Be
particularly careful if the property you want is close to the sea.The
Madrid government has trumpeted a willingness to relax the rule about
not building within 500
metres of the sea – which appeals (guess why) to the local councils
- but some regional governments have intimated they'll ignore this
and maintain the restriction.
Again,
don't rely on the selling agent if there's any doubt at all. Fleecing
red-faced foreigners is a sport in some parts of Spain.
That
old Constitutional Court nonsense again. The regional governments of
Estremadura and Galicia have filed a complaint there about Madrid's
decision to impose a moratorium on subsidies for renewable energy
enterprises. The gravamen of the claim is that the Bill was rushed
through parliament. I'm just surprised to hear that anything gets
rushed in Spain.
Intriguingly,
US Treasury officials have lashed out at Germany and other northern
states. They'd told Congress that internal
balances within the eurozone are disrupting the global trade
structure, with almost nothing being done by north Europeans states
to curb their huge surpluses. The US report said Germany’s current
account surplus is running at 6.3% of GDP, and Holland is even worse
at 9.5%. “Yet the countries still cleave to fiscal austerity
policies that constrict internal demand.” Nice to know that the
feckless southern states aren't the only ones at fault.
I
saw some Spanish TV last night, for the fist time in a long time.
Nothing much had changed. A serious discussion program contained the
two features I've always disliked:-
- Everyone ends up talking/shouting at the same time,
- Part (all?) of the audience sits behind the participants, looking at the back of their heads. And smirking if they see themselves on the monitor. Weird.
I
recall an attempt years ago to stop the first of these:- Each speaker
was given a microphone that retracted into the desk when their time
was up. The experiment was short-lived – probably because it meant
the speaker started to shout louder and louder to compensate for the
disappearing mike.
It's
been alleged for years that socks go missing in washing machines. I,
for one, believe this to be true but I knew a German once who said it
never happened with Miele or Bosch machines. Anyway, I now have the
same problem with CDs and DVDs. By which I don't mean I put them in
my cheapo Electrolux; I mean I have several empty cases and no idea
where the contents might be.
Finally
. . . The Economist has produced a lengthy overview of the
state of the Spanish State. I don't know why I have to pay to read it
but you can get it free on the internet a few days later but, anyway,
here it is. It was written before Sunday's Catalan elections but
remains a good and valid read.
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