into the lagoon every second.

First, the High Court of Justice in Murcia ruled that the Segura Hydrographic Confederation (CHS) could no longer run “accidental discharges” of brackish, polluted water through the Rambla de Albujón waterway and into the Mar Menor. Back in 2020, this was actually authorised on the grounds that it was “inevitable” that some of the off-flow would end up the Mar Menor, so there was no point in outlawing it, but this decision has now thankfully been reversed.

Then, farmers in the Campo de Cartagena have been given until August to prove they are complying with the protection measures for the region’s aquifer or risk having their water supply cut off by the CHS.

Finally, it was decreed by the Murcia Senate that they would very sensibly reject a proposal by Vox and the incumbent PP party to open the floodgates and let all the pollution in the Mar Menor flow out into the Mediterranean Sea. Those in favour argued that this solution would be the only viable option to halt the degradation of the Mar Menor, but what’s the point of saving one threatened ecosystem just to endanger another one?

As well as the Mar Menor, the other marine ecosystem in the Murcia Region that has received the ‘prestigious’ Black Flag is Portmán Bay, which has become a “scorched earth”, according to Ecologistas en Acción, after decades of destructive private mining activity in the Sierra Minera and repeated failures to approve a project to clean up the mess.

Coronavirus

Mixed news on the Covid front again this week as the national incidence rate has crept up a few points, but hospitalisations for coronavirus, and more specifically the number of patients being admitted to Spain’s ICUs for more serious conditions, have remained stable.

To stay ahead of a possible nth wave, the Ministry of Health in Spain has actually just announced that a fourth Covid vaccine will soon be offered to the entire population, not just older age groups.

Although deaths and (officially recorded) infection rates continue to fluctuate, the truth is that the most recent wave of Covid in Spain went by almost unnoticed by everyone who didn’t end up in hospital with it. Yes, with fewer people wearing masks we’re more likely to get infected. But by now patience is wearing thin with the endless stream of vaccines and it’s unlikely that this fourth one will have as great an uptake as previous doses.

If they’re really determined to treat coronavirus as an endemic disease, just like the flu, then by all means vaccinate the old and infirm once a year, plus anyone else who feels strongly that they want one. But additional jabs for the general population every six months hardly seem necessary.

The exact date for the rollout of this extra booster shot hasn’t been finalised yet, but the Health Minister has indicated that it will “probably” happen in the autumn, when new batches of the jab designed to target the Covid variants arrive.

For all the latest coronavirus news and updates in Spain, use the following link: CORONAVIRUS LATEST NEWS

Murcia

With the arrival of summer to Murcia, it’s high time that the Corvera airport bus started up again. The bus service was finally restarted this Wednesday, with buses connecting Cartagena and Murcia city with the airport as nearly 100,000 passengers passed through its terminal last month and flights are added this week to Oslo, Bilbao and Bergen.

There will be twelve daily buses, three in each direction to each city, and the service will be in place until September 15, but the bus has a slightly different timetable than was first suggested by the Regional authorities, supposedly to try and better coordinate with flight arrival and departure times at the airport.

Unfortunately, despite the changes in the bus times, there is still a disparity between most flight times and the times that the buses arrive and depart, a problem the Transport department seems unable or, worse yet, unwilling to solve.

With the warm weather, it’s no surprise that many want to strip off, and that’s exactly what a group of Spanish News Today Editors Roundup Weekly Bulletin Jun 18

cyclists did in Murcia city this week. Conceived as a protest to wars the world over, the naked cycle ride took the unclothed bike-riders around various parts of Murcia capital with anti-war slogans painted on various body parts. Eventually, the campaign aims to take this protest to different cities in Spain, creating a widespread culture of peace and non-violence, and they welcome everyone to take part. Just be sure to wear plenty of sun cream if the weather stays like this!

One far less wholesome story of nudity involves the disgraceful case of an Icelandic expat retiree living in Torre Pacheco who was arrested for sexually abusing eight minors between May 2020 and the spring of 2021. The man, known locally in the village of San Cayetano where he lives as ‘El Inglés’ (despite not being English) had already served a sentence in his own country for raping four children in 1988 and was sentenced to a total of eight and a half years in prison here in Spain.

However, his prison sentence has been suspended and he will only have to spend 10 years on probation, provided that he does not commit any more crimes and does not approach any of his victims. Oh, and he’ll be made to do a bit of community service. There is no excuse for a pervert and repeat offender to receive such a light punishment (if it can be called that), but it’s highly doubtful that an appeal will be made to make it stronger. In fact, the man’s legal defence team could still appeal the decision with the High Court in Murcia to have his probation reduced.

Finally, an update on the Murcia-based British scammer we mentioned in our last bulletin, who was arrested for defrauding 25 British citizens in Murcia and Alicante over their residency, TIE and other paperwork. We put a call out for information on anyone who may have been affected by this purported con artist, and dozens of readers came back to us with horror stories of their dealings with this man. In fact, it turns out he may have conned over a thousand people. One man who contacted us said that the conman bragged to him about having “dealt with over 1,200 people for the same thing”, which at a conservative estimate of 250 euros per person would mean he has swindled more than 300,000 euros all told. If you fear you may have also fallen victim to this same conman, police in Molina de Segura suggest that you get in touch with them at molinasegura.extdoc@policia.es and leave a phone number for them to get back to.

Check out our EVENTS DIARY to see everything going on in Murcia:

Spain

It’s the first week that Spain and Portugal have been allowed to cap the price of natural gas, the so-called Iberian exception which the government promised would have a huge impact on ever-rising electricity bills. Sadly, both the powers that be and consumers have been dealt a massive disappointment as energy costs continue to soar despite the controls.

The main reason for this is the heatwave currently being experienced in Spain, which has pushed thermometers well up into the 40s in many parts of the country. When it’s hot (or very cold for that matter) people use more electricity, so it’s the classic supply and demand conundrum. The government also has to pay compensation to the larger companies who use natural gas to provide energy to make up for the short-fall between the real price of gas and the discounted rate so the more we use, the more expensive it is.

With everyone blasting air-conditioning and fans to keep cool, electricity to Spain has crept up to more than 259 euros per megawatt hour this week. The good news is that the heatwave is set to let up over the weekend, and those in the know have assured that once the temperatures go back to normal, we should see a big reduction in electricity bills.

Electricity prices aren’t the only product on the up and up however, and fuel continues to skyrocket beyond all records in Spain. Even though the government has extended its 20-cent per litre discount on petrol and diesel until the beginning of October, prices keep rising and the filling station bosses have warned that petrol will almost certainly exceed 3 euros per litre sometime this summer.

Globally, there’s simply not enough petrol and diesel to go around so we’re back to the supply/demand issue but in Spain, almost 500 service stations have been forced to shut up shop in the last two years. A lot of the casualties occurred during the pandemic of course, but in recent weeks many of the smaller companies have warned that more and more businesses will go under if the prices don’t stabilise.

So with prices continuing to soar, the last thing any of us need is to fork out yet more cash for fines and, helpful as always, the DGT has this week highlighted the top five driving infractions that land people in hot water during the summer.

The usual suspects are on the list, such as not wearing a seatbelt or using a mobile phone behind the wheel, which will now cause motorists to lose 6 points from their licence, but there are a few curve balls too. Wearing flip-flops or driving barefoot, for example. Now, while these aren’t technically against the law, traffic cops can make a call if they decide your choice of footwear is impeding your ability to drive safely, they can slap you with a 200 euro fine. The same goes for eating or drinking, while throwing a lit cigarette butt out the window has been listed as one of the more serious infractions and will cost 500 euros and 6 points from your licence.

It’s not only behind the wheel where our attire is being monitored though. Several restaurant owners in the tourist hotspot of Palma in Mallorca have come together and designed a new dress code for their establishments, which ban football jerseys and bikinis in an attempt to recover the island’s reputation and crack down on “drunken tourism.”

Swimwear of any kind is banned at these venues, as are any items purchased from street vendors, such as glow-in-the-dark hats and sunglasses with lights.

Alicante

Another thing many of us feel like doing when the weather is this hot is going down to the beach or pool to cool down. Sadly, this week alone three people have lost their lives in Alicante province after getting into difficulty in strong currents or in freak accidents at swimming pools.

Most recently, a 68-year-old woman was pulled unconscious from the sea at La Mata beach in Torrevieja. Lifeguards and a SAMU medical team managed to stabilise the victim but she died on arrival at Torrevieja Hospital. Hours earlier, a seven-year-old schoolboy drowned after getting his hand stuck in a suction drain at the bottom of a swimming pool Bulevar Cantalar Residence in Cabo de las Huertas, Alicante. Two local police officers were the first on the scene and dived into the pool but were unable to free the little boy until the electricity supply was cut off immobilising the suction system.

And earlier this week, it was revealed that an 82-year-old man had drowned at Poniente beach in Benidorm. Again, ambulance crews made every attempt to revive the unconscious victim but he was pronounced dead on the coastline and a post-mortem will be carried out to determine the cause of his death.

The dangers of the sea are clearly apparent in a video which has emerged of an incredible rescue Spanish News Today Editors Roundup Weekly Bulletin Jun 18

which has plunged two heroic brothers into the limelight. An elderly British man found himself in an extremely perilous situation when he fell from cliffs at La Caleta beach in Cabo Roig, Orihuela Costa. The pensioner was repeatedly thrown against the rocks by a heavy swell and was unable to get out of the water as his wife cried for help. Brothers Aitor and David climbed down the cliff face, while others sped to the scene on a jet ski, and after several hair-raising minutes managed to reach the Brit and eventually get him to safety. The brothers have since been hailed heroes for saving the elderly man’s life.

Sadly, the same can’t be said for a distressed dolphin that stunned lifeguards and bathers when, obviously struggling and sick, it appeared extremely close to the shore at Les Deveses beach in Denia. Lifeguards attempted to steer the dolphin back out to sea but it was found dead on the beach of l’Almadrava a short time later.

Meanwhile safety on Benidorm beaches has been stepped up with the purchase of two new state-of-the-art quad bikes to patrol the coastline and in Torrevieja the City Council has renewed its 1-million-euro contract for ‘Covid controllers’ on its beaches and promenades. Though as the anti-Covid Spanish News Today Editors Roundup Weekly Bulletin Jun 18

restrictions have all been lifted now, it's not clear exactly what their role is and what they will control as they get paid to walk up and down the beach all day.

Lastly, tram fares in Alicante are being slashed by up to 50% from this weekend onwards, a massive discount which is expected to benefit around 700,000 passengers in the city, Marina Alta and the Marina Baixa areas of Alicante province.

President of the Generalitat, Ximo Puig explained: “Sustainability and public transport are linked and we must accelerate all public processes that allow public transport to be a key player in the decarbonisation and quality of life of citizens. At a time when the cost of living is rising, it is essential that both the public and private sectors make every effort to contain prices.”

Andalucía

Summer is often a time when people, for whatever reason (the warm weather? alcohol?), let go of their inhibitions… and sometimes even their clothes! That’s what happened in Marbella this week, anyway, when a woman was caught on camera poking through the sun roof of a high-end Porsche as it zoomed down the A-7 motorway, wearing nothing but a bikini, dancing care free and waving at other motorists.

welcome to marbella pic.twitter.com/m02MlkNWIM
— piko_chumiko (@chumikopiko) June 12, 2022

The video caused a sensation on social media, and not just because of the woman’s semi-nude state. One astute commenter pointed out that even “if she were wearing an astronaut suit, the problem would be the same… that they drive on drugs and get away with it”.

Well, they didn’t exactly get away with it. While Marbella police sources didn’t actually indicate whether or not the car’s occupants were drunk or on drugs, they have fined both the dancing woman and the driver of the vehicle, and the Guardia Civil have further confirmed that they have opened an investigation too.

A further four people were also detained on suspicion of having contributed to the start of the forest fire in Sierra Bermeja, Malaga last week, which resulted in over 2,000 people – including some expats – having to be evacuated from their homes in the town of Benehavís, near Estepona and Marbella, and three firefighters being injured.

An investigation by the environmental agents of the Forest Fire Investigation Brigade, the wildfire, which has now been stabilised but not yet fully extinguished and has already affected some 3,500 hectares of land, was not caused by natural circumstances but by reckless behaviour due to work with heavy machinery on the La Resinera estate “in circumstances that were inappropriate for the existing conditions” of fire risk – namely the incredible heat that is making wildfires so much more likely right now.

While firefighters work to bring the blaze under control by forming a fire-proof perimeter around the area and contain it, the four detainees have been released after giving their statements to police.

Take care out there. While the current heatwave seems to be winding down, the forest fire season has just started. Don’t throw cigarette butts on the floor in wooded areas. Don’t light barbecues in places where there are highly flammable dried pine needles. Basically, be safe and be sensible when it comes to forest fires.

You may have missed…

ITV centres under scrutiny for passing dodgy cars.
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Camposol Private Hospital plans confirmed.
The municipality of Mazarrón will have a new private hospital by mid-2024, following an investment of 11 million euros.
Rogue electrician arrested for theft of 1.8 tons of copper cable from 51 urbanisations in Alicante.
A former electrician allegedly dressed in his old work clothes used a utilities key to gain access to properties and steal more than 10,000 euros’ worth of copper.
Update on proposed resurfacing of Avenida de los Covachos in Camposol.
More details have emerged of the work planned for the dual carriageway running through Sectors C and D of the Camposol urbanisation.
Plaza Bohemia summer market in La Manga open every evening until September 15.
The arts and crafts market in Plaza Bohemia, which has been a focal point of summer activity in La Manga del Mar Menor for decades, will be open every evening of the week from Wednesday June 15 until Thursday September 15.

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See you next week!

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