Spain’s Minister of Health has said the time has come to do something about preventing the country’s youth drinking itself into a collective stupor during the Friday and Saturday night botellones. The wine industry is naturally up in arms against the proposed measures. One of its arguments is that wine is a natural product. I can’t for the life of me figure out why this is relevant. Unless it’s meant to be an indirect way of suggesting that consuming huge quantities of calimocho [coke mixed equally with red wine] is actually good for the kids’ health.

I’ve said a few times I don’t yet understand how the Spanish economy operates. Perhaps I never will. The country now has Europe’s 5th largest economy but it’s the only member of the OECD in which there’s no correlation between a university degree and salary. Worse, the unemployment rate among 25-34 year old degree-holders is 11.5%, against an already-high EU average of 6.2%. Finally on this theme, the Spanish Institute of Youth reports that in 2006 only 19% of young people here earned enough to be financially independent. So, do they live with their parents because they can’t survive on only one salary? Or are they badly treated by employers because the latter know their parents will always subsidise them until they get married and move out to live on two low salaries?

There is some evidence that Spain’s much-abused mobile phone customers are beginning to rebel against the treatment they get from the major operators. And who can blame them? Perhaps we’re witnessing the first signs of a true consumer movement here. Not before time.

Galicia Facts

One of the reasons there’s no efficient property rental market in much of Spain is that, if you have to enforce a contract, the court process is very slow. Now the Voz de Galicia reports the situation is so bad in parts of this region the entire system is on the edge of collapse. But it seems to be a patchy scenario. Down here in Pontevedra, there’s no real problem. Whereas up in Lugo, there’s a backlog of 10,000 unresolved cases. Moral - if you’re a Brit buying property up there, make sure you have good title before you pay over any cash. But, of course, this is good advice even if the administration of justice is swift.