One
major success for Spain in 2013 was the growth in its tourism
receipts. Which were 10% up, at €59bn. The government has naturally
trumpeted this success but (HT to Lenox Napier), the workers at the
coal-face say this number doesn't square with their receipts of only
€45bn. Be that as it may, Brits continued to dominate the Foreign
Visitors table, followed by the Germans and the French. But it's the
Russians who are surging up the chart, though they're still only 4%
of the total of 60m.
It
could hardly be otherwise but, following the Santiago rail crash that
claimed 79 lives, the national carrier, RENFE, has announced a series
of new safety measures. These include the signalling system that was
deliberately not installed for the final 8km of the line from Madrid
into Santiago. We await the judge's verdict on whether anyone is
guilty of anything for this decision. We also wait to see whether the
suggestion that tickets will need to display the full name and ID of
each passenger mean that buying a ticket from Pontevedra to Vigo will
now mean another bureaucratic hassle.
You'll
all recall that Christopher Columbus (Cristóbal Colón) was born
here in Poio, across the river from Pontevedra. And that there's a
statue of him near the latter's Alameda. The last few months has seen
it covered in scaffolding and plastic as the statue was refurbished.
Walking past it yesterday, I saw it was now back to its original
glory. But still handless. As I know the head of the Bellas Artes
department responsible for the work, I asked her why. Her reply,
essentially, was that the original hand was too heavy for the arm and
that they're waiting for a lighter one. Columbus crossed the Atlantic
in less time time. Meanwhile, here he is in all his polished splendour,
the single-handed adventurer.
A
Uncertain Future
The
rejection aroused by the abortion reform counsels for withdrawal, not
its prolongation through its processing.
The
reform of the abortion law has opened a deep crisis in the Popular
Party government which it seems to want to resolve things by leaving
it de facto parked in a long bureaucratic process. This is suggested
by the fact that neither Mariano Rajoy nor his vice president have
defended it in parliament, and the government has requested thirty
submissions from various public and private bodies before taking the
next step. Rejection of the reform by many voters and leaders of the
PP is just one of the reasons for this strategy. The other, perhaps
decisive, is the attrition of support being suffered by the party
and, according to surveys, could be reflected in a substantial loss
of votes at the next elections, starting with the European elections
next May. The attrition of the ruling party can't be attributed to a
single legislative initiative of ultraconservative stamp, but this
seems to have accelerated it.
Minimising
the damage is not a simple task. The opposition has raised the banner
of the struggle against a legislative change that is rejected by over
80 % of the Spanish population and the Justice Minister gave the rest
of the political spectrum a new argument this week in equating
abortion with disrespect for a life already born. His dialectical
contortions, previously hurtful, sound strange now that he is almost
alone in defending a project that is reaping a large negative impact,
not only in Spanish society. The criticisms in the European
Parliament, promoted by the socialists, have been joined this week by
the voice of French far-right Marine Le Pen, who, contrary to the
signals given out in the beginning, neither agrees with an amendment
that would ban abortion in cases of foetal malformation, unless it is
"incompatible with life" and also augurs some risk (proven)
to the mental health of the mother.
The
proper strategy should not be to seek consensus as Rajoy has
promised, but to withdraw the proposal. The processing of this
project, which should never have seen the light of day without
consensus, means waste in political terms and in the resources of the
national administration, which are so necessary for reforms to
revitalise the economy and to improve social welfare. The
periods-based law currently in force in Spain is similar to that
prevailing in the rest of Europe and has consecrated a right - for
women to decide freely about motherhood - that society is not willing
to give up. The PP claims that this periods-based law - approved in
its day by 7 parties - was one of its campaign promises. Going to extremes by pulling this rabbit out of the hat has become a dangerous
boomerang for the government. Rooting itself in an ideological
position way beyond anything expected is the sole cause of this
shambles.
Finally . . . Since she's reappeared (again), I thought I'd show you the sort of 'mature, rich woman' I'm invited to link up with on Facebook. Sorry about the quality but I'm sure you'll get at least one of the 2 points I'm making here.
No comments:
Post a Comment