Olive Press Newspaper - Issue 343

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Vol. 13 Issue 343 www.theolivepress.es May 13th - May 26th 2020

ON THE HUNT OF THE NAZI GOLD Hot on the heels of our dispatch on a Nazi U-boat base in the Canaries, we investigate the Nazi Gold Trail to Madrid and, allegedly Gibraltar, shedding new light on a shady chapter in history that has never been fully resolved. See Page 10

Beached!

BRITS have been warned that holidays abroad this summer are ‘very likely’ to be cancelled.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock broke the potentially devastating news for Spain during an appearance on ITV’s This Morning on Tuesday.

“We haven’t made a final decision... but it is unlikely that big, lavish international holidays are going to be possible for this summer,” he told

By Laurence Dollimore

hosts Holly Willoughby and Philip Schofield.

The move, if confirmed, would be a huge blow for the Spanish tourism industry, with the costas heavily reliant on the tens of millions of British tourists who visit every summer.

Some 12% of the country’s GDP is

Hopes of vital British tourism returning this summer dashed as UK rules holidays ‘most likely cancelled’ this year from tourism, while locally in Andalucia and Alicante it is around 15%.

The revelation by Hancock came just hours after Spain announced a mandatory 14-day quarantine for

At least this is coming to a terrace near you soon...

all international travellers arriving from May 15 - the same measure announced by the UK on Monday.

It would mean tourists having to stay inside their accommodation for two weeks, before having to quarantine once again when arriving back to the UK. “It will most likely continue throughout the de-escalation period,” confirmed Health Minister Salvador Illa.

This could run into July.

For those without second homes and who don’t plan on staying for months at a time, it makes a holiday to Spain practically impossible in the short term.

All the frills of the feria...at home

Find out how on Page 13

Photo by Allan Binderup

Died

FREEDOM AT LAST: Palma residents finally get to enjoy a drink on a restaurant terrace as Mallorca enters Phase 1

TURBULENCE ON THE STOCK MARKET BRINGS OPPORTUNITIES

The announcement caused Andalucia vice president Juan Marin to insist that international tourism is now effectively ‘dead’ this summer.

“With the announcement of the quarantine, international tourism has practically died,” he insisted.

“Nobody is going to come if you have to spend a vacation in a room for 14 days.”

Leading expat hotel boss Mark Wardell, of Sunset Beach, in Benalmadena, said: “About 30% of the Costa del Sol relies on tourism and that can be as much as 50% in places like Torremolinos and Fuengirola.

“If the planes don’t fly from the UK this will be a major problem.”

There was a glimmer of hope, with Ryanair announcing that it would be restarting around 40% of its flights across Europe from July 1.

Flying out of 80 bases, their destinations and the probability of them filling up will depend on agreements between countries.

The UK has already confirmed, for example, that quarantine measures will not apply to those travelling from France or Ireland and there will be considerable lobbying by the Spanish tourism indus-

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NEWS IN BRIEF Super-saving MERCADONA has launched a four-day week as an ‘exceptional measure’ to protect staff from coronavirus.

School’s back THE Junta de Andalucia has said it plans to reopen the region’s schools on May 18, initially for prospective parents and later for ‘face-to-face’ teaching.

It’s no Djoke SERBIAN tennis number one Novak Djokovic has caused another controversy after posting a video on his Instagram account of a practice session at Marbella’s Puente Romano during Phase 0 of Spain’s de-escalation plans.

Over and out THE coronavirus will have left Spain by September 9, a new study from the Singapore University of Technology and Design has predicted, with 99% of cases forecast to be registered

by May 22.

May 13th - 26th 2020

Claws out A CHINESE expat has slammed a vet after she claims her cat died in mysterious circumstances at the clinic overnight.

Diana Wang, 34, believed her British shorthair cat named Minou was merely suffering from a bladder infection when she dropped him into the Mijas vet on May 1.

But the next day she got a call from the vet saying he had died of a ‘heart failure’.

Police are now looking into her claims and she is demanding explanations from the Butibamba vet in La Cala de Mijas.

At last!

THE president of La Liga has said he hopes Spanish football will return next month.

Javier Tebas expressed his hope that the league can resume on June 12.

The statement came just hours after it was revealed that FIVE top players have tested positive for the virus, as well as three non playing staff.

But Tebas remained positive and said: “It is less than we expected. We expected 25 or 30, according to the numbers seen in the Bundesliga and the potency of the virus in Spain.”

Mystery death of Julen’s cousin

Expat denounces vet after her cat dies in mysterious circumstances EXCLUSIVE

By Dimitris Kouimtsidis

“I have asked the vet why he didn’t do a urine test on Minou and he said he didn’t have to because he could see what he had.

“I then asked how he could know what was wrong with him and then he got angry saying it was my fault the cat died because I took him to the vet too late”, she added.

She claims she was ‘manhandled’ out of the vet when she asked to see CCTV footage of the night in question.

“I felt so humiliated,” adding that she had phoned the police who arrived and took her statement, before phoning an ambulance as she couldn’t feel her limbs.

She was later told she had experienced ‘an anxiety attack’.

The clinic failed to comment before we went to print.

TRAGIC: Diana and her late kitty Minou

Brit THUG bust

AN ‘extremely violent’ British fugitive has been caught in a sleepy inland town in Andalucia.

Known only as L.W.J and with a European Arrest Warrant hanging over his head, the man had been attempting to lay low in Albox in Almeria.

According to Guardia Civil, an investigation was launched after intel revealed he had moved to Puerto Lumbreras.

The man is wanted for serious crimes back in the UK, although the nature of the offences is yet to be detailed.

Neighbours described him as ‘extremely violent’ and told police they believed he could be

armed. Police initially tracked him to the port at the end of April, but he somehow managed to evade capture during a raid and went back on the run for several days.

Investigators set up a task force to track him down for a second time after receiving a tip off that he may be in the area of Paraje Ventarique. Within a few days, officers had located and cuffed the wanted man before starting the extradition process.

He will be transported from Madrid back to the UK to face justice.

Do you know the identity of this fugitive?

Contact newsdesk@theolivepress.es

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THE notorious torturer and Franco henchman Antonio Gonzalez Pacheco, otherwise known as ‘Billy the Kid’, has died from the coronavirus aged 73.

According to police sources, Pacheco died at 7am at the San Francisco de Anis Psyciatric Hospital in Malaga.

Known for his brutality and torturing of Franco’s opposition, Pacheco was in the middle of an inquest to remove his government funded medals and inflated pensions for his ‘services rendered’ during his time in the police force.

He enrolled in 1971 and was assigned to the social research department, a group dedicated to the investigation and oppression of Anti-Fran-

PATHOLOGISTS are continuing to probe how the cousin of tragic well victim Julen died suddenly in the street.

They have confirmed that the seven-year-old relation of Julen Rosello did not have COVID-19 when she collapsed near her home suffering from ‘breathing difficulties’.

The girl passed away on the street in Malaga’s El Palo neighbourhood, before being rushed to hospital.

Doctors believe she had some sort of neurological problem and had been feeling unwell for some days, confirmed her parents.

In January 2019 cousin Julen was found dead in a well on a plot of land in Totalan, in the Axarquia, owned by his uncle David Serrano.

Serrano was handed a one year suspended sentence for manslaughter and a €843,000 fine in January, following an agreement between him and Julen’s parents.

Shaken and stirred POLICE were sent to track down a coronavirus patient who left her hospital in La Rioja to go and buy a coffee.

Nurses called the Guardia Civil when they noticed the woman was missing and hadn’t told any of the medical staff.

The agents found her sitting on a nearby bench drinking her latte.

The area was then evacuated, while the cafe she purchased the coffee, along with the bench she sat on, was sanitised.

DEAD: Coronavirus kills Franco torturer Pacheco co groups.

He quickly grew a reputation for his aggressive nature and his willingness to reach for his pistol in the style of the Wild West, a quirk that gave him his infamous nickname.

Since his retirement in 1982, Pacheco has been apparently immune to prosecution, with numerous courts fighting to make him accountable for his crimes.

Polish mob raids THREE police raids alone since November 2019 have disbanded a Polish drug network operating out of Granada.

Swat teams from the Policia Nacional and the Guardia Civil have been putting pressure on the drug cartels operating out of Granada since they knew of their whereabouts mid-2019.

Operation ‘Cerros’ and operation ‘Mocy’ have so far arrested over 100 people involved in the trafficking of marijuana, including three Polish mob bosses, thought to be at the head of the Spanish operations.

According to police estimates and statements given by the courts in Granada, the Polish gangsters spent in excess of €1 million per month acquiring marijuana to then ferry to Poland in transport lorries to distribute across the country.

In operation ‘Mocy’ over one tonne of marijuana was discovered hidden in various articulated trucks heading to Poland.

Capital punishment POLICE in Madrid broke up 400 house parties over the weekend.

They also broke up 97 social gatherings in parks across the capital. In addition, 3,847 fines were issued to those not adhering to lockdown restrictions. That figure represents a 22.8% increase compared to the fines issued last weekend, which were 3,133.

Fine time THE number of people fined for breaking coronavirus restrictions in Spain has remained at around 15,000 a day on average.

This continuous civil disobedience takes the country’s tally of financial penalties during lockdown to more than 900,000.

Since March 14 when lockdown was announced, the Policia Local has had handed out 300,437 fines, the Guardia Civil 255,033 and Policia Nacional, 236,568.

NEWS

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May 13th - 26th 2020

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Signed, sealed, delivered (finally!)

THEY say when you move to Spain you should expect a slower pace of life...and that extends to the postal service.

While post can often take a few extra days, even a week to cross Spain, you don’t expect a letter going along the Costa del Sol to take FOUR YEARS. That’s exactly what has happened to a letter sent by Mrs J Hollowell, based in Benalmadena, who had wanted to give her opinion on the story of youngster Alfie Barton, who broke his leg while holi-

No new normality!

PENELOPE Cruz and Pedro Almodovar have joined Madonna, Robert de Niro and a host of Nobel prize winners in a new fight for the environment.

The Spanish stars have joined over 200 international notaries pleading that the world does not ‘return to normality.’

In an open letter led by actress Juliette Binoche and astrophysicist Aurélien Barrau, the stars claim the coronavirus crisis ‘has the power’ to confront essential issues over consumption and pollution.

Catastrophe

The group, also including Cate Blanchett, Monica Bellucci and Spanish singer Miguel Bose, hope the lockdown can help to avoid an ‘ecological catastrophe’.

Consumerism, according to their claim, ‘has led us to deny the value of life itself: that of plants, animals and a great many people.’

“Pollution and the destruction of natural areas are leading the world to breaking point, and for these reasons, combined with growing social inequalities, it seems unthinkable to us to return to normality.’

CRUZ: And Almodovar

daying in Spain.

But despite being clearly addressed to the Olive Press office in Manilva, and most importantly with a stamp, the letter, sent on October 5, 2016, arrived only this week.

If you’re reading this Mrs Hollowell, the letter DID find us well, it just got delivered a little later than expected.

And yes, some fair points on why Alfie’s family wanted him treated back in the UK.

No Yoke

Darlene the hen shocks British owners after producing triple-yolk egg EGG-CLUSIVE By Laurence Dollimore

A BRITISH expat couple are expecting a big lottery win after their hen laid a TRIPLE-YOLK egg this week.

The chances of that happening, according to the British Egg Information Service, are one in 25 million.

In fact you’re more likely to be struck by lightning (two million to one), or be involved in a plane crash (11 million to one).

“I hope she brings us luck in the way of a lottery win now,” Yorkshire-born expat Monalita Cairns, 48, joked to the Olive Press.

A PROFESSIONAL singer has been forced to end his balcony concerts following a slew of complaints from a not-so-appreciative neighbour.

Big-hearted Miguel Gonzalez, 45, thought he was doing a great community service during the lockdown, performing from his flat’s terrace in Nerja to coincide with the 8pm applause for frontline health workers.

But the crooner, who usually

Cher-ing is caring CHICKEN LICKEN: Darlene and expats “My husband Alex actually picked her out, he said he saw something special in her.”

And Alex, 63, wasn’t wrong.

According to the retired couple, who live in Alora in inland Malaga, the plucky hen, named Darlene, had been laying double-yolked eggs for most of last week before producing a triple-yolk stunner on Monday.

“I cracked it this morning and had it for my brekkie,” added

Sing bin performs in bars and restaurants, soon received several warnings from police to put a stop to the sessions.

After refusing to end his performances, officers were forced to deliver an official complaint to his home.

He is reportedly talking to Nerja town hall about a permit.

Monalita, “it was delicious.”

Darlene was one of seven hens bought from nearby Agrocementos Alora, a local animal food shop.

They had hoped the hens would give them a steady supply of eggs during the lockdown.

They joined five dogs, four cats, two goats and two horses who already lived on the couple’s land.

“It might seem lame, but our hens really cheer us up in these strange times,” said Monalita, who owned a furniture business in Wakefield, before moving to Spain, “And Darlene really eggcelled herself, I didn’t even know triple yolkers existed.”

A double-yolked or triple-yolked egg occurs when two or more egg yolks are released into a hen's oviduct at the same time and too close together and end up in the same shell.

Send us your animal funnies to newsdesk@theolivepress.es

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POP legend Cher is giving Spanish-speaking children something to cheer.

The 73-year-old has launched her version of ABBA hit Chiquitita in the latin language.

Proceeds from the recording will go to children’s charity UNICEF – just as the profits from the original do.

Cher said: “When everything changed in the world I wanted to help. This seemed like the right time to complete the cover.”

Web of shame

AN attempted burglary has gone spectacularly wrong after a man, dressed as comic book hero, Spiderman, fell nearly seven metres from an apartment balcony.

The incident occured in Malaga early on Sunday morning when a young couple were awoken by a noise coming from the kitchen.

When confronted by the couple the intruder - dressed in a Spiderman mask and gloves - fled back through the open window and fell off a tight ledge, failing to

grab hold of a gutter.

The couple phoned the police who arrived to find the wannabe thief unconscious on the floor.

An ambulance was called and by the time paramedics arrived, the 47-year-old had regained consciousness and was duly arrested for his botched attempt at breaking and entering.

He was transferred to the Carlos Haya Hospital in Malaga for multiple fractures where he is currently recovering from his injuries.

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The Media Group on the move!

Office wizard some g for a sorcerer to weave The Olive Press is lookin expand again into new regions. we magic in its head office as ceful and become the glue in the young

our You’ll be energetic and res Personable and bi-lingual you will have a and rapidly expanding team.sociable and naturally computer literate. good phone manner, be

Graphic designers

The Olive Press also needs reliable, quick and talented graphic designers for its office in Sabinillas.

You’ll have a great eye for detail, plenty of job experience and a good record for turning up on time and working to deadlines

Sales executives We also need commercial sales agents in the following areas: Malaga, Sevilla, Almeria, Murcia, Catalunya, Canaries and Portugal. Great rates of pay for those with the right proven skills

Journalists and w

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LAST, but definitely not least.. we also need wordsmiths too... can you turn a phrase and/or turn up on a doorstep on time?

We are looking for qualified, hard-working hacks and writers around the whole of Spain

If you think you have what it takes to help the Olive Press expand to the next level, please get in touch at accounts@ theolivepress.es at the first instance, sending your CV and a covering letter. These jobs could be part time or full time and will suit either man or woman of any age or colour

Fire away

FIRMS across Spain will be able to fire staff when the government’s ERTE furlough scheme ends.

The move puts an end to a month-long debate with unions, politicians and workers’ associations.

The agreement, signed by the government and the CCOO and UGT unions as well as two business associations, is intended to release pressure on industries facing lasting effects from the coronavirus lockdown.

The key clause puts an end to requirements that employers must maintain all staff put on an ERTE for six months after the scheme ends, currently set for June 30.

Old age punishment AROUND 90% of coronavirus related deaths in Malaga province are in the over 65s age range.

According to data released by the Andalucian Government, nearly nine out of ten of those who have died due to COVID-19 were pensioners.

The smallest number of deaths is registered by those between the ages of 15 and 24 and those from 25 to 34, both only representing 0.2% of fatalities respectively.

May 13th - 26th 2020

Firms can now lay off workers at the end of the state of alarm, or take them on part time

The hospitality industry in particular complained that a reduction in tourism this summer would make it impossible for bar and restaurant owners to retain their workforce.

But new rules state the terminations of contracts by ‘fuerza mayor’ ‘will be valued based on the specific characteristics of the different sectors and labour regulations.

It says ‘those companies that present a high variability or seasonality of employment’ will be given flexibility to survive.

In addition, the firms may not have to repay social security contributions covered by the ERTE scheme – a previous obligation for failure to comply with the rules.

The secretary general of the UGT union, Pepe Alvarez, said that if the state of alarm is extended beyond June 30, workers might be able to continue receiving ERTE benefits.

It comes after Yolanda Diaz, Spain’s Minister for Labour conceded that firms could also gradually remove workers from a mass-ERTE scheme alongside progressive de-escalation.

Parts of Spain, including expat hotspots on the Costa Blanca and the Spanish islands, on Monday entered ‘phase 1’ of a five-step de-escalation programme.

It means bars and restaurants may open 50% of their terrace capacity, an increase of 20% on original plans.

Phase 2 will allow these establishments to reopen their interiors to 50%.

Malaga and Granada are still in Phase 1, while the rest of Andalucia is in Phase 2.

FUENGIROLA will use sophisticated technology to track how many people are on its beaches once restrictions are lifted.

A computer programme will monitor the capacity of beaches with the aim of avoiding overcrowding and minimise the risk of COVID-19 infections.

The system works via 50 sensors installed on lamp-

Fortress Europe BRUSSELS may keep the EU’s external borders closed until at least mid-June.

The EU’s executive has asked countries to extend the travel ban – currently set to expire on May 15 – by another 30 days.

It is up to each individual member state to take part, however, this has so far been enforced within the Schengen zone.

Many, such as Spain, have also introduced restrictions within the EU as well, something which Brussels supports.

Avalanche

A BAR which received an ‘avalanche’ of clients on the first day it entered Phase 1 has been fined by Sevilla cops.

The Jota bar was found to be exceeding the limit of 50% capacity, with some 30 people being caught sitting outside on the terrace.

Clients were also failing to abide by social distancing rules of being two metres apart.

The owner had not provided protective equipment for his staff, nor were they disinfecting tables between new clients.

Any further breaches of the rules could lead to the bar’s closure.

The owner defended himself saying it was a case of ‘trial and error’ and he had been ‘surprised by the avalanche of clients’ who turned up.

Green for griddle posts, which measure the number of people entering and leaving the town’s seven beaches.

Information is then sent into virtual grids when they are approaching maximum capacity.

The information will be made

available to the public via a free mobile app, showing three colours green, yellow and red, which means capacity has been reached.

The computer application, the first of its kind in Spain, has been presented by mayor Ana Mula.

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AN 80-year-old expat is nearing the end of a marathon 1,060 kilometre bike ride to Barcelona – and he has not left his Mijas home.

Inspired by the amazing antics of Captain Tom Moore back home, Robin Drake decided to do 40 kilometres a day on his exercise bicycle.

“I was stuck at home in the lockdown and I needed a target to stay fit.

So I decided to ‘virtually’ cycle the 1,060 kilometres to Barcelona,” he told the Olive Press, having raised a sizeable €500 for Age Care.

“I would say Captain Tom was a factor in me setting myself the challenge, but I needed a destination target.

I picked Barcelona because it is a city I love. When I get there I will cycle down the Ramblas – it should be nice and empty,” he joked.

“That captain Tom is incredible – and he has 20 years on me!

The former Operations Manager at Heathrow airport, Robin has lived in Spain with his 89-year-old wife Doreen since 2002.

Speaking from his Mijas home, Robin, better known as ‘Gus’ added: “I have been pedalling 40 kilometres a day for 25 days now – 20 each morning and 20 in the af-

T PA ES EX RO HE

Barcelona or bust

By Dilip Kuner

ternoon. So I think I am due in Barcelona on Thursday.

“We might crack open a bottle of Champagne to celebrate.”

He added: “As I was putting all this effort in, I thought I might try to raise some money for charity, so I started getting sponsors with all the cash going to Age Care in Calahonda.”

Doreen said: “They have been very good to us over the past few weeks. They do our shopping for us and bring us meals twice a week – they really deserve as much as support as they can get.

“Most of their funds come from their charity shop and of course that has been shut during lockdown.”

When he has reached Barcelona what next for Gus? “Don’t give him ideas”, said Doreen, “he can turn around and come straight home!”

Donations can also be made to Age Care through Go fund Me – search Age Care Association https://www.gofundme.com/f/ age-care-association

COVID-19 SPECIAL

May 13th - 26th 2020

Online parasites EXCLUSIVE

By Dilip Kuner

AN expat hotel owner has called for a boycott of online booking websites whose business practices could push countless businesses in Spain into bankruptcy.

Belgians Daniel Beauvoir and Catherine Hunter have pledged to abandon hotel sites like Booking.com and Airbnb, after the companies failed to support them as the lockdown began.

The couple, both 64 - who have run six-bedroom La

Expat hotel owner calls for boycott of Booking.com and Airbnb after they leave thousands of clients in dire straits during the COVID crisis Fructuosa in Gaucin since 2017 - hope other businesses will join them in banning the Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) as they are known.

“I will do everything I can for a boycott of these parasitic platforms and, I hope, to be followed by many other hoteliers and owners of guesthouses,” Beauvoir told the Olive Press this week.

End of summer From Page 1

try and airlines over the next few weeks.

Germany is studying an agreement with Mallorca, while a corridor is already set to open up between the Czech Republic and Croatia, taking in Austria and Germany.

It would be a massive blow for Andalucia if the usual British influx does not happen in July and August.

Brits represent 21.6% of the foreign tourists coming to Spain each year, contributing the lion’s share of the €92 billion raked in by the industry in 2019.

Currently, people flying into Spain must be either returning citizens or residents or have a justified reason for doing so.

It is not yet known when Spain’s borders will be reopened to international tourism. While officially the land and sea borders are to remain closed until May 24, that is likely to be extended for another two weeks (until June 8).

Opinion Page 6

R0520.indd 1

“They blackmail you and squeeze you for money, sometimes up to 25%, then left us high and dry during the crisis.”

The final straw came when Booking.com unilaterally decided to return all ‘non-refundable’ deposits to forthcoming guests from around the world.

“Our so-called ‘partners’ made this decision without any discussion or warning, yet, we still had staff to pay and bills to meet,” he added.

“In most cases the amount in question covered the first night of the stay, which was the normal non-refundable part. Yet Booking.com sent it straight back to the guests.”

He continued: “No one looked at this from all sides of the equation – we were left to pick up the bill, which for a small business is very difficult.”

Luckily with some sites and those who booked directly he was able to offer a voucher to be used at a future date instead of cash. This has been done by many airlines as well.

“I would say 99.9% of our customers were very support-

ive and accepted this. They understood the pressures we were under – but not Booking.com.”

The online company has since changed its policy on enforced refunds but it has left a sour taste in Beauvoir’s mouth. Beauvoir does not know how many hoteliers will join his boycott, but knows many are angry like him and very supportive.

Support

“We got about 30% of our business from Booking.com and this figure may be higher for other hoteliers so they may not feel able to join a boycott, but we will wait and see.”

Karl Smallman, founder of Secret Serrania, an online portal featuring hotels and restaurants in the Serrania de Ronda area, said: “There is a lot of support for Daniel's call for a boycott of the OTAs. “Everyone has already lost a big chunk of their regular trade which normally takes off from Easter.

“Margins are already tight for everyone and costs must be kept to a minimum and are better spent positioning their business to a local, regional and national audience first before the international travellers return.”

Booking.com has been approached for comment.

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www.theolivepress.es Voted top expat paper in Spain

A campaigning, community newspaper, the Olive Press represents the huge expatriate community in Spain with an estimated readership, including the websites, of more than two million people a month.

OPINION Dead in the water?

WITH Semana Santa cancelled, the feria season binned and dining out a distant memory, what could possibly come next? The scrapping of the summer season, that’s what.

It’s the nightmare scenario that thousands of expat businesses around Spain were coming to terms with this week.

The doomsday reality of hotels and restaurants without British tourists in July and August. And yes...the loss of perhaps half of their annual income.

It is a cruel twist of fate that Spain was one of the best performing economies before the COVID catastrophe hit. Looking forward to one of its rosiest years in history, we were all set for the good times to finally roll.

So it is heartbreaking to think that hundreds of thousands of businesses are facing collapse. One figure bandied about is 800,000 of them.

So many of these will be owned by plucky expats who settled here to pursue their dreams - many likely linked to tourism, the worst industry affected.

How can Spain expect people to survive if summer is cancelled?

Vigilant

While avoiding another outbreak is of course the priority, surely claiming summer is ‘dead’, as Andalucia Vice President Juan Marin did on Tuesday, is lacking tact, to say the least.

Let’s hope the EU can put in place a continent-wide protocol that will at least allow some level of sensible international tourism to return.

Surely the British and Spanish can hash out some sort of agreement given their strong ties, both economically and socially? After all, the French have done it, haven’t they?

Of course, nothing is known until we see how the virus progresses over the next few weeks.

And if current numbers continue, there’s hope that Spain could at least begin to open up to the international market.

To help the chances of that happening, we must all remain vigilant and keep to the rules regarding hygiene and social distancing.

All we can do now is hope and pray some sort of summer returns, and if not, that the government does what it has to do to get us all through it.

It’s not going to be cheap.

Publisher / Editor

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2012 - 2020

Named the best English language publication in Andalucia by the Rough Guides group.

FEATURE

Everything’s up in the

In three honest, contrasting views, a trio of wellestablished expat hoteliers give their incisive analysis on the current COVID crisis and the prospects for the season ahead Andy Chapell at Molino del Santo, in Benaojan, near Ronda, which has no opening date yet

F

OR the owner of a rural hotel and restaurant, I’ve never felt so concerned for my business.

In over 30 years of running the molino, nothing has come close to causing so much heartache and loss of sleep… and we’ve had floods, deep recessions and countless other irritations.

There are so many issues, the first being safety. After all, how can we possibly think of opening if we can't keep our staff and customers safe?

All of the money in the world is no use if you're dead or responsible for someone else’s death. With all due respect to the experts of the world, we do not yet know the full implications of COVID-19. Until we are able to control it with complete security, do I want to be responsible for risking people's lives? Definitely not.

Number two is uncertainty. And there are

How are we supposed to cover the additional costs of putting in safety measures? Big hotels, with economies of scale, can spread the costs of protective screens, extra cleaning, inspections, thermometers, etc, among hundreds of guests. Rural establishments with much less footfall are going to find these costs very difficult to allay.

What are the chances of a second spike? Assuming we do open, juggling the numbers, absorbing the additional expenses of opening safely, and working really hard to get things going… what happens if we have to close down again because the virus presents itself again?

This worry factor is a potential health risk to me personally. going

plenty of questions that are waking me up at 4am: When will international flights be resumed? Without them we are going to struggle to generate enough income to cover basic costs. At present 85% of our clientele live outside Spain so until borders are opened we would have to totally reinvent ourselves for a local market which will be saturated with offers from all hospitality sectors. A Guardia Civil source recently We are hinted that borders may not to need a lot open this calendar year.

My preference is that we Will people feel confident are given the opportunity of support to enough to travel even if borto remain closed without ders are open? We suspect it penalties until there is enable us to will take an effective vaccine more certainty on the fuemploy people ture. to restore real confidence.

How much help is the govYes, I really want to give my ernment going to offer? We staff jobs, I want guests are going to need a lot of support to ento be able to enjoy all that our business able us to employ people. We hear that and this wonderful country can offer but 80,000 small businesses in Spain are I need clarity. threatened with bankruptcy in the current At the moment everything is up in the climate unless there is significant assisair - apart from, of course, those aircraft tance. At the moment there is no indicathat we urgently need in order to start tion of what form any help may take. getting back to some normality.

Corona-rogues Middlemen screw farmers and consumers as demand for fresh food goes bananas

By Dilip Kuner & Laurence Dollimore

Y

OU may have noticed empty shelves at your local supermarket over the last month or two, but many of you have also noticed an apparent rise in the price of foodstuffs.

The Olive Press has discovered that greedy go-betweens are pocketing the difference as on-the-shelf food prices rocket while farmers are paid peanuts.

Demand for fruit and veg since the lockdown began in Spain has seen prices for some products such as mandarins shoot up by 42%, according to figures from the farmers’ association COAG. They now average €2.55 a kilo, up from €1.75 in February, while farmers still get a rock-bottom 35 cents a kilo.

Other big price hikes have been seen for cabbage (up 28 %), carrots (up 22%) and aubergines (up 20%). In all cases farmers get a fraction in comparison.

Price tags on pork and chicken have also risen by 6.4% and 2.5% respectively.

“The speculators and intermediaries in the food c h a i n , are making a killing,” insisted Andres Góngora, of COAG Andalucia.

“This is at the expense of the efforts of farmers, who are at the bottom of the ladder, producing quality fresh food for which they receive a pittance.

“The practice of the speculators is to reduce prices paid to farmers while keeping them high for consumers, even when consumption is up,” he added.

“They are abusing the supply-demand system.”

Greater demand might explain some of the rise. People worried about COVID-19 have been tucking into more fruit and veg to boost their immune systems.

According to official figures, consumption of fresh produce has risen 44%.

But at the same time farmers have seen ‘farm gate prices’ plunge by an average of 77% in Spain, claims COAG. The price rises have not gone unnoticed, with 82.8% of people saying they had seen an increase, according to Consumers’ group FACUA which received more than 10,000 responses to a recent Twitter poll. Just 17.2% said they had not noticed price rises.

Another 15.4% of the 10,606 consumers who took part believe that there have been increases, but only for certain products.

But 48.2% of people said they had noticed price hikes in the majority of items.

SCARCITY: Fruit and veg in short supply in Manilva Mercadona

Brand names only ONLINE buyers are being forced to buy expensive well known brands as cheaper white-label products are out of stock.

Unofficial consumers’ watchdog OCU says that since the start of the lockdown it has spotted ‘moderate’ price rises at online supermarket services from companies including Carrefour and Hipercor.

But the average shopper’s bill is set to be higher than normal as ‘out of stock’ notices mean they have to turn to brand names.

The Organisation has been monitoring the price of a basket of 25 food and household products at supermarkets in Barcelona, Bilbao, Madrid, Murcia, Sevilla and Zaragoza.

Worst city for unavailability was Sevilla, where 40% of Carrefour’s products were sold out.

On average the French-based supermarket chain had 27% of its products out of stock across Spain, with unavailability rates at Dia and el Corte Ingles’s Hipercor both standing at 13%.

On top of this many people are unable to get delivery slots, with waits of a week or more common, reported OCU. On various visits to Mercadona supermarket over the last month, the Olive Press has noted numerous empty shelves (see above).

Are you being conned?

Price controls had to be brought in after speculators were bumping up the price of basic masks and alcohol-based hand cleaning gels by mark-ups of up to 1000%.

Numerous Olive Press readers reported having to pay over €10 for a pack of three to five simple masks at pharmacies along the Costa del Sol. Yet a state bulletin last month insisted that the price of masks had to be capped at 96 cents.

7

We hope to get 75% of summer trade

By James Stuart, of the Califa Group, in Vejer de la Frontera, Cadiz, opening some businesses in May

T

HIS year promised to be a record year for most of us in the hospitality trade in Andalucía.

With strong bookings from both the international and the Spanish market confidence had finally returned to our sector.

When the coronavirus lockdown hit us I actually told the staff to carry on taking bookings from March 29 and adjusted the website so that we would still be able to get the best of the very important Semana Santa trade.

Almost two months later we are still in quarantine with none of my ten hotels or restaurants reopened yet!

If business has taught me anything it is good to be optimistic when building a business, but when financial planning comes to mind pessi-

mistic is more realistic.

Of course I’d forgotten this rule, the great crash of 2008 and the long recession afterwards seemingly a long way back.

Like most businesses in our sector the winters are spent reforming our installations (in our case some new bathrooms for the hotels and an upgrade of kitchen facilities for the Califa restaurant). We were also just a few weeks away from finishing a stunning new Hammam.

All this work soaks up cash but hoteliers and restaurateurs in Andalucía have very reliable indicators and in normal years month on month revenues almost always creep upwards giving us strong confidence in forecasting income.

That has now gone out of the window and every tourist business in Andalucía has crashed, with some sadly likely to find it difficult to recover.

Stable businesses with a strong and loyal clientele and a secure hold on their market share will certainly recover but will also laden with debt.

The governments ICO-funded low interest loans have gone a long way to help keep businesses afloat however this ‘cheap money’ always comes at a price and next year will see many businesses struggling to repay their loans - and creditors won’t be quite as lenient as they are now.

So to recap: 2020 will be difficult, but the shock waves will follow us right the way through into 2021.

MISSING OUT: Local famer in Ronda

These are defined by the government as a “facial piece covering the mouth, nose and chin, which is fitted with a head harness and which meets the requirements of various technical specifications.

Meanwhile, the cost of alcohol gels should now be no more than 2.5 cents a millilitre when sold in bottles up to 150ml and 2.1 cents for containers from 151ml to 300ml. So a 100ml bottle should cost no more than €2.50 and a 300ml bottle a maximum of €6.30.

Now for the good news…

FOR those returning to work over the next week or two, the good news is that petrol is at its cheapest for a decade.

Due to a global collapse in demand, on May 10, the average price for 95 grade petrol in Spain stood at €1.08 per litre and diesel had dropped below the €1 mark to 98.3 cents.

These compare to historical highs of €1.52 for petrol and €1.45 for diesel in January.

But prices depend on where you buy it and who from.

On May 7, the average price of fuel at a BP station stood at €1.14 and €1.06 for petrol and diesel respectively, for example.

Previous lows in the past 10 years were in August 2016, when diesel fell to €1.001.

According to the European Union's Oil Bulletin, the price of petrol has fallen this year by 16.06% and that of diesel by 18.04%.

Curiously the price of cooking gas in bombonas has stayed roughly the same for the last four months.

FOOTNOTE: Technically we could be opening our hotels and the restaurants at a 50% capacity this week. It would be good news if we had any clients. But we don’t.

The incongruity of the new regulations means we can open our businesses but with no free movement of potential guests across province boundaries the whole thing is utterly pointless.

Bookings I am happy to say are relatively strong for July and Au-

gust however we are well aware that the entire summer could be written off very quickly with a resurgence in COVID cases.

However on an optimistic note revenues for the hotel and restaurant trade should be between 65-75% of last year for July and August but only for the businesses that focus 100% on the national market (including foreigners living in Andalucía).

This is not a time to step back, it is time to stride out with bold measures so that potential guests can see that an effort has been made in cleaning and safety not just for clients but also for staff. We will be opening when movement between provinces is allowed and we see happy, confident people walking the streets of Vejer looking for a cool glass of manzanilla under a palm tree. We hope it’s soon - almost certainly this month - and life might just seem a bit more normal again.

Olive Press online ‘Spain’s best English news website’

You read it here first!

WITH a team of 20-plus writers and journalists, you expect to break the odd few story.

The Olive Press has been been finding and standing up exclusives around Spain for 14 years - and had literally hundreds followed up around the world.

This month is no exception with our front page interview with the brave mother of tragic Ashya King (right), leading to NOT one, but TWO big shows back home in the UK, one in the Sun and the other a double page spread for editor Jon Clarke in the Mail on Sunday.

A taste of freedom

OLIVE PRESS MALLORCA

The

air - minus the planes!

FREE

Your expat

voice in Spain

May 1st - May 14th, 2020 Vol. 3 Issue 79 www.theolivepress.es

This is not ArmagedEdon!

XC LU SIV E

parents and children IT was a taste of what’s to come for at the weekend. headed out to take Mothers and sons, dads and daughters beaches around Palma. the air, pick wild flowers or stroll on roller skates or just On bikes, scooters, skateboards,

four-step plan to Expat restaurateurs welcome able to open agai fear huge losses despite being

Mother of cancer victim Ashya King tells the Olive Press why she has leftto the Jehovah’s Witnesses and wants move back to Spain with her family

See a mother’s moving interview on pages 6-7

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If planes fly we’ll be fine, I hope

Wife killer . . . Park

I

HOPE we will be half full this summer, ignoring Boris Johnson’s crazy quarantine idea, which is unworkable, given he’s letting the French and the Irish in.

That said, so many of our clients are Irish, British and northern European, it does mean the planes have to fly.

But they are looking at loosening borders around the Schengen area and Mallorca and Germany are already talking about a deal, plus KLM is now flying to Barcelona and Madrid and Ryanair has announced it will fly to the Costa del Sol again in July.

We had been looking at a record year for the hotel, but it is definitely going to be a very difficult one now, in particular for the staff who number over 150.

It is going to be a very slow resumption of business from June 6 with a skeleton staff and the government simply cannot expect hotels to suddenly open if they haven’t got clients.

Prices will be cheaper as we can’t offer the normal service in terms of entertainment and shows, etc, but I hope that we’ll get 50% occupancy at least in July and August.

Once the country is open the Spanish will be clamouring for the coasts, which are far cooler and that should help a fair bit.

It is a vital step for the local market which is at least 30 to 40% reliant on tourism, perhaps over 50% in places like Benalmadena and Fuengirola.

I just hope common sense prevails and if people take the right safety measures they will be fine to travel.

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t take it any more..I’m happier now7

By MIKE SULLIVAN

TEACHER Gordon Park was responsible for the “Lady in the ing of his wife,Lake” killof Appeal ruled the Court yesterday.

His three children tried to posthumously overturn his conviction for the 1976 murder of mum Carol.

Judges said “no doubt’’ aboutthey had ty and rejected its safeThe son and their bid. daughters said the judgment “marks the end of our fight”.

Park hanged jail on his 66thhimself in birthday in 2010 after to overturn hisa failed bid Teacher Carol,conviction.

30, vanished from the family home in Barrow-in-Fu rness, Cumbria, when the marriage was in trouble.

Divers found her weighted-down body in Coniston Water, Lake District, in 1997. convicted in 2005.Park was

Mark Wardell, Manager of Sunset Beach hotel, Benalmadena, which opens on June 6

Raids trio get 17 yrs

Meanwhile, last month our continuing investigation into Jodie Smart and Continental Wealth Management (CWM), made further headlines in both the Daily Mail and in a BBC documentary.

THREE burglars have been jailed for 17 years after a total of night raids on admitting the elderly in sheltered housing.

They even stole mobiles so the pensioners could not call for help around last Christmas in Buckinghamshire, Aylesbury crown court heard. One victim was aged 97.

Kristopher Barfoot, 36, of no fixed address, got six years, eight Ben Tompkins, months; 36, of Milton Keynes, six years; and Aaron Tompkins, 32, of no fixed address, four years and four months.

EXCLUSIVE by RACHEL and JON CLARKE DALE

THE mum of brain cancer survivor Ashya King is stuck in down Spain afterlockedsplitting from her Jehovah’s Witness husband.

Naghmeh and sparked a 2014 Brett King after taking their manhunt son, then five, out of a against doctors’ UK hospital advice.

They could therapy on the not get proton NHS and were arrested after ing to Malaga. fleeThe couple, both practising vahs at the Jehotime, were briefly jailed.

Ashya, ten, has now made an “amazing” recovery.

Love . . Naghmeh, But Naghmeh, Ashya. Left, family 50, with Sun, 2015 has revealed left Brett, 56, she their seven kidsand in Milton Bucks, and Keynes, headed to their home days holiday the travel banbefore was enforced last month.

And she said that Jehovahs were ing coronavirusbrand“Armageddon”. an children back. just want my before I want them She explained: come being released ‘“My kids are to efforts to over and live at home and extradite them when with me UK rified this is Armageddon ter- here in Spain to the were abandoned. and I have been I am stuck here while looking at bigger In 2016, two homes to rent.”

“The Jehovah’s in Spain.

Ashya had start of Ashya’s years after the been Witnesses say with coronavirus is treatment, a medulloblasto diagnosed NHS decided ma which it would pay the prophesied by the great plague was successfully for God and they surgeons removed by children with brain cancer will only be saved to if their belief July 2014. in Southampton in travel abroad for proton in Jehovah is therapy. beam strong enough.”

Admitting her He had a further In 2018, MRI marriage is on his scans conducted the rocks, Naghmeh brain soon after.operation on in Southampton added: “I couldn’t deal showed Ashya But to help prevent to be free of with it and came cancer. a return out at the beginning of the tumour, Speaking from his parents of March. wanted him her lockdown “I told them home, to I would isolate here therapy — whichbe given proton although Naghmeh added that where I willself- not Ashya is doing safe. Brett said be provide at the the NHS did still well he suffers he didn’t want time. with me to leave The Kings took profound disabilities the house but I but were him — and she believes couldn’t take arrested at theto Spain he would benefit it request of She added: anymore.” from living “I’m definitely heldthe British authorities and in Spain. happier now in Madrid’s Soto She added: I’ve Del Real properly “He can’t write prison.

“I feel free and left. have got more yet, his hand time to think The couple were shakes, but he is and study. Now I jail for more thankept in the do sums.” starting to read and 24 hours rachel.dale@th e-sun.co.uk

Left hubby in row over armageddon

Killer bug bee fears

HONEYBEES wiped out by are being a mystery disease that is sweeping Britain, researchers say.

Chronic Bee Paralysis Virus causes trembling of the wings and body and jumpiness, stopping It can contribute flight. death of a whole to the colony, with infected within a week.bees dying It has spread most of England across and Wales in ten has also been years and identified in Scotland.

Experts say it is being fuelled by queen bees fromimporting Europe.

ive Pres

By Isha Sesay apprecia in Palma lies on t spring b However, despite business-owners low us to being told they can potentially resume His prog activity this month, with more restric- he belie hotel w tions lifted by June, many are feeling re- benefits wholly dubious about how viable opening will be without an interna- For this the dec tional market.

Although retaining a healthy all-year- 2021 – the hot round population, Mallorca relies in- eration heavily on tourism and winter comes are complemented by signifi- Hiscock to Germ cant profits over the summer.

The Mallorca Hotel Business Federa- for tou tion and the Hotel Chain Association tourism have branded the government’s plans reiss’ w will no to reopen establishments as comit true, t pletely ‘unfeasible,’ claiming that provides a ‘false impression of return- suffer e Germa ing to a new normality.’ re“The de-escalation plan has been as- cant m one th ceived with disappointment and profound the shows and ket for tonishment, ignorance of the government towards million tourism and business in the Balearica and th homes Islands,” said the associations in Restau joint statement.

Stressing the need to implement pro- well-k tocols such as mass COVID-19 testing, also h the organisation believes the focus ports should not be on resuming activity “90% so it without a client base. witho This view was echoed by James Histhe cock, a British expat who owns the the O He a renowned Son Ametler Hotel in foothills of the Serra de Tramuntana the E mountains.

Stating the need to roll out a EuroSaturday, May 2, Olthe told he pean health passport, 2020 ...............

deA WAVE of uncertainty has scended across Mallorca after Prime his Minister Pedro Sanchez revealed life four-step de-escalation plan to get of back to ‘a new normal’ after a week positive COVID-19 results.

As long as the rate of infections conwill tinues to drop, restaurant terraces be allowed to open with a 30% capacity, as well as hotels and other tourist accommodation on May 11. dinrestaurant later, weeks two Some ing rooms can once again welcome clients, while cinemas, theatres anda museums will follow suit, albeit in limited capacity with strict separation rules.

www.globelink.co.uk

‘Lady in the Lake’ appeal is rejected

shanks pony, they met and cha corners and in parks, without fea Even better, from this weekend exercise, as long as social dista And, fingers crossed, the weathe

BITTER SWEET

Photos by Jon Clarke

www.theolivepress.es

ASHYA’S MUM FLEES TO SPAIN

10-PINT FATAL FALL

A MAN who night out was drank ten pints on a and found dead morning in a the next last diabetes at the time of garden, an inquest his death December.

John Downey, heard.

Mr Downey, with a pal who 66, had been boozing from Cheltenham, also over a wall and did not see him fall had an enlarged heart and the liver, Gloucestershire cirrhosis of He had sufferedland in a 3ft ditch. court was told. coroner’s no injuries on medication Heart disease for high blood but was diabetes was and pressure alcohol blamed, rather toxicity. Verdict: than Natural causes.

Sun

BRITISH Bruce Springsteen Hungry Heartfan club raise £10,000 hopes to for charity by streaming hours of non-stop 24 by the US rocker hits into people’s homes today.

SPOT

A&E BURN THREAT

A WOMAN threatened to burn down hospital and a would kill her,told a care assistant she arms and trying to take but once there her Abigail Forder,a court heard. began ranting own life Winchester crown 24, waved a lighter at staff, the air with court heard. in Forder, of terrified A&E oxygen tanks nearby as Basingstoke, staff looked on. threatening admitted She had been and damage, plusviolence admitted to hospital criminal Basingstoke, unrelated charges in Hants, after of cutting her attempted robbery and witness dation. She was intimijailed for 50 months.

And over the last six months, the Mail ran our story about an English couple in a mysterious house blaze in Sotogrande, a Brexit protest in La Linea, while the Sun followed up our series of excellent exclusives on the floods in the Costa Blanca

Here are the top five most read stories on www.theolivepress.es in the past two weeks: Air cancels its flights from Spain’s Tenerife to 1- Wizz London Luton on the day they were supposed to restart (52,442 visitors) beach disinfected with BLEACH near 2- Outrage asSpain’s Costa del Sol (31,098) Spain will lift coronavirus restrictions 3- BREAKING: in FOUR phases with islands given a head start (31,026) Officials in Germany say there will be NO holidays to 4-Spain this year in multi-million euro blow to Balearic Islands’ tourism sector (27,374) Air completes first flights connecting Spain’s 5- WizzCanary Islands to London Luton (19,981)

Get in touch today at sales@theolivepress.es or call us at 00 34 951273575 for a special quote

25

8

NEWS

www.theolivepress.es

China wasp alErt A TOWN in the province of Malaga has purchased over €5,000 worth of a predatory insect, in order to protect its chestnut productions.

The town of Farajan has spent €5,250 on purchasing 30 batches of torymus sinensis, in order to kill the Chinese chestnut wasp.

The torymus sinensis is the natural predator to the Chinese chestnut wasp which has been wreaking havoc on chestnut production in the area.

The insects that were acquired by the town council were released by the Mayor of Farajan himself, Fernando Fernandez.

According to Fernandez, the main criteria that they have followed when carrying out the releases has been to distribute the batches in lands and plots that are owned by residents of the town.

May 13th - 26th 2020

Four feet forward Mijas donkeys are being well cared for, exercised and fed, insists council MIJAS town hall has denied that its emblematic donkeys are being mistreated during the lockdown.

The councillor responsible for their welfare Nicholas Cruz insisted to the Olive Press that they are ‘being taken out for regular exercise’ and being properly fed.

The town hall added that their ‘burro taxi’ owners are also being given sizable tax breaks this year to make up

By Charlie Smith

for the huge loss in earnings.

His comments came, after various readers contacted our social media sites to complain that they were not being properly cared for.

One reader Susanne Larsen said they were being cooped up unfairly.

However, a video sent ap-

ONCE on the endangered-species list, Spain’s native Iberian lynx population is thriving.

The wild cat has truly bounced back from a depressing low of 94 individuals in 2004 to a stunning 461 in Andalucia in 2019.

There has been a 3.6% increase in the last year alone.

The Sierra Morena area (Guadalmellato, Cardeña, Andujar and Guarrizas) has established itself as the main territory with 356 cats in the wild.

SINGLE IMPLANT

OUT AND ABOUT: Mijas donkeys during lockdown peared to be three years old.

Mijas Councillor Bill Anderson, told the Olive Press: “I

The lynx effect

IMPLANT BRIDGE

have spoken to Nicholas and he has looked into it, and I am informed that they are being taken out on a regular basis for exercise, obviously just with their reins and no traps or heavy loads.

He continued: “And at the last council meeting we agreed unanimously that the taxes the owners pay for them will be cancelled for this year.

“Given that the owners are self employed, they have no income at the moment, so this will help them.”

He added that the council was looking at ways to subsidise the food for the donkeys to ‘ensure that they have enough’.

“We are taking the matter seriously, but, despite some bad press about the donkeys in the past, the owners do care about their animals.”

No fairway to treat us!

A LOCAL town hall has attacked ‘lies on social media’ for stirring up trouble in the passing of a controversial golf project in the Axarquia.

The PP party in Nerja insists that the mega-project of hundreds of homes and hotels on virgin land in Maro is ‘not new’ and was first put forward in 2015.

“We must be careful of the lies spread on social networks, causing a second state of alarm during a worldwide crisis,” insisted Planning boss Nieves Atencia.

She has been forced to defend the Maro Golf Project, which has been re-submitted for the Tetuan de Maro plot, currently protected as an area of Cultural Interest (BIC).

Developers Sociedad Azucarera Larios are centering the scheme around the 19th century San Joaquin sugar factory and aim to construct 680 homes, three hotels and a golf course.

However opposition parties and environmental groups are increasing pressure on the town hall to cancel the project.

"We need tourism linked to our natural heritage, that preserves our nature, that is respectful of climate change and that is linked to sustainable development," said Rodrigo Sanchez Haro, of the PSOE party.

Adelante Andalucia described it as a ‘stumbling block’ to the region’s economic recovery, while the IU party said it was a ‘predatory’ scheme that should be scrapped.

Its spokesman for Malaga, Guzmán Ahumada accused the mayor Jose Armijo of using the Royal Decree to speed up the process for approval, flaunting urban planning laws.

Local conservation group, Otro Maro - Nerja es Posible continues to raise a petition to hand in to the Junta and central government.

IMPLANT DENTURE

BUSINESS LA CULTURA

9

May 13th - 26th 2020

Former glory ANCIENT: Gold mask

Fool’s gold SPANISH police have recovered a priceless ancient gold mask that was illegally exported from Colombia.

Policia Nacional, working with colleagues from Colombia, recovered the stunning Tumaco gold art-piece at Madrid’s Barajas airport.

It was part of a shipment which included several extremely rare pre-Columbian gold figurines and jewellery illegally plundered from archaeological sites in Colombia.

Three traffickers were arrested in Spain and the Colombian authorities carried out house searches in Bogota, resulting in the seizure of another 242 pre-Columbian objects, the largest ever seizure in the country’s history.

Lights, corona, action!

THE Ministry of Culture has unveiled a raft of film funding for often-overlooked groups in the wake of the coronavirus crisis.

Female-directed movies are set to receive grants for 75% of production costs, compared to 50% for male filmmakers.

Meanwhile handouts for 80% of costs are available for shorts, feature films that don’t exceed a €1.5 million budget, bilingual works or those with a disabled screenwriter.

Documentaries and animated films are also in-line for 75% grants, while European and American co-productions can get 60% of their costs covered.

Recovery project of Malaga’s Villa Torre de Benagalbon to start before June

ICONIC: Sagrada

Tools still down

By Cristina Hodgson

A JOINT venture has won a lucrative tender to restore an ancient Roman villa on the Costa del Sol. Work is set to begin on the 3rd century Torre de Benagalbon in the Axarquia this month.

The ‘Site of Cultural Interest’ located near the sea beside two streams, near the village of Benalgalbon, is to be turned into a museum to visit by the summer it is hoped.

MAKEOVER: Of Villa Torre de Benagalbon The companies Copesol and Obras Generales del Norte won the tender by coming in some €263,000 under the

budget of €1mlllion.

They have beaten six other bids for the public tender, whose decision was postponed

Forget Brexit, here’s your Velazquez A BRITISH-run art restoration group are attempting to bring back to Sevilla one of the most interesting examples of Spanish-British relations.

The Factum Arte group are in talks with the Duke of Wellington’s estate to access a Diego Velazquez original

that was gifted to the British after they kicked Napoleon’s brother out of Spain in 1813. Factum Arte plan to put a copy of The Waterseller of Seville, currently in Apsley House, London, in a new museum being built in Velazquez’s childhood home.

Race against time Your perfect spy thriller

Former MI6 tech expert Marc Dane works as a security consultant at Rubicon. When one of Rubicon’s research assistants goes missing, Marc and his partner, ex-soldier Lucy are asked to investigate.

However, when an extreme right-wing terrorist escapes from police custody in Belgium, they soon

find themselves in a race against time to stop a bioweapon releasing a deadly virus that will kill millions across Europe and the Middle East. An action packed, fast paced spy thriller, Shadow is perfect for fans of Jack Reacher and I Am Pilgrim.

Available from The Bookshop San Pedro, www.thebookshop.es

due to the coronavirus crisis.

Moreover the bid has committed to reduce the execution period by two months.

The City Council of Rincon de la Victoria had envisaged the work taking one year.

The recovery project is based on the construction of an exhibition space and information centre alongside the remains of Villa Antiopa.

The space covers two areas and will have a total surface area of 1,026.75 square metres divided into three levels connected by stairs, walkways and a lift.

LA Sagrada Familia will not restart construction until the cathedral reopens its doors to visitors, it has been announced.

The landmark, which forms part of a UNESCO World Heritage site, stopped all building as Spain’s state of alarm was declared on March 14.

It is the first time work on the Gaudi’s Art Nouveau-Gothic masterpiece has been halted since the Spanish Civil War. This year was to be a decisive one for the Barcelona basilica’s completion, with significant work planned for the central towers.

La Sagrada Familia could start welcoming visitors from June during the latter phases of Spain’s deescalation, although this is yet to be confirmed.

Of the €103 million the site generated last year, €55 million of that was spent on construction.

10

May 13th - 26th 2020 May 13th - 26th 2020

BUSINESS LA CULTURA

In gold blood

10

April 29th - May 12th 2020

SPECIAL DISPATCH: A secret Nazi U-boat base, macabre facilities for facial reconstruction surgery, bank transactions traced to the highest echelons of the Third Reich. Conor McGlone (right) asks how Fuerteventura’s mysterious past sheds light on Spain’s troubled history

LA CULTURA

ISOLATED: Windswept Jandia peninsula where Villa Winter allegedly hid fleeing Nazis

The shadow of fascism

crossed the peninsula from rines), Fumero vowed to uncover coast to coast. exterior, gulls wheel and cry pite- the truth. weather. the small cores of roosting doves blusteryis one conspicuous ex- ously. A rooster calls. own life is As we nosed about man barred our Gustav Winter's located in a stifling erupted from the de- There Few visitors make it A gruff, stocky a 'donation' as shrouded in mystery. We know museum I was struck by the crepit courtyard as we ception. dusty track, to Vil- way, demandinga lopsided piece that in 1928 he built the power back room, entered. I'm not easily up a second uncomfortable thought that the he gestured at plant CICER on neighbouring la Winter, a grandiose turreted spooked but something in the building, nestled impossibly at of wood with 'museo' scrawled island Las Palmas de Gran Ca- exhibits, laid out without any air felt very wrong. A punch bag the base of the mountains. In on it. This man, I later discov- naria, which has been described explanation or context, could be treated as pure memorabilia, a and gloves hung in one corner, a the 1930s, when the building ered, was Pedro Fumero. had as "a masterpiece of German Neo-nazi shrine (see below). grandfather couple of chained-up rottweilers was constructed, the setting Fumero's time his engineering". During were in the opposite. Budgies would have been even more re- helped to build Villa Winter and working on Gran Canaria, Winter There were old Nazi uniforms languished in a birdcage, next to mote, accessible only by donkey his four uncles were hired by (pictured top right) became fas- and news clippings, huge wartime radio sets and photographs Winter's family as guards of the cinated by the Jandía peninsula. an inscription that read: "History or camel. house at the end of the 70s. Legend has it that In 1939, Win- of dead soldiers. There were test is the cage that imprisons us."

Disturbing rumours had brought In the 90s the There was an unnatural stillness us here. Legend with tubes and nasty looking syringes batterWinter's sold the ter arrived on Fuerteventura to the air and a strong scent of has it that the with cash on a as well as serious-looking house to a large a suitcase filled to purchase the ies, alleged by Fumero to have sedentary humanity but there base was conHigh-ranking hotel and con- special mission was no turning back now - it had structed by the for the Nazis. powered submarines. a German engistruction compa- strategic peninsula been no small feat getting here.

SS officers denied this until Darwin Vidal, German engineer ny and his rela- While Winter 1971, historians neer who has been working with While the Canary Islands bring Gustav Winter, his death in to mind neatly packaged cheap financed by the underwent facial tives - unaware of agree that there were German Fumero for the last four years to told me sale - ceased winter sunshine, there is much Nazi the Canaries ar- investigate the rumours, regime. surgery to alter the to receive the submarines in the war. This is ‘everything indicates’ that the more to Fuerteventura than sun- During the Secchipelago during burn and cervezas. This you will ond World War, it their appearance small salary they despite Franco declaring Spain Winter house was used as a nahad formerly reknow if like us you have risked is said, the base the outbreak of ceived to look af- to be neutral at War. He was, the 40-minute hair-raising off- acted as a secret the Second World road drive on Fuerteventura's launchpad for U-boats, utilizing ter the house. after all, heavily indebted to Hitrugged southern tip, the Jandía a subterranean network of vol- Returning from Tenerife in 2012 ler for helping him brutally win peninsula, to be rewarded with canic caves. After the war, it be- and finding the place in a state the Spanish civil war. epic views of a ridge of volcanic came one of the last refuges of of utter disrepair, with his rel- During the Second World War, mountains trailing like a giant's the Third Reich, where high-rank- atives barely surviving in the the Jandía peninsula was squalid conditions, a heart-bro- blocked off from the rest of the stepping stones to the sea. ing SS officers fled to undergo faAt the foot of the mountains lie cial surgery to alter their appear- ken Fumero decided to stay to island. The local inhabitants miles of windswept beaches, ance, on the way to new lives in look after them. Remembering were only allowed back in the the stories his grandfather had 1950s, when the Franco regime with perfect white sand and South America. barely a speck of civilization in Now, wandering goats and don- told him about the "upside-down finally removed a fence which sight, a tapestry of cloud, light keys roam about the ramshackle ships" (as he called the submaand blue, changing quickly in the

S

val base. Local documents date the house as being built in 1946, but Vidal claims the "bunker" or base of the building was built before the war.

According to Vidal, the 1.4-metre-thick reinforced concrete walls, the vaulted ceiling, and imposing tower - that looks suspiciously like a lighthouse - are all clues that the villa was used to provision German U-boats.

The rest of the house was built after the war, in Vidal's opinion as "an ideal place to hide and escape allied arrests". The presence of several windowless rooms, for example, could have been used to conceal people.

Vidal, who has been tirelessly combing the national archives in Germany, said there is ample evidence that Winter collaborated with the Nazi regime, bringing

Hot on the heels of our expose on a Nazi U-boat base in the Canaries, Jon Clarke tracks the Nazi Gold Trail to Madrid and Gibraltar shedding new light on a shady chapter in history that has never been resolved cornocopia of Nazi memoraMYSTERIOUS: Villa Winter and its bilia while (top) museum boss Fumero

H

OW could a stockpile of looted Nazi gold larger than some country’s bullion reserves disappear without trace?

The macabre mystery has been the subject of tireless investigations, books, conspiracy theories and even a failed civil suit brought against the Vatican Bank in January 2000. But the true story, and Spain’s part in it - possibly Gibraltar’s too - has never fully come out.

The story began on a cold and shivery morning in February 1945 with a covert meeting in Madrid.

The clandestine assembly took place in the plush top floor office of the Instituto de la Moneda, attended by its director and the heads of both the German and British secret services.

The topic: to decide, allegedly, how to divide up the enormous stockpile of Nazi gold – much of it looted from Jews – that had found its way into Spain towards the end of the Second World War. “There were two British agents and four German agents,” claims Dr Shimon Samuels, who has investigated the

movement of looted gold for decades. “Each of them were making offers. The British wanted the gold, insisting it should not fall into the hands of the Americans, while the Germans wanted their gold protected by Franco, officially to be used for post war reconstruction in Germany.

“But we think it went to Operation Odessa to help Nazis escape to South America.”

The piles of gold in question – conservatively estimated to have a value of at least $138 million – had been amassed in a series of safe deposit boxes at the Institute over the previous few years.

While many of the gold ingots had been looted from the bank accounts of Jews across Eastern Europe and Germany through the 1930s and early 1940s, much of it had come from a much more sinister source.

“A lot of it was tooth gold extracted from people who had been exterminated in the concentration camps,” explains Dr Samuels, the Director for International Relations at the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in Jerusalem.

“This was looted gold and it should not have been here in

STASHED: The hoard was hidden in Gib, believes Dr Shimon Samuels (inset) Spain nor, most pertinently, should the British have had anything to do with it. There was clearly a lot of hanky panky going on.”

The fascinating chain of events first came to light when Samuels and his colleague Dr Ephraim Zuroff, the world’s most famous Nazi-hunter, spent time in Spain alongside Spanish investigator Jose Maria Irujo.

The group had been trying to ascertain how and where the billions of dollars in Nazi gold had ended up after the war in September 1945.

Most importantly they wanted to know who among the Nazi hierachy might have benefited from it. They spent a number of months compiling a list of ten key people who were allegedly still

living in Spain in the 1990s – string of meetings held with scattered around the country both German and English but mostly in Andalucia. They agents in Madrid. handed this list in person to Taking place in February and then Spanish President Jose March, most interesting of all Maria Aznar, who insisted was the entry in the diary for there was little April 19. that could be “It noted simply done.

Gold had been that the gold The ingot trail had been put on put on a train drew more suca train to Tarifa cess and the and from there to Tarifa and team of invesit was transtigators quite ferred to a buildfrom there to literally struck ing in Gibraltar.”

Gibraltar gold when they An intriguing stumbled upon and highly the ageing widdamning note ow of the former director of for the Allied authorities, the the Instituto de la Moneda. team from the Simon Wiesen“It was a stroke of luck that thal Centre wasted no time in she was still alive to tell us heading south to investigate the story,” says Dr Samuels. further.

“And, even better, she reBut after weeks of pressing, called how all of her the Gibraltar authorities inbest sheets, blansisted they were unable to kets and tablecloths find any sign of the gold. had disappeared “Of course we pushed them around that time but we met a complete brick and how she now wall. The trail went cold. It realised that they was absolutely scandalous.” had almost cerThe Gold Trail that emanated tainly been used to from Germany in the 1940s cover and carry the spread out in a number of dimountains of gold rections. ingots.”

It included everything from On top of that, the silverware and watches to widow had even wedding rings and gold teeth kept a copy of her stained with human blood. late husband’s diThe Nazis had seized most of ary, including the it as they ejected Jews from entries for 1945, their homes around Eastern which included a Europe and Germany.

Remarkably efficient, the Jews’ belongings were minutely chronicled, explained investigator Ronald Zweig.

“The crucial period was around April 1944, when the Jews were handing over their property; it was put into individual bags and closed in front of them,” he explained.

“The address was recorded, and they were TRACKED: Gold was set by armoured train from Germany given receipts,

BUSINESS LA CULTURA

11

May 13th - 26th 2020

NAZI HOARD: Hitler ordered the looting of Jewish goods, with millions stolen and even ripped from the fillings in their teeth, while (inset) Nazi Martin Bormann but within weeks it all became meaningless because these people were shipped off to Auschwitz and didn’t survive.”

Often melted down into ingots, the gold was used throughout the war to buy raw materials from around Europe including much from Spain, through a complex network of companies.

At the centre of this German-Spanish trading relationship was the large commercial conglomerate Sociedad Financiera Industrial (SOFINDUS), formed in 1936.

Through special agreements, SOFINDUS eventually acquired a commercial empire that included 10 agricultural subsidiaries, nine transportation companies and significant mining interests.

In shipping alone, by 1941 it was operating as many as 53 vessels with a combined capacity of 55,000 tons.

SOFINDUS served as the Nazis’ commercial agency in Spain, handling all non-military trade and developing its nascent mining and agricultural industries, principally to supply the Third Reich with raw materials vital for its economy and war industries.

By 1941 Germany was buying almost all of Spain’s iron ore for its weapons industry, paid for in gold, the only ‘currency’ it had.

After the German surrender in 1945, an Anglo-AmericanTrusteeship took control of German businesses and properties in Spain. By July 1946 their worth totalled 278 million pesetas ($25.3 million) out of an estimated 1,045 million pesetas ($95 million) of German assets in Spain.

The Allies based their estimates of Spain’s wartime gold acquisitions on captured German Reichsbank records, statements by Swiss banking officials and records seized from the offices of SOFINDUS. Conservative estimates put the amount of gold Spain acquired between 1942 and 1945 at a minimum 122 tonnes of gold worth around

$138 million. Of this 11 the gold was long gone. In of them came in the 1940s tonnes came from Germany, total, Spain agreed to repa- and 1950s and, under Fran74 tonnes from the German triate just $114,000 in gold, co, they obviously got a good account at the Swiss Nation- much of it believed to have reception. al Bank and 37,852 tonnes come from the Netherlands - “The amazing thing was that directly from the Swiss Na- a scandalous fraction of what in 1975 nothing changed. tional Bank, which the Allies had been stolen and later fer- They could still live in peace.”

Indeed it wasn’t until Zuroff believed included loot. reted away.

The report concluded that of Even more of a ‘joke’ - as part and his team started to inthis total, an estimated 72% of the agreement the Allies vestigate the movements of of the gold Germany used were forced to issue a state- leading Nazis, such as Aribert during this period was looted. ment insisting that Spain had Heim (known as Doctor Death What is also now quite appar- been ‘unaware’ that the gold for his part in the massaent was that the had even been cre of numerous Jews – and ease with which looted by the Spaniards – in Mauthausen the Nazis could Spain agreed to Nazis in the first Concentration Camp) that the cloak their place. world started to learn about repatriate just This businesses in shady their existence in Spain.

Spain was due in the El Pais journalist Irujo worked $114k in gold, chapter to the ease with history of Spain hard to locate a string of which Spanish much of it from – and, in partic- wanted Nazis, including Belofficials could ular, the involve- gian Leon Degrelle.

Netherlands be corrupted. ment of Gibral- “But Spain still didn’t take It also became tar – has still much interest,” said Zuroff. clear that Tangnot been prop- “They basically favoured the iers and Morocco were being erly resolved nor investigated. biological solution and I guess used as a conduit to move Neither the British govern- we had other more important Nazi assets from Spain and ment (Sir Malcolm Rifkind countries to investigate, so we Portugal to Argentina. This was approached at the time), kind of let them off the hook.” conduit confirms leading Nazi nor the Spanish authorities As for where the gold is now, Martin Bormann’s infamous were prepared to help in the some say it could still be in programme of flight capital. location of the looted gold safe deposits in Gibraltar, In the autumn of 1944, the and other treasures. others that it was distributed Allies made their first request “It is why Spain was such a to help Nazis flee to South for Spain to cease all gold popular destination for Na- America. transactions involving ene- zis,” says Dr Ephraim Zuroff, “The ultimate destination of my interests. Spain failed to who has spent four decades the gold is anyone’s guess, reply. In January 1945, the tracing Hitler’s former associ- but I imagine some went to Allies cut off all land routes ates around the globe. “Most Africa and plenty went to Nabetween Spain and Germany.

In May that same year, Spain finally issued a decree to freeze and immobilise all assets with Axis interests.

Negotiations with Spain started in November 1946 in Madrid and dragged on through 1947 beforefinal agreement was reached on both Nazi assets and the gold issue on May 3, 1948.

But by then TOP MAN: Nazi hunter Zuroff gets a handshake from the pope

zis fleeing Germany to live in Spain,” said Dr Samuels.

Either way, the Gold Train is one subject that is unlikely to be derailed.

While temporarily on the buf-

fers, it is extremely likely that there are officials in Gibraltar, or their older family members, who can shed light on this disgraceful chapter in Europe’s recent history.

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LETTERS

12

May 13th - 26th 2020 Check out our issues online at www.theolivepress.es

Dear Olive Press,

Mallorca Issue 79 MALLORCA

The

While welcoming the Junta call for the lockdown to be eased in the pueblos that have come this far through the crisis virus-free I have some misgivings.

As a resident of a pueblo of 150 people in Los rigorously to lockFilabres that LEAVERS: Triohas adhered e, the following are virus-fre remains and down of Brits in Spain my concerns:

A taste of freedom

OLIVE PRESS

Your expat

voice in Spain

May 1st - May 14th, 2020 Vol. 3 Issue 79 www.theolivepress.es

FREE

n!

This is not Armageddo E Photos by Allan Binderup

XC LU SIV E

parents and children IT was a taste of what’s to come for at the weekend. headed out to take Mothers and sons, dads and daughters beaches around Palma. the air, pick wild flowers or stroll on roller skates or just On bikes, scooters, skateboards,

with friends on street shanks pony, they met and chatted arrest or a heavy fine. corners and in parks, without fear of will be allowed to Even better, from this weekend everyone measures are kept. exercise, as long as social distancing meant to play ball!

And, fingers crossed, the weather is

BITTER SWEET

Photos by Jon Clarke

four-step plan to recovery, but Expat restaurateurs welcome able to open again in May fear huge losses despite being

Mother of cancer victim Ashya King tells the Olive Press why she has leftto the Jehovah’s Witnesses and wants move back to Spain with her family

deA WAVE of uncertainty has scended across Mallorca after Prime his Minister Pedro Sanchez revealed life four-step de-escalation plan to get of back to ‘a new normal’ after a week positive COVID-19 results.

As long as the rate of infections conwill tinues to drop, restaurant terraces be allowed to open with a 30% capacity, as well as hotels and other tourist accommodation on May 11.

Some two weeks later, restaurant dining rooms can once again welcome and clients, while cinemas, theatres a museums will follow suit, albeit in limited capacity with strict separation rules.

See a mother’s moving interview on pages 6-7

UK BASED

TRAVEL INSURANCE

not ive Press: “The government has reappreciated how much Mallorca just lies on tourism and things don’t alspring back to normal even if you However, despite business-owners low us to reopen.” and being told they can potentially resume His prognosis for this year is poorof his activity this month, with more restric- he believes reopening the doors than hotel will generate more losses tions lifted by June, many are feeling re- benefits. wholly dubious about how viable taken opening will be without an interna- For this reason, he has already until the decision to delay opening tional market. half of Although retaining a healthy all-year- 2021 – a view taken by around the hotels, according to the Confedround population, Mallorca relies in- eration of Business Associations. heavily on tourism and winter island comes are complemented by signifi- Hiscock believes opening up the to German tourists could be a catalyst cant profits over the summer.

The Mallorca Hotel Business Federa- for tourism, however if Germany’s Bation and the Hotel Chain Association tourism commissioner, Thomas have branded the government’s plans reiss’ warning this week that citizens will not travel to Spain this year rings to reopen establishments as comit true, the Balearic economy is set to pletely ‘unfeasible,’ claiming that provides a ‘false impression of return- suffer even more.

German tourism represents a signifiing to a new normality.’ re“The de-escalation plan has been as- cant monetary injection, constituting one third of the international marceived with disappointment and of 4.5 tonishment, and shows the profound ket for the region, with a total year ignorance of the government towards million Germans visiting lastsecond tourism and business in the Balearica and thousands more owning homes on the island.

Islands,” said the associations in of Restaurateur Antonio Longobardi, is joint statement.

Stressing the need to implement pro- well-known Ritzi in Portals Nous, while testing, reopening, on COVID-19 back mass as also holding tocols such the organisation believes the focus ports and airports remain closed. should not be on resuming activity “90% of our clients are from Germany so it doesn’t make sense to reopen without a client base. without anyone to cater for,” he told This view was echoed by James Histhe cock, a British expat who owns the the Olive Press. of He also criticised the inflexibility renowned Son Ametler Hotel in workfoothills of the Serra de Tramuntana the ERTE, a temporary layoff of mountains.

Stating the need to roll out a EuroContinues on Page 4 Olpean health passport, he told the

By Isha Sesay in Palma

Gibraltar Issue 121 for Spanish residents

www.globelink.co.uk

96 626 5000 +44 (0) 1353 699082

OLIVE PRESS GIBRALTAR

The FREE

The Rock’s ONLY free local paper

Vol. 5, Issue 121 www.theolivepress.es April 29th - May 12th, 2020

This is not Armageddon!

Taste of freedom

Zeroing in!

Picture by Jon Clarke

Gibraltar’s tough approach on deaths and a very low caseloadCOVID-19 virus results in NO for health workers

TM

o n l y .

S u b j e c t

t o

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Costa Blanca Issue 29

OLIVE PRESS

COSTA BLANCA

FREE

A taste of freedom Your expat

voice in Spain

Vol. 2 Issue 29 www.theolivepress.es April 30th - May 13th, 2020

This is not Armageddon!

E IV US CL IC EX P IT was a taste of what’s to come for parents and children at the weekend.

Mothers and sons, dads and daughters headed out to take the air, pick wild flowers and jump in puddles around Spain.

On bikes, scooters, skateboards, ller skates or just shanks pony, rothey

met and chatted with friends on street corners and in parks, without fear of arrest or a heavy fine.

Even better, from this weekend everyone will be allowed to exercise, as long as social distancing measures are kept. And, fingers crossed, the weather is meant to play ball!

BITTER SWEET

• We are the most unlikely to be immune. Movement among communities therefore creates risks. As an example, many family connections with our pueblo live and work in the city of Alin Spain. tions urbanisa major other a political lly, as essentia the EU, sees Mooreand Rose meria bussed are pueblos small similar in Children The to 7). pg 325, Issue and proud, dictatorship (Leave again once thus tions conurba larger in schools states, 28 sovereign . There are d reality is the opposite being thetovirus of the likelihoo g which increasin become ly chosebeen. voluntari the UK, where including it has not yetthe transpor tedDunne would UK that believes Steve d. associate ed communis of so-far unaffect • All the resident to going I’m notfor Not so. on WTOasterms. fair better the virus. be tested a priority, ties should, and chapter quoting by page letters your down would weigh In this in, live I one the as a pueblo such into thes. looksresource Steve that or ndtime I recomme buttake verse,not physical up much specifics of any industry that he knows. That Trump should such with an EU-free dealpeople tradethat will lookUKupon get afears is trying Theretoare dealsand Trump’s the virus fromtrade to know: a haven as being you all you tellcommun itieswant their throughfor and speaks Brent Mahler such ‘havens’ labels. go toFinally, want to have willUS-first must force decision an EUA armed theyofseek. whatwary UK citizens actions,ofdestroy a number declare aretoideas of governm , theseent all levels at union.

However made closer ever now andbean largto the aldea I am the smallest policy. from and not EU all ofbySpain, people specific floated rest of 2020. for the 40-plus pro-has years ofThis city, fiesta-fre est worried at the einsidious more Santa.

Semana fiestas, with by done h, been the Telegrap alreadyagainst the Mail, EEC/EU paganda incompa nature very their by are ferias Fiestas, did tiWhat Sun. The Express, Times and, of course, dents many g. Toowhy social ble with was so anhe non-resi he was asked whendistancin say Murdoch apparent. danger thethe to fiestas... travel “When I go into of:glaringly lines is g along Somethin ti-EU? be saved by recan fiestas on the when notdoused Funds to the EU.” Theion I go what I say: 10 they No.gions fund in anticipat emergency in their own ent! appointm an for ask to that heofhad on is states implicati alarm. of further

Get educated

Tom Walker, Almeria

Birthday girl at 100

I was so pleased to see the correct spelling of the word restaurateur on your current front page (Taste of freedom, Issue 342, pg 1). Why? Because I fume when I hear morons on TV who think you just add ‘eur’ to the word restaurant. A small victory, but thanks.

Ken Cook, Gata de Gorgos

Something water

Pauline Laverick, Torrevieja

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EXPAT businesses across the Costa

By Joshua Parfitt, Laurence Blanca have welcomed the news they though restaurants could still be limDollimore and Jon Clarke could reopen in May following seven ited to a capacity of just 50% with weeks of stasis. ‘strict separation’ between customers.

However, they remain extremely cau- continue to drop, restaurant terraces The president of the Hosteleria de will be allowed to open with a 30% España – the largest business tious about making plans until the capacity, associinternational tourist market returns. as well as hotels and other ation in Spain – insisted however that It comes after Prime Minister Pedro tourist accommodation, on May 11. the measures are ‘unviable’.

Sanchez revealed his four-step ‘de-es- Some two weeks later, restaurant “The hospitality industry cannot open dining calation’ plan last night after a week of while rooms can open for business, under these conditions,” said Jose positive COVID-19 data. cinemas, theatres and museums Luiz Yzuel, who represents 270,000 will follow suit.

He insisted that life will return to restaurants and hotels. ‘new normal’ by June, with restau-a Cultural events such as weddings will “Opening up a restaurant, rants, hotels and businesses allowed be able to take place with a capacity the toilets, and all the work cleaning that goes to gradually open throughout May of up to 400 people outdoors and into reviving an establishment, to 50 indoors.

- albeit at heavily reduced capacities. then just attend 30% of As long as the numbers of infections By early June, it is envisaged that will not earn enough for outside tables even the elecmore restrictions will be lifted, al- tricity bill.”

He called it a genuine ‘wind-up’ that the government was sticking to a Royal Decree clause requiring businesses not to fire anyone for six months after reopening.

He criticised the inflexibility of UK BASED the ERTE, or temporary layoff mechanism that does not allow a progressive re-employment of staff.

“If the government wants us to re-open, then listen to us, and for Spanish take measures that mean we can stay alive.” residents Steve Jasper, owner of popular Father Ted bar, in Moraira, said www.globelink.co.uk the regulations lacked ‘clarificaSALES & RENTALS SPECIALISTS tion’ on conditions under which bars can open.

Moriara•Calpe•Jalon•Javea•Denia•Altea “The requirements need to be 96 626 5000 clear so they can be implement+44 (0) 1353 699082 www.moraira-hamiltons.net

See a mother’s moving interview on pages 6-7

Public information

Bleach beach

I have had some enquiries about this. Please note that this is a measure to speed up the granting of LFOs to houses constructed WITH planning permission or those completed prior to 1975 and thus constructed under a different planning regimen to the current one (Fighting the COVID-19 crisis, Issue 342, pg 18). It is NOT applicable to houses constructed without planning permission.

Maura Hillen, Albox

We have our streets in Sierra de Yeguas sprayed with bleach every week (Outrage as beach disinfected with BLEACH near Costa del Sol, Online, May 3). Even with the blinds down and the windows and doors locked, the fumes make my eyes water.

Has anything piqued your interest in this week’s Olive Press? Have your say on the matter by emailing letters@ theolivepress.es or message us on at www.facebook.com/OlivePressNewspaper or Twitter @olivepress

Patricia M Judge, Sierra de Yeguas

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Continues on Page 4

the

Tony Hiom, Estepona

Expat restaurateurs welcome fear huge losses despite being four-step plan to recovery, but able to open again in May

Mother of cancer victim Ashya King tells Olive Press why she has left the Jehovah’s Witnesses and wants to move back to Spain with her family

in

My apartment is 150 metres from the beach at Benamara-Saladillo, Estepona and I understand that ‘my group’ (the over 70s) can now access the beach for exercise, walking and jogging from 10-12am and 7-8pm. However, I believe bathing in the sea is prohibited and cannot understand why that should be. What is the reasoning behind this restriction? Do the authorities consider our inshore waters contain faecal matter which could pass on the COVID-19 virus?

I just wanted to say thank you so much for all your help! Peggy had a lovely surprise and Joshua and his photographer (sorry I didn’t get his name) were brilliant! We are all very excited to see the Olive Press this week! You made a sweet lady feel very special and we will tell everyone how wonderful you are at the Olive Press - thank you!

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v a l i d

By John Culatto

WITH only around 10 active cases and over 130 people having recovered from COVID-19, Gibraltar is Mother of cancer victim Ashya King finally starting to lift its lockdown.

It has started with the elderly bePress why she has left the Jehovah’stells Olive ing given the right to exercise and and wants to move back to Spain withWitnesses will now continue by allowing her family non-essential businesses to start working again.

Numbers of active cases have dropped from the 60s to just four See a over the weekend, before increasmother’s ing slightly on April 26.

See page 16 moving The careful approach taken by interview on the Gibraltar Government seems pages 6-7 to have been rewarded with no deaths from the pandemic so far.

This has been achieved by careful planning and coord inat ion between every department, c o n d i t i o n s .

E n d s 3 1 / 1 2 / 1 9 . as well as the effort by citizens to stay at APPLAUSE: Health workers take the plaudits at St Bernards home.

21/6/19 13:30 Testing UK BASED has cessful, with nearly 1,000 swabs en been very suc- being carried out at the drive-th- Thethe green light in the UK. ru testing centre at the will Gibraltar Health Authority start to resume its basic mediRooke site. cal clinics soon.

A random test of 400 Plans are also in place for cancer people is now being fol- screening lowed by 200 tests of treatments and other important to begin at St Berthose working in frontline nard’s for Spanish hospital. services.

“These low numbers of infections, residents These results, processed and the absence of serious cases or at Gibraltar laboratories, deaths www.globelink.co.uk are helping medical ex- said in Gibraltar is good news,” perts work out what chal- “ButChief Minister Fabian Picardo. it is ever-changing so we canlenges lie ahead. not get over confident in respect of Looking forward, the au- a virus which is still very much in 96 626 5000 thorities have asked to our community. be included as part of the “COVID-19 +44 (0) 1353 699082 is likely to remain a NHS for the first vaccines part of our world for many months and medicine that are giv- or years to come.”

Tel: 952 147 834

52 147 834

HOME02.indd 1

met and chatted with friends on street corners and in parks, without fear of arrest or a heavy fine.

Even better, from this weekend everyone will be allowed for exercise, as long as social distancing measures are kept. And, fingers crossed, the weather is meant to play ball! SEE REPORT ON PAGE 8

Picture by Mike Riely

IT was a taste of what is to come parents and children in Spain at for the weekend.

Mothers and sons, dads and daughters headed out to take the air, pick wild flowers and jump in puddles around Spain.

On bikes, scooters, skateboards, roller skates or just shanks pony, they

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BUSINESS LA CULTURA

All the frills of the feria

13

May 13th - 26th 2020

Feria season may be cancelled but you can still give Andalucia’s famous flouncy frocks an outing as we move into Phase One of lockdown lift, suggests Cristina Hodgson

N

O fashion statement says Andalucia quite like the traje de flamenca. And NEVER has there been a greater need to brighten our lives with a flurry of frills and flounces in sun-

ELEGANT: Lady Amelia Windsor (left) and actresss Lucia Bedoya

THE FLIRTY LANGUAGE OF FANS The first abanico in Spain dates back to 1802 and it has its own secret Morse Code. Here are some moves, and their meanings, you can try out on that bar terrace or at home to impress your select group of 10 family members and friends:

Open fan over the chest showing the design: “Yes” Open fan over the chest showing the back: “No” Open fan covering one cheek: “I like you” Wave fan very fast: “I really like you” Wave fan very slowly: “I am not interested” Open fan covering your nose: “I want to see you” Open fan covering your chin: “I want to talk to you” Closed fan near the heart: “I love you” Open fan placed over lips: “Kiss me” Close fan waving: “I am thinking about it” Hit close fan against hand: “Leave me alone” Open and close the fan: “I am upset” Open fan waving energetically on one side: “Don’t come now, other people around”

DID YOU KNOW?

shine yellow, sky blue and hibiscus red.

PASSION: Flamenco is at the heart of Spain Coronavirus has KO’d traditional summer ferias but there’s no reason to keep body’ which follows the shape of this mu- Meanwhile Lady Amelia Windsor, grandyour outfit in mothballs this year. sical instrument to highlight the shapely daughter of the Queen’s first cousin, And with bars and restaurants opening curves of the woman - a look sported by sported a floral flamenco dress at a fashtheir terraces at 50% capacity in some the likes of Jackie Kennedy and Grace ion shoot for Penelope Chilvers boots in provinces from May 10, there’ll be plenty Kelly.

El Rocio, the famous finishing point for of space to wear one without tripping up Sofia Vergara, voted the most elegant Huelva’s muddy feria pilgrimage where the waiters.

Latina in the United States, is a long-time boots are de rigeur.

The style that has been turning heads devotee of ‘guitar-body’ dresses, fre- Many brides also opt for a flamenco-infor centuries has even been adopted by quently flaunting her hourglass figure in spired dress for their wedding day, and royals and celebrities - repassionate scarlet. not only those related to the world of member Princess Diana’s And just last year, the bullfighting and canto. Raquel Mauri, flamenco-inspired strapNetherlands royal family wife of Barça soccer player Ivan Rakitić, Flamenco less gown on her 1987 added some blue-blood- wore this classic style for her wedding in tour of Spain, cheekily ed flamenco flair to Sevil- Sevilla. dresses may worn with one long scarla’s April Fair, with Queen To the casual eye, flamenco dresses may look similar, let glove and one long Maxima in electric blue, look similar, but the styles subtly change black glove? worn with a hot pink every year and custom-made flamenco but the styles It has also become the shawl, and her daughters dresses are considered an important subtly change in dazzling yellow and tur- status symbol. global emblem for partying through the Dancer quoise.

Colour-coordinated hoop earrings, hair Emoji of the iOS keyKaty Perry wowed the combs, flower clips and tasselled shawls board, who flaunts a characteristic red crowds in a flamenco-inspired gown at are also very much in evidence. Maybe frilly number. the amfAR Gala in 2016, while Nina Do- this year, who knows, we’ll see matching But the gypsy dress that has crossed bor- brev looked devastating in a strapless fabric face masks too? ders comes from more humble origins. crimson traje de flamenco at 2011’s And did you know? They have their own Its roots are in Sevilla where the peas- Emmy Awards. entire language (see box, left). ants and gypsy women of the late 19th and early 20th centuries wore robes with ruffled hems to do the household chores.

In friendly one-upmanship they began adding embroidery and colours to their gowns, embellishments that did not go unnoticed by the women of high society.

Especially in 1847 when the gypsies of Sevilla started wearing them to the Feria de Abril, originally a cattle fair which, over time, has become one of Spain’s most iconic social events of the year.

It set a new trend and from 1929 onwards the traje de flamenca became the ‘official’ dress for every town’s feria, spreading beyond the borders of Andalucia at a time when professional flamenco dancers also adopted the outfit as their own.

The version used by the pros has a specially adapted train (bata) which emphasises the movements of the ‘bailaora’ (dancer).

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FOOD,DRINK & TRAVEL

Flightmare

THE cost of plane tickets could rise by up to 54% due to social distancing, it has been suggested.

Airlines such as Easyjet have stated their intent to keep their middle seats empty once flights resume, to keep some forms of social distancing.

It’s thought that more airlines will follow suit, causing the maximum capacity of flights to be reduced by a third.

The aviation industry has grounded to a virtual halt, with many airlines suffering huge losses and these plans could potentially make things worse.

According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA) this could cause the price of flight tickets to surge.

The IATA supports the plans to make use of face masks compulsory for all passengers and crew, but doesn’t support the idea of leaving middle seats empty.

Takeoff KLM has resumed some of its flights connecting Amsterdam to Madrid and Barcelona.

The two Spanish destinations however are not the only resumed routes, as passengers can now also travel from the Dutch capital to Budapest, Helsinki, Milan, Prague, Rome and Warsaw.

On all these routes however, use of face masks will be mandatory by both passengers and crew members until at least August 31.

15

May 13th - 26th 2020

Ready, steady, cook!

World’s top 50 kitchens launch e-cookbook to support restaurants left reeling amid pandemic IF you are a foodie with nothing to do during lockdown, now is your chance to compare your cooking and mixology talents with the very best.

The organisation behind

the 50 Best awards – won seven times in 18 years

by Spanish restaurants El Bulli and El Celler de Can Roca – wants people to join a social media-based contest called #50BestRateMyPlate.

A DUTCH firm has started planning for a high speed train that would connect Amsterdam and Barcelona in just 90 minutes.

The company, Hardt, has published a new report on the environmental and economic benefits of the Hyperloop, which could reach speeds of up to 965 kilometres per hour.

The Dutch capital would be the European hub of the futuristic project, which could start as early as eight years time.

As well as speed, vast ecological benefits are on offer, as the decrease in travel time would help draw people away from air travel.

Life’s a beach... almost

NO FRILLS: Victor Arguinzoniz of Asador Etxebarri, Spain’s best and world’s third best restaurant Open to anyone across the to pass on tips and ideas to globe, they want home cooks food and drinks enthusiasts. and aspiring bartenders to People downloading the cook prepare dishes and cocktails book will be asked for a doinspired by the downloadable nation to the organisation’s Home Comforts recipe book. recovery fund, which will be It will feature recipes from used to help restaurants get world-renowned chefs and back on their feet when the cocktail specialists, and aims lockdown crisis is over.

William Drew, Director of Content for 50 Best, said: “50 Best has long been about more than just rankings.

Through its lists, awards, live events and content, it has helped build an international community around food and drink.”

Now he is putting the call out for people on social media to join in this community by taking part in the competition.

It is not available for download yet, so keep an eye on 50 Best’s social media channels for the book launch and entry details.

Dam, that’s fast!

RESTAURANTS are brushing off the news that the lockdown exit on the Costa del Sol has stalled and are planning to throw open their doors.

The Beach House – a popular eatery and beach club in Marbella – is being positive, with plans to reopen now firmly set.

That’s despite their hopes of a limited re-opening on May 11 – and those of thousands of bar, cafe and restaurant owners – being scratched after it was announced that the whole of Malaga would remain in ‘Phase 0’ of the staged lockdown exit.

But the situation will be kept under review and Malaga province may be allowed into Phase 1 from Monday May 18.

A spokesman for The Beach House said: “Regardless of this sudden news, our plan is still to reopen on Friday, May 22.”

Celebrity hotspot La Sala Banus is also making sure it’s ready for a phased reopening too.

Plans to reopen the celeb’ favourite and its sister restaurant Villa Toscana are in place.

They are just waiting on the official go-ahead from the Spanish Government.

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Serves 8 (starter) or 4 (main course) Method: Ingredients:

Gorgeous Gazpacho F W OR the last two months they have been holed up in Granada following a coronavirus travel nightmare (Into the frying pan, Issue 340, March 16). But now British couple Yianni Papoutsis, 44 and Sophie O’Hara, 26, have turned lockdown into HO knew this rich chilled red soup started out white with no tomato con-

tent at all.

Gazpacho has its origins in a simple soup of olive oil, bread, garlic and water eaten by the Greeks and Romans. We have the Moors to thank for refining it when tomatoes were

When life gives you squishy tomatoes during lockdown, make Spain’s signature summer soup!

a culinary showdown.

To continue their new series of quarantine recipes for the Olive Press, the pair show us their fresh twist on the country’s most famous soup. Stay tuned for more and check out their blog @nice.olation on Instagram.

brought back from the New World in the early 16th century, and they threw in a few almonds too.

It's a great way to use up stale bread and soggy tomatoes which might otherwise be destined for the bin.

It freezes really well and you can go wild with the extra bits for toppings: now’s the time to

Step 2: Set aside one third of the tomatoes, red and green peppers, cucumber and jalapeño. Roughly chop the remaining two thirds with garlic cloves and blend using a food processor or stick blender.

Step 3: Squeeze the excess water out of the soggy bread with your hands and add it to the mixture. Pour in the oil and vinegar then blend until smooth. If your oil is extra virgin it can taste bitter so add it slowly, tasting as you go; sometimes it helps to add a pinch of sugar. Season to taste, then let it rest in the fridge for half an hour to chill.

Step 4: Push the mixture through a sieve, then discard what's left retaining the liquid. Toss in the ice cubes and return to the fridge for a minimum of half an hour.

A selection of the following toppings: ●● 100g feta, crumbled ●● 1/2 an avocado, diced ●● 4-8 grapes, cut in half ●● 1 shallot, diced ●● 1 handful toasted almond shavings ●● 1 green spring onion, sliced ●● 1 handful of torn mint leaves

Step 5: Finely dice the reserved tomatoes, peppers, cucumber and jalapeño and place a handful in the centre of each bowl.

Step 6: Give the soup a stir and taste; if you like it less thick you can add a splash of water.

Gently pour the soup around the mound of diced ingredients. Serve with your choice of toppings and a drizzle of olive oil.

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By Yianni and Sophie

Step 1: Soak the stale bread in water for 10-15 minutes.

●● 80 g stale crusty bread (if yours is fresher, dry it out in the oven) ●● 800 g ripe tomatoes (a mix of varieties, colours and sizes is best) ●● 1 red pepper ●● 1 green pepper ●● 1 cucumber ●● 1 jalapeño pepper (or other mild chilli pepper) optional ●● 3 large cloves garlic ●● 100 ml olive oil ●● 2 1/2 tbsp sherry vinegar (or red wine vinegar) ●● Salt and pepper to taste ●● 6 ice cubes

0 te ee ial 0 si Fr tor 0,0 eb i 0 w ed r 1 ay ou a-d in ort si vi

When you take out an advertising campaign with the Olive Press, you get a lot more than just the printed newspaper

dig out any jars of gherkins, beetroot and pickled onions gathering dust at the back of the cupboard.

Best enjoyed in the glaring sunshine with an ice cold glass of manzanilla, you can even use the leftovers for pasta sauce - or add a slug of vodka for the healthiest, tastiest Bloody Mary you'll ever try.

Castaway cooking

We promote you on our hugely popu 26,000 likes and as many followers lar Facebook page with

We give you more!

By Dimitris Kouimtsidis

DOZENS of expats have enlisted with a brand new political party that represents freelance autonomo workers in Spain.

The party, A.P.E (Autónomos, Pymes y Emprendedores) has so far gained the support of nearly 200,000 self-employed workers.

It was set up to defend and protect the interests of self-employed workers after the coronavirus pandemic laid bare the lack of protec-

BUSINESS

17

May 13th - 26th 2020

Go A.P.E

British expat reveals why ‘enough is enough’ for autonomos who have finally set up their own political party tion and support for them.

There are over 3.2 million people registered as self-employed, with the majority

paying a minimum flat rate of around €250 a month regardless of income.

One expat Gavin Morrison,

AGONY Property ANT

47, told the Olive Press it was vital to have support for his sector.

Morrison, who has been an autonomo in Spain for 13 years, said: “The minute I saw what the party was all

YOUR LEGAL PROBLEMS ADDRESSED BY ANTONIO FLORES

Crisis pay guide

As Ministry of Labour uncovers fraudulent redundancy schemes, Lawbird’s Antonio Flores explains ERTE

S

PANISH ERTE schemes, following the trend of most European countries, allow employers to lay off or temporarily suspend workers in crisis situations.

This can be done full time or, alternatively, on a part time basis.

There are two types of ERTEs that can be used.

The ERTE is based on economic or productivity grounds, which requires a certain degree of participation and an agreement with employees.

The Government will pay salaries (with an upper limit) but not the substantial social security expenses, which are covered by the employer.

The second furlough procedure is the ERTE ‘force majeure’, an expeditious process that if not resolved by the authorities within five days of application, with a specific resolution, will be deemed approved by application of the mechanism of ‘administrative silence’, without having to seek employees’ consent.

The advantage here is that the Government pays the salaries and covers the social security - we could call it full package - and it is quick to implement.

But who can qualify for ERTE during the crisis?

Companies hit with physical obstacles to freely trade (i.e. shops, bars, restaurants, hotels, airlines etc.) would typically qualify for ‘force majeure ERTE’ whereas others such as offices (law firms, marketing companies, real estate agencies etc.) would not be eligible for the ‘force majeure’ ERTE as they can still trade online, albeit with major challenges due to the restricted movement of people.

Still, they would qualify for the less attractive half ERTE scheme.

Companies that believe they are safe once the five-day deadline has passed, or even once salaries start being paid by the SEPE (State Employment Public Service), are mistaken: the Government has announced it will start to review the files and anyone misusing the ERTE ‘force majeure’ fast-track redundancy tool will face severe fines (between €6,000 and €187,000), quite apart from having to refund temporary wages.

Let us take the example of real estate agencies in Andalucia, where real estate businesses do not need to run from a street (unlike in Extremadura for instance).

Have they been totally prevented from trading?

Are they banned from listing properties? Or showing off-plan properties even if online? The answer is ‘no’, they can still do so even if many may not, because they lack clients (the devil’s in the detail here) and yet, larger numbers of real estate businesses have gone for the full package ERTE. Time will tell which legal advisors made the right redundancy scheme choice.

Email Antonio at aflores@lawbird.com

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Write-off

SPAIN’S economy will shrink by 9.2% this year.

That’s the gloomy forecast made by the government this week, representing a significantly bleaker outlook than the -8% predicted by the IMF a at the beginning of the month.

The collapse is unprecedented, given that even in the Great Recession of 2008, GDP never fell by more than 3.8%.

But in a report sent to Brussels, the Spanish government believes the country will recover in the form of an ‘asymmetric V’, i.e. a sharp drop followed by a sharp rise back up.

According to the vice president of Economic Affairs Nadia Calviño, the economy will begin to recover in the second quarter of this year, ‘thanks to the gradual de-escalation plan that will open up activity.’

Calviño added that 2021 is expected to see GDP grow by 6.8% (a lot more optimistic than the IMF’s 4.3% prediction).

The main cause of the collapse is the ‘great fall in domestic demand’, the minister added, as businesses have more or less been brought to a stand still for seven weeks, and right at the beginning of the vital summer season.

Meanwhile, millions of people have been furloughed or fired.

But Calviño was optimistic, commenting that ‘savings will increase greatly, both due to uncertainty and

TURBULENCE ON THE STOCK MARKET BRINGS OPPORTUNITIES

about, I knew I had to join.

“The level of support from the Government for autonomos has been non-existent,” added the Scot, who now runs design firm Kubic design Solutions in Estepona.

forced savings due to restrictions on mobility.’

But while household consumption grew by 1.1% last year, it will now fall by 8.8% this year.

Forecasters believe it will increase by 4.7% in 2021.

Elsewhere, private investment will see a record fall of 25.5% in 2020, before rebounding by 16.7% next year.

Spanish exports will see a 27.1% collapse this year due to a global drop in demand, while imports will follow suit, falling by 31%.

In 2021, the government hopes exports will rebound 11.6% and imports by 9.3%.

Jobless

Yet all the numbers suggest the effect of coronavirus on the economy will not be recovered next year.

Tourism, too, has been hard hit thanks to domestic and international travel bans.

However Calviño believes this sector will rebound the quickest once borders reopen and the price of oil stabilises.

On the employment front, the amount of jobless workers is expected to rise to 19% this year, up from the 14% achieved at the end of 2019. Around 1.9 million jobs will be lost, of which only half are expected to be recovered in 2021, as the government predicts the unemployment rate will fall back to 17.2% next year (having been at 14% before the crisis).

“When the coronavirus crisis hit, that only made things worse and we believe enough is enough, it is time for a change in the laws.”

The Glasgwegian businessman, who runs seven workers added that the ERTE scheme was also unfair to bosses.

“It is unfair to both the business and to the staff.

“If as a company you accept help from the scheme, the Government forces you to take all your employees back and keep them for six months once the crisis is over, even if you can’t afford it.”

He is now voluntarily giving his time and working as part of A.P.E’s marketing team, trying to grow the party.

“The party doesn’t have any political leanings, left or right, we just want what’s just and fair.

“Anyone can join, you don’t have to be autonomo.”

Airbust WORKERS at Cadiz-based aeronautical company Alestis, which supplies Airbus, have been warned an ‘employment adjustment’ is on the way.

The firm, which has premises in Puerto Real and El Puerto de Santa Maria, has lost between 36% and 45% of its orders due to the COVID-19 crisis.

Its biggest losses have been in construction of parts for Airbus models A320, A330 and A350B. The company’s CEO, Maria Clemente has sent a letter to staff saying it intends to guarantee the survival of the company and save ‘the greatest number of jobs.’

But the letter admits what it calls an employment adjustment is necessary.

It employs more than 1,500 people across Spain and Portugal.

Spain: (+34) 951 56 56 56 UK: (+44) 203 901 2756 Email: info@binckbank.com www.binckbank.com

18

May 13th - 26th 2020

BUSINESS Bunch of bankers

By Dilip Kuner

Through the minefield

Chartered Financial Planner Jonathan Holdaway explains the Spanish tax compliant bond

H

SPAIN’S banks have been accused of misusing a government loan programme intended to help small businesses survive the coronavirus crisis.

A study by small companies’ pressure group Pimec claims that banks are using the funds to pay off risky debt first rather than providing new loans as they are supposed to.

The idea behind the scheme

Loans for small businesses used to pay off old debts as lenders cash in on crisis is to give small businesses who have been badly hit by lockdown an instant credit lifeline.

But according to Pimec about 37% of loans granted through the scheme in Catalunya went to pay off old debt rather than provide liquidity to help struggling businessmen pay their bills.

Give our cash back!

LOW cost airlines Ryanair and Vueling have had official complaints made against them over refunds for cancelled flights.

The FACUA-Consumers organisation has denounced Ryanair to the State Agency for Air Safety (AESA) for making cash refunds difficult to get.

But when the Olive Press Googled ‘refunds Ryanair’ an application form was the first result. A similar search for Vueling produced an error message.

FACUA wants Vueling to be fined for only offering vouchers for new flights with no mention of refunds.

In Ryanair’s case, the association has seen a flood of queries and complaints from users who are finding it diffi-

cult to get their money back.

FACUA claims that affected passengers have been getting an email saying that if they do not want to accept the voucher option they should contact the airline to change flights or claim a refund, and links to their website.

However, nowhere does this link allow the user to get their money back, and it only provides information about the voucher and how to apply for it, FACUA said.

The consumer’s organisation warns that the practices of some airlines will lead to a logjam in courts as people try to get their cash back.

It adds that not giving a refund has no possible justification as current technology allows for an automatic and almost immediate refund.

AVING recently completed the pur- in both a Spanish tax compliant and a chase of our first home in Spain non-compliant bond, and there is no other – thankfully we were able to move income from savings. just before lockdown came into for- If the growth in the first year was, say ce too, it is quite apparent that the country’s €10,000 in each case and this was all taken tax authority seems to have various ways of as ‘income’ - the investor must declare this relieving us of our money! as savings income and pay tax on the total However, when looking to make other in- amount. vestments, there are legitimate ways in The taxable amount varies considerably which excessive taxation can be avoided – between the two investments – the entire as long as you have the most appropriate €10,000 for the ‘non-compliant’ bond, yet financial plans. for the compliant bond this reduces to just For a UK resident these sorts of plans will €625. include ISA’s, personal or company pension The amount of tax therefore reduces from schemes and in some cases trusts. €1,980 to only €119 (source OMI).

If a Spanish tax resident – like in most EU Bear in mind that until withdrawals are countries, these ‘tax efficient’ taken, or the bond is totally surrendered, no tax is payable on plans are not recognised, and tax authorities will always ex- Spain is almost the ‘growth’ in either bond’s pect you to pay the appropriavalue. a ‘tax haven’ te rate of savings income tax In conclusion, not only do in the country and region in you need to consider the tax for residents which you reside. rules and rates of tax in your who take Trusts are not recognised at all country of residence, but also advantage and often viewed as bordering the investment arrangements on ‘tax evasion’. available to you.

As I said Spain is seen as a In this respect you could argue country with relatively high-tax – as such that Spain is almost a ‘tax haven’ for resimany UK expats try to keep their tax resi- dents who take advantage of the tax saving BREAK DOWN COVER dency there, by spending less than 183 days opportunities available to provide growth or out of the country in the tax year. The Spani- income from their assets.

If your car breaks down it can be an upsetting sh tax authorities are beginning to look clo- In addition, if you are currently holding moexperience, especially if you don’t have roadside assistance cover. But they are also the sely at these people, requiring written proof ney in cash – which will actually be reducing most common type of problem on the road. of the time spent in the UK. in value with inflation, now is an attractive Opting for Spanish tax residency may be opportunity to take advantage of buying STAY SAFE more attractive than first envisaged, as there into world stockmarkets at a considerable are ways of avoiding savings income tax if discount, if investing for the medium to long If you break down, stay calm and safe unusing sanctioned investments, however: term. til rescue support arrives. Remember that - A tax-compliant life insurance bond must This article should not be considered as while you wait for help, your priority is to hold the funds specific investment advice as it is general in safeguard yourself and any fellow passengers. Línea Directa policyholders simply - It must pay out life insurance slightly in ex- nature. call 919 171 171 and inform the emergencess of the bond value on death To discuss the Spanish compliant investTheOlivePress-256x170-CAR-4.inddcy 1 hotline where you are. Línea Directa proment bond, or indeed any investment please - Only EU UCITS funds are allowed vides emergency roadside assistance any- A fiscal representative in Spain, responsi- contact me for a free initial discovery meewhere in Spain 24/7 and 365 days a year, ble for paying any taxes due, must be nomi- ting on zoom – you don’t even need to leave with a national network of operators and nated by the bond company the comfort of your own home. recovery vehicles.

Investments such as these are not liable for annual taxation, unless ‘withdrawals’ are GEOLOCATION SERVICE taken – and even then a small part is assesJonathan now has an office This service is exclusive to Línea Directa and sed.

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It says that most of the big banks are following the practice, but points at BBVA and Banco Sabadell as particularly culpable.

The Pimec survey of 432 firms found that 79% of loans through BBVA were used to pay off old debt.

This figure was 62% for Sabadell and 40% for Banco Santander.

This has the effect of shifting the risk on existing loans from the banks to the government.

Pimec president Josep Gonzalez said: “This initiative will not increase liquidity. It could mean that the funds that the government is budgeting for this programme would be insufficient to respond to the decline in economic activity.”

Economy Ministry sources have said they are monitoring the situation, adding that using state-backed credit to pay off existing debt was not allowed.

So far the Government under Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has approved three tranches of €20 billion out of a total €100 billion fund.

The programme guarantees 80% of loans to small and mid-sized companies, and 70% of loans to large corporations to help overcome the lockdown.

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We hope the information provided in this article is of interest. If you would like to contact Linea Directa please call 952 147 834. More information about Linea Directa online at www.lineadirecta.com

17:01

Out in the sticks THE post-coronavirus property trends have been revealed as house-hunters on lockdown imagine their ‘new normal’.

Although the market may not fully recover until 2022, once Spain does exit the crisis, balconies, back gardens and beautiful views will be a must for many buyers craving more space. Months of teleworking is also likely to create a demand for homes on the edge of cities, further from one’s place of work, according to Spanish real estate firm, Property Buyers by SomRIE.

PROPERTY

19

May 13th - 26th 2020

Rental support TENANTS with problems paying rent due to COVID-19 could see 100% of their costs covered for up to six months.

People will have until September 30 to apply for the state aid and until October 31 to be approved - although there may be room for extending the deadlines to November 30 and December 31 respectively.

The credit, depending on

THE opening of the Ikos Andalucia luxury resort hotel on the Costa del Sol has been pushed back due to COVID-19.

The all-inclusive luxury resort was scheduled to open in Estepona in May, but that has now been moved to September.

The state of emergency has temporarily suspended the works that were being done, with the hotel now no longer able to meet its opening deadline.

The 5-star establishment has so far cost €150 million and is due to employ 700 members of staff.

Spain puts aside €1.2 billion to help pay rent for hardest hit by coronavirus crisis the tenant’s losses and circumstances, can cover up to 100% of the monthly rent, with a maximum of €900.

It means a potential state aid of up to €5,400 per person/family.

The money is in the form of an interest-free loan, with the government setting

aside €1.2 billion for the scheme.

To be approved for the credit, it must be proven that the tenant or one of the members of the family unit has seen a significant reduction in income, lost their job, been furloughed or seen their hours reduced due to

Ikos on ice

having to care for others and a host of other circumstances.

Proof

To request the credit, the total income of the family unit in the month prior to application cannot exceed five times the IPREM (in this case, €537.89).

Meaning if a household earned more than €2,689 in the previous month, it will not be able to apply.

The tenant or family unit will also have to prove that they spend 35% or more of their total income on rent, basic expenses and supplies.

The tenant will have six years to repay the loan, with an initial grace period of six months.

Once the first three years have passed, they can request an extension for another four years if deemed necessary.

People who own a property but still rent are not eligible without proof that they cannot get entry to their homes.

Market freeze SPAIN will lose a minimum of 50,000 house sales this year, a leading property firm has forecast.

Some 501,085 homes changed hands in 2019, but that number will dwindle to just 450,000 in 2020 in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, according to Pisos. com.

This is the ‘best-case scenario’ on the assumption that the Spanish real estate market sees a resurgence in the last quarter.

If a revival does not occur, there could be a 25% drop in activity on last year and 130,000 fewer sales.

Impact

In response to this negative outlook, the Bank of Spain has predicted a slide in both rent and sale prices of between 6.5% and 13.5%.

“The greatest impact on price will take place in areas where there is a higher unemployment rate and less economic capacity, less industry and more dependence on tourism,” said Pisos.com director Ferran Font.

Spain’s biggest cities, Madrid and Barcelona, are therefore set to escape the worst of the price drops, whereas the Costa del Sol, Costa Blanca and inland Andalucia could be much harder hit.

Surviving the storm Coronavirus will rip a few roof tiles off the coast’s property market but it’s resilient enough to escape structural damage if we pull through this crisis in good time, writes Andrew Neale CORONAVIRUS AND ADVICE FOR SELLERS A crisis always creates opportunities. For real-estate buyers, this can be good news. For sellers, it may mean lower expectations, both in terms of price and time to sell.

As I write, we are still in lockdown in Spain, so we cannot show properties and the notaries are closed except for essential business, which means no house sales are being recorded. As such, it will be several months before we have any hard data with which to advise sellers. But one benefit of running a business throughout the last financial crisis is we have a pretty good idea of what to expect this time around.

During the years immediately after the crisis, the Spanish property market collapsed in 2007 and bottomed out in 2013 before beginning to recover in late 2013 / 2014. The national story was a long, steady decline before a long, steady recovery. It was one of contraction: in property sales, house prices, transactional values, construction and finance.

A FASTER RECOVERY FOR THE COSTA DEL SOL, ESPECIALLY MARBELLA AND ESTEPONA This time around, and as long as treatments for coronavirus contain or cure it within a reasonable timeframe, we expect a similar sharp drop in residential property sales in 2020 with an equally sharp recovery, once the immediate risk is mitigated or over. There is one large caveat: we can only expect this if tourists are allowed to visit Spain. If travel restrictions prevent this then, obviously, there will be fewer property transactions in areas such as the Costa del Sol and the recovery will be delayed.

One thing is certain, this coast will recover much quicker than the national market. While the national market took seven years to hit rock bottom last time, in contrast, Marbella and Estepona bottomed out within two years before starting to recover. We bucked the national trend, especially with regards to Marbella and Estepona, and there is no reason to think it won’t happen again.

WILL NEW OR OLD DOMINATE THE MARKET? It is highly likely that the recovery will be dominated by resale property transactions, which is good news for private sellers. New develop-

The Property Insider

by Adam Neale

ments will suffer more than resale properties and will take longer to sell. This was a fact of the last crisis. After an initial spike in discounted new development sales, transactions dropped significantly against ever-increasing resale transactions.

We expect a similar story this time around, albeit on a lesser scale given there is substantially less development than in 2007. However, it will take some time for confidence to return to the new-build market and many developers will pause their plans for new projects.

GOING WITH THE FLOW: ADVICE FOR BUYERS ABOUT WHEN TO BUY There is no available data for regional prices but, on a national basis, if you compare the history of house prices in the last crisis against the number of residential sales for the same period, you will see that they reached the end of their downward trend at the end of 2013.

The decline in residential sales drove the market prices downward until confidence was restored.

The statistics show most buyers missed buying at the bottom of the market, with the majority of sales occurring before and after. If, as we believe, the local market sees a rapid fall before quickly recovering (subject to effective treatments of Coronavirus), then the best time to buy should be within the next six-to-18 months.

SWIMMING WITH SHARKS: ADVICE FOR SELLERS ABOUT WHEN TO SELL In the financial crisis, distressed sellers acted like rotten apples, infecting the whole barrel with the result that everyone was viewed and treated like a distressed seller, even though many were not. If, in the short term, the market becomes dominated by a few distressed sellers, some will be tempted to sit out the storm and take their property off the market until it recovers. We would advise sellers to wait a few months before doing that, to see how things develop. If you are in the position of needing to sell, act early and reduce your price sooner rather than later. If the market takes longer than expected to recover, as the statistics show, then the longer you hold on in a bear market, the harder you will be hit.

Last time around, the combination of inflated valuations and over-leveraged loans from Spanish and foreign banks clearly exac-

NEW NORMAL: A woman in Barcelona delivers flowers

erbated the crisis. Since then, most overseas banks have changed their policies on lending to clients against assets in Spain, leaving the majority of mortgages in the hands of Spanish banks. As they have been directed by the Bank of Spain to exercise prudence with regard to valuations and loan-to-value ratios, we do not expect a wave of repossessed properties flooding the market, as happened in the financial crisis. However, for those who cannot afford to pay their mortgage, the best advice is talk to your bank as soon as possible, rather than sticking your head in the sand and hoping the situation will resolve itself.

WHAT THE DATA SAYS ABOUT THE MARKET We will have to wait until mid-May for hard data about the health of the real-estate sector at the start of the year. Recent provisional data suggests a good start but it is still too soon to make judgments.

Examining Google Analytics data from our own website for the period January 1 to April 31, 2020, we saw a 29% rise in traffic compared with the same period last year, which is encouraging. If we start our analysis from the beginning of the lockdown in Spain (March 14) until the end of April, and compare it with the same period in 2019, we still report an increase of 8% in overall traffic, which is steadily climbing.

In conclusion, although we have no recent official definitive data to rely on, and no market to speak of while lockdown persists, we can make some assumptions about what comes next, based on data from the previous financial crisis. We do not think the market will collapse this time around. If anything, we expect a few roof tiles to fall off and maybe some sustained damage, but nothing structural or systemic. There will be isolated cases of distressed sellers, offering opportunities for buyers in the right place at the right time. But the majority of sellers will adopt a wait-and-see position and, like the rest of the world, will be watching the news for positive signs from the scientific community and leadership from our elected politicians.

Terra Meridiana, 77 Calle Caridad, Estepona • 29680 • Tel: +34 951 318480 • Office Mob: +34 678 452109 Email: info@terrameridiana.com • Website: www.terrameridiana.com

PROPERTY

21

May 13th - 26th 2020

Opportunities to come In the second part of his quarterly property report, Campbell Ferguson says after lockdown plenty of Brits will be committing to the sun WELL, well, well. Demand, no surprise, has virtually ceased in the Spanish property market, though a few committed buyers are hanging in there and there are some indications of speculative interest from a few groups looking for bargains from desperate sellers.

They may be a little bit early, but as time goes by, there are likely to be more opportunities available.

However, as things ease, we anticipate a surge of interest from Northern Europeans locked up for so long they’ve made a firm commitment to move to the sun, with the charge probably being led by Brits keen to buy before Brexit makes life more difficult.

More good news: A digital marketing firm has reported that travel sear-

ches for trips to Spain in 2021 were up by 1,626% compared to last year. It should be a very busy spring next year.

We are still receiving enquiries for building surveys, from buyers continuing with their purchases. The market still has life!

Discounts, agent and buyer incentives and furniture packages are being offered by developers still keen to sell their developments.

With finance and other fixed costs continuing, delay in completion of construction has always been a fear as it inevitably brings additional costs and risk.

There is the added fear that

STILL OUT: A girl looks at free books in a Barcelona street

prices may drop, which would take only one or two developers to lose their nerve, and then the appraisal profitability disappears.

That can also enable committed buyers to back out of ‘time sensitive’ contracts, demanding return of deposits, and so the whole development finance crumbles.

Valuations: The outbreak of coronavirus has required all RICS Chartered Surveyors to declare all valuations, until further notice, as subject to ‘material valuation uncertain-

MORTGAGE THINK TANK by mortgage broker Tancrede de Pola

Chugging away

Mortgage enquiries are still coming in, but the market cannot sustain lockdown much longer, warns the Finance Bureau’s Tancrede de Pola

T

HE mortgage market has still been The full impact of coronavirus on the mortfunctioning during the current crisis gage market will not be apparent for some (albeit at a slightly slower pace), sup- time. However, one early symptom of the porting the property sales that are uncertainty is the rise in Euribor (Euro Instill taking place. terbank Offer Rate), which determines the As Spain slowly eases itself out of lock- value of mortgage repayments. Lenders in down, already this month, we have seen a Spain generally use the 12-month Euribor very clear uptick in enquiries. rate, which has risen, meaning that repayThis suggests that there may be light at ments have become more expensive. The the end of the coronavirus tunnel for the 12-month Euribor rose from an average of Spanish property market, -0.266% in March to -0.108% although what that will look in April. This reset is a slight like is anybody’s guess as rise when compared with the We have not any market bounceback will rate of -0.112% a year ago in depend on how long the lockApril 2019. seen a huge down lasts. this could also discourage If we come out of it soon, impact on the buyers, although we have not there is a good chance that seen a huge impact on the lending market lending market as of yet. The the market suffers only a temporary setback. However, latest data from the Assoas of yet if the crisis lasts much lonciation of Spanish Notaries ger, companies will be damshows a 0.6% decrease in aged to the point they cannot new mortgages for February. be saved and large-scale unemployment We do not have the figures for the worst would be the natural consequence. In that months of the crisis yet, so will have to sit scenario the market will certainly suffer, tight for now and hope the Government is as the prospect of house-hunting may be- able to further loosen lockdown. come unthinkable for many.

The Finance Bureau has more than 15 The recent announcement that only 51% of years’ experience in finding expats the best Spain’s population is entering Phase 1 of deal possible. We will help them make sure the de-escalation plan, could spell serious they’re avoiding the many pitfalls associattrouble for employment, as businesses re- ed with buying abroad, especially during main frozen. the current crisis.

To contact Tancrede for all your mortgaging needs call: 666 709 743 or for insurance queries call: 951 203 540 Email: tdp@thefinanacebureau.com The Finance Bureau Centro Commercial Guadalmina, 2nOffice No. 7 Guadalmina, 29670

ty’. Note that the uncertainty is in the market and not the valuation. Survey Spain will be continuing to provide our valuations principally based upon adjusted current asking prices, and agreed sale prices, where these are supplied by pre-acquisition building survey clients. We consider that these sources reflect the current market more accurately than if we were relying on comparison to historic valuations or Registered sales, which information always lags behind the market.

Statistics – the average difference between the Asking Price and Actual Selling Price We keep a record of these along with our valuations.

Though the numbers of examples are relatively small, they give a good indication of the general strength of the market.

Also, our statistics cover the geographical areas from Alicante to Cádiz and Gran Canaria to Menorca.

PROPERTY OF THE WEEK

Quarters of 2019 January to March – 7.61% April to June – 10.69% July to September – 9.7% October to December – 11.29% Quarters of 2020 January to March – 8.66% - This figure is the average of a range from -2.53% to -13.69% Whilst the statistical calculation is correct, it is very much biased towards the beginning of the year, when optimism was high, and the virus was largely unknown. It should also be remembered that many of these reductions will have been achieved after we have provided the buyer with a building survey report, enabling them to point out to the seller the defects and quantify the costs of remedying them.

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www.inlandandalucia.com

May 13th - 26th 2020

Have you put on a ‘Corona Stone’?

Most expats in Spain will be up to five kilos bulkier after the strict lockdown

EVIDENCE is mounting that people have been losing the battle of the bulge during the coronavirus lockdown.

Despite claims that those locked at home are eating healthier, it seems to be the opposite.

They have been hit with a double whammy - no exercise (particularly in Spain) and the temptation to snack throughout the day.

The result for many has been the inevitable expanding waistline – and people are starting to fret about it.

And so they should.

Clinical reports suggest that obesity-related conditions are a major risk factor when determining if people recover from contracting the deadly COVID-19 infection.

The Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported that people with heart disease and diabetes – both effects of being overweight - are at higher risk of COVID-19 complications.

Albert Goday, head of the Endocrinology and Nutrition Service at Hospital del Mar in Barcelona said: “I expect most people will put on between three and five kilos during the lockdown.”

But it can be hard to stop being a couch potato snacking in front of the TV. This has been seen first hand by well established Malaga health expert Martin Shirran, who has been an expat in Spain for two decades.

“The concept of the Corona Stone is starting to get a hold. Many people are noticing weight gain and are really getting worried, and scared they won’t fit into their clothes when the time comes to return to work,” he tells the Olive Press.

“But let’s remember, the reasons people put on weight are always psychological.

“My advice is every time you go to the fridge, think. Is it because you are hungry? If it is because you are bored, tired or stressed, do something else.”

Martin and his wife Marion run the Gastric Mind Band clinic, in Fuengirola, which has gained a world-wide reputation for weight loss techniques.

Thanks to their many appearances on UK TV show Good Morning Britain among many other programmes, they have been very busy during the lockdown.

“We have been submerged by inquiries. Many are booking appointments from May 11 when we reopen, while others have been booking remote sessions via Skype.”

Have you put on a Corona Stone? Tell us your experience of the lockdown - We want to hear from you if you have succumbed, or if you have beaten the bulge, give tips to our readers on escaping the dreaded expanding waistline.

Email newsdesk@theolivepress.es For more information visit gmband.com

HEALTH Paws for thought

SPAIN has registered its first feline victim of COVID-19.

Negrito, a four-year-old cat in Catalunya, caught the disease after its owner died from the virus.

It is the sixth cat in the world reported to have caught COVID-19.

The cat had to be euthanised after suffering severe heart disease, reported La Van-

First feline death in Spain as Catalan cat catches COVID

guardia.

“He is a collateral victim of the disease in humans,” said Joaquim Segales, a researcher at the Centre for Research in Animal Health (CReSA).

Negrito had one of the most common heart diseases in

LOCKDOWN’S devastating impact on the mental health and abuse of children has been laid bare, following a spike in emergency calls.

From March 23 to May 3 there was an 11.6% rise in the proportion of youngsters reporting violence at home.

Leading non-profit organisation the ANAR Foundation (Ayuda a Niños y Adolescentes) received 1,441 cries for help from kids during this period.

Around 47.7% of these were for violence, the group said, compared to 36.1% for the previous month and a half.

Psychological issues (including anxiety, sad-

cats, which is usually genetic.

He was taken to a veterinary hospital with breathing difficulties, a temperature of 38.2C, low blood platelet levels and heart failure.

After he was put down, vets sent the body to CReSA to be

Breaking point ness and self-harm) make up 23.5% of reports to ANAR. Suicidal thoughts and attempts have made up 8.3% of calls during the crisis, compared to just 1.9% on average throughout 2019.

An ANAR spokesperson said: “Without a doubt, these psychological problems should make us think about the despair which many children and adolescents are experiencing.”

For more information visit anar.org

analysed. It was there that experts discovered the RNA of COVID-19 in samples taken from Negrito’s nose and digestive tract.

“The viral load was low and none of the lesions he presented were compatible with the virus,” added Segales, “The cat was already suffering from cardiomyopathy and later became infected with COVID-19.”

Disease

Five other cats around the world have been known to test positive for coronavirus.

Eight lions and tigers also tested positive at the Bronx Zoo in New York.

Most of the animals showed mild symptoms of respiratory disease and have recovered without problems.

Natalia Majo, director of the CReSA, said: “The possibility that a person infects a cat is extremely low.”

On my final Mo Farah lap

I

SAW with awe the sheer will and determination that 100-year-old Colonel Tom Moore showed when he began his 100 laps of the garden for the NHS. I glanced at my tiny balcony here on the Costa del Sol and realised lapping was going to be impossible and clapping every night at 8pm would have to suffice.

It did give me inspiration though, so I decided it was finally time to put Project Lisa into action and insist I had the next series of tests to check whether life-saving breast cancer treatment was working.

With two vital tests postponed since September - one due to radiotherapy burns and one due to COVID-19, in April - I knew I had to take up the Colonel Tom baton.

So I forged ahead with a flurry of phone calls to the hospital, emails to the AECC cancer association and to its patron, Queen Letizia.

Something worked and, miraculously, I got an appointment for May 6 and was met by a female doctor who was not my usual oncologist.

Elvis had left the building, clearly, and neither I nor my partner Joffrey, who speaks good Spanish, got anywhere

Olive Press columnist Lisa Burgess finds strength in heroes to keep on going and finally gets those vital cancer

in finding out where he was.

Where is a rich Either way, my new oncolo- Russian, Norgist is superb and told me wegian or SauI was on my ‘final Mo Farah di when you lap’, as she appropriately need them? I doubt Putin put it. will be landing his helicopter The key tests are all now or- anytime soon near La Zaganised for June, so watch galeta but I believe someone this space. A request has out there in the universe will been put in for my new help us. boobs which come with a Joffrey once cooked for complimentary tummy tuck, Prince Charles, not to menapparently. I tion the British know patience ambassador is necessary here in Spain.

I became like but when I am But here at Julie Andrews Casa de Buddone, Barbie can eat her Lockdown, to his grumpy get heart out. chef faces One project challenges. I Emmanuel ticked off, next have chickpea, Macron one to go. Projroasted tomaect Joffrey, my to, spinach & long-suffering coriander curGallic partner. I just got his ry nestled in my fridge along CV sorted and he is at the with a batch of homemade ready to work as a private tomato sauce to eat as I enchef in a home in Marbella viously watch my neighbours or Mijas. splashing about in their His dream is to open another pool.

Joffrey’s in Marbella (his last At least we could finally go one in Mijas was amazing but out at the weekend. While was just not a good location) Joffrey gets a bit sulky on but this is not the time. a walk (he’s more of a gym

OP Puzzle solutions Quick Crossword Across: 7 Axe, 8 Yearning, 9 Nail file, 10 Rag, 11 Hilly, 12 Success, 14 Astride, 16 Admit, 18 Ash, 19 Boldness, 20 Magnetic, 21 Ewe. Down: 1 Canaries, 2 Cellular phone, 3 Lyric, 4 Maseru, 5 Unprecedented, 6 Snug, 12 Sue, 13 Spinster, 15 Debate, 17 Elect, 18 Away.

SUDOKU

22

Lisa Burgess and boxing guy), being let out after two months indoors was a breath of fresh air and I quickly became like Julie Andrews in the Sound of Music to his grumpy Emmanuel Macron.

The highlight of the lockdown has been watching so many old movies. Remember Chariots of Fire? This great classic got me thinking about giving it your all, and while trying to nurture myself back to health and help Joffrey in his new projects, I am also trying damn hard to assist on various UK and Irish TV projects.

I have worked in TV for years and just finished helping a friend with a documentary on Andalucia. Now I’m doing one on Valencia - a progressive and forward-thinking virtual project.

However sometimes you must look back and learn from history. Like Eric Liddell, who won gold in the 1924 Paris Olympics. Played by Ian Charleson in Chariots of Fire, his words moved me about winning not being everything.

Now, as I face my own final lap, I look to that famous Scottish athlete and well up to his wonderful line: “In the dust of defeat, as well as the laurels of victory, there is a glory to be found if one has done his best”. I’m trying.

Write to Lisa at lisa.foley13@gmail.com

COLUMNISTS E

VERYONE else may be box set bingeing, social notworking or writing their novels. I wish.

We spent the first week of lockdown watching a matchstick man pushing a shopping trolley across a computer screen very very slowly… And it wasn’t the trailer to the latest must-see Netflix series.

May 13th - 26th 2020

Clap for the Carrefour carers They saved Belinda Beckett’s bacon when she was down to limp lettuce and her last drop of Larios But it was, at the time, a matter of life or death by starvation/the DTs, whichever kicked in first.

We were all out of almost everything except cat food and there’s only so much you can do with

Staying on the shelf

wilted lettuce and shrivelled carrots when the only protein element in stock is Whiskas meaty morsels.

Too scared to venture out ourselves (being vulnerable people

The wrong camera angle on your Zoom call could leave you looking like Jabba the Hutt and don’t forget the bookcase behind you, warns Giles Brown

T

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HERE seem to be several ways of dealing with the current coronavirus crisis.

One option – sadly no longer open to me – is to treat the entire situation as an extended version of Twixmas – that seasonal somnolent splurge between Christmas and New Year.

You have no idea what day it is, pyjamas or a onesie are acceptable at all times and you find yourself debating whether there is such a thing as the perfect breakfast burgundy.

The onset of Zoom and Skype meetings has also resulted in people being left in a quandary about what camera angle they should use – having done a few bits of TV might I suggest that you put your laptop or mobile on a pile of books.

Otherwise you run the risk of giving your Zoom audience a passable impersonation of Jabba the Hutt.

If I had wanted an unobstructed view of your left nostril I would have been an eye, nose and throat specialist.

with respiratory problems due to stupid ex-smoking habit) and unwilling to burden friends and/ or hand them written proof of our gin consumption via a shopping list, we decided to do it online at

Carrefour.

We’re not total virtual shopping virgins, having ordered one or two books on Amazon, but nothing prepared us for the ordeal ahead.

Speaking up for the Brits MIJAS MATTERS

By Bill Anderson

We don’t all support the Spanish Government and don’t dare tell me ‘If you’re not happy go home’, writes Bill Anderson

I Then there is the bookshelf behind you.

This has become as much an object of fascination as your visage itself as others in the meeting scan the shelves to see what you read.

Too much Jeffrey Archer, Jackie Collins and Dan Brown is a nono, but on the flip side, if all you have are tomes by James Joyce, Haruki Murakami and David Foster Wallace then people know that you are trying just a little too hard.

Luckily, living off grid and without a wife as I do, the chances of anyone scanning my bookshelves online are rather slim.

Although quite what they would make of the huge piles of Olive Press cuttings, motor racing reports, rock god biographies and a slightly disturbing number of Third Reich histories, I don’t know.

Perhaps this explains why I’m not often invited to virtual chat rooms. Ah well.

Back to blowing the dust off a few tomes!

was surprised to read in a Spanish newspaper last week that Brits in Spain support the measures taken by President Sanchez (below) regarding the COVID-19 crisis.

Do they? Don’t believe that anyone actually asked me.

This comes along with comments that we ‘guests’ in Spain shouldn’t criticise the country or the Spanish government. Firstly, I am not a guest. I am a fully paid up, legal immigrant who makes a net financial contribution to the country, while my taxes continue to contribute to financing the government in Madrid I defend my right to an opinion.

I am fed up with clichéd, brainless comments like ‘If you’re not happy, go back home’. I love Spain. My wife is Spanish and I have a lovely Spanish family. Spaniards also love their country but, Dios mio, do they complain about it!

Like other immigrants, I cannot choose the government I want for the country. OK. Spain does not offer me dual nationality, as is available to Spaniards in the UK; I accept it.

The bureaucracy can wear us down; I accept it. Queues at the supermarket while the customer in front of you regales the assistant with the latest family news; I can live with it.

But when the President allows a mass gathering to go ahead - the March 8 demo in Madrid for International Women’s Day - only SIX DAYS before announcing a total shutdown of the country - this I will criticise. And when his communist partners in government tell

me they want to take all my savings and not allow me access to it, I will not keep silent.

In my opinion, the ‘one size fits all’ approach taken in response to COVID-19 has been a disaster for Spain and the Spanish economy and does not acknowledge the diversity of municipalities in Spain. They are now talking about an asymmetric approach, allowing regions, provinces or even municipalities to have varying conditions, according to their circumstances. But if this could have been done from the beginning, maybe the catastrophic financial consequences for many small businesses could have been mitigated.

Don’t get me started on the four-phased proposal for the New Normal. How are F&B businesses even going to meet running costs with takeaway only, followed by reduced capacity on terraces (and later, indoors) and no tourists.

Not to mention the complete economic mess of the ERTEs (temporary suspension of contracts) which oblige businesses to bring back all their staff even when, due to travel restrictions, there will be a paucity of vital tourist trade (ED: This is now changed).

I have spoken to many small business owners who say this is completely unworkable and has not been thought through. It looks like an exercise done on paper by people who have never run a business, with no understanding of implementation and implications.

I just hope it is not too late for them to get their act together.

First, get into the store. There’s a queue and it’s hours long. You watch (sporadically) and you wait.

Then it’s 10 minutes, five minutes as matchstick man creeps to the far right of the screen. Then ping! you’re in, and it’s a mad dash with your cursor round the dairy meat and veg sections, back to dairy (you forgot the cheese), and before you’ve got a sniff of the liquor section your session is terminated and you have to start all over again. And again after that, if you forgot to save the shopping cart. The tension!

Miracle

By the evening of day three we’ve completed an order to make panic buying look like a pop to the corner shop, with time on the clock to proceed to Check Out … only to find this function is not available when the waiting list for deliveries exceeds 10 days. We’re prepared to wait 20 days but it won’t let us, I tell the friendly voice at HQ who patiently explains that, yes, the system’s in meltdown but with patience we will get our slot.

When they call back two days running to see if we have, we decide to believe them. So Dave sets up a camp bed in front of the lounge computer, I do the day shift and on the sixth day, like a miracle, the order goes through! And 10 green boxes are delivered to the door by a cheery masked delivery man in record time, thanks to a hotline speeding up orders for people who can’t go out.

So this is a resounding clap for the Carrefour carers, and all those who risk their health and sanity on the frontline of food orders and deliver them to the doors of complete (and, for all they know, coronavirus-infected) strangers. We now have crisp lettuce, meat for humans and enough gin to drink to the individual health of every employee in the online store.

Of course, we have it all to do again next month, but another miracle has come to pass. Unless it’s something to do with our wifi feed, matchstick man appears to be speed walking!

OLIVE PRESS

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Tweet hurts FAR right political party Vox has said it will sue Twitter after #killabascal in reference to its leader started trending on the social media site.

FINAL WORDS

Whats prats POLICE have reported 18 people – who face fines of between €601 and €30,000 – for setting up a WhatsApp group to warn members of coronavirus lockdown checkpoints.

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Vol. 13 Issue 343 www.theolivepress.es May 13th - May 26th, 2020

Dog days aren’t over Sexpert warns against snogging, saying ‘doggy style’ is safest post-covid position

A SPANISH sex expert has warned against French kissing and ‘rimming’ amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

As the country begins to open once more, director of the Andalucian Institute of Sexology says it’s not time for our legs to follow suit.

In fact there are several activi-

DJ dimwits AN incredulous cop has asked 18 ‘foreign’ revellers ‘do you know the situation in Spain?’ when he found them partying complete with DJ and buffet in Ibiza.

By Laurence Dollimore

ties Francisco Cabello has advised against if we want to prevent another wave of infections.

“Of all the sexual relations that could take place during this period, the most dangerous is kissing with tongues,” said Ca-

bello, “since the highest concentration of the virus is in the saliva.”

He advised that couples who have not been living together should take precautions when reigniting their sex lives.

Because one of the two may be asymptomatic, Cabello advises the avoidance of mouth-to-

George, dinner’s ready!

BRITISH F1 star George Russell (left) has raced to victory in the Spanish Grand Prix – without leaving his bedroom.

The 22-year-old Williams driver from King’s Lynn secured a dramatic late win in the virtual event as his Ferrari rival Charles Leclerc picked up a time penalty. The race at Barcelona’s Circuit de Catalunya featured a host of other sportsmen out of action due to coronavirus, including Manchester City forward Sergio Aguero, Real Madrid keeper Thibaut Courtois and English golfer Ian Poulter.

mouth contact.

To make this easier, he reccomended ‘doggy style’ or ‘spoon’ style sex as safest.

He added that while no germs have been found in sexual fluids as of yet, it is still accepted as a possibility and therefore it is best to avoid oral sex.

It is particularly important to avoid oral-anal sex, he said, also known as ‘rimming’, given that a ‘large amount’ of the virus can be found in faeces.

The sexologist added that if symptoms begin to appear, it would be ‘tremendously risky’ to have sex, advising to opt for masturbation – solo or together, while maintaining a safe distance.

For couples who have been going through the lockdown together, sex is ‘totally safe’, however extra hygiene precautions should be taken, said Cabello.

A CONTESTANT on Masterchef Spain has been kicked off the show after serving judges a whole, uncooked, unplucked partridge.

The panel were left dumbstruck when the less than appetising dead bird was served up to them – complete with a cherry tomato garnish and sauce.

Saray Carillo – who describes herself as a 27-year-old transgender Gypsy - made a stand after she was left spitting feathers by previous comments from the judges.

113 not out MARIA Branyas, who at 113 is Spain’s most senior citizen, has overcome COVID-19.

Born in San Francisco in 1907, where her father had gone for work after spending some time in Mexico, Maria currently lives in the Santa Maria del Tura care home in Olot, in northern Catalunya.

The centennial grandmother has spent the last 20 years living in the residence without cognitive problems or serious illnesses.

The centre confirmed 17 coronavirus-related deaths among its elderly residents on April 1.

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