Spanish life is not always likeable but it is compellingly loveable.
Christopher Howse: A Pilgrim in Spain
Spain- El País looks here - in English - at why kids are fewer and fewer in central Madrid. As it happens, my elder daughter lives in the barrio cited, only a few metres from Dos de Mayo square and the school in one corner of it. Last week I bumped into her neighbour, who gave full vent to her opinions on what's happening there.
- More on the newish, far-right Vox party in the first article below.
- Some Brits who'll become very unpopular, if they're not already?
- Good news for Spain's pedestrians. Segways, hoverboards and motorised scooters have been banned from one town's pedestrianised areas. Surely others will follow.
- Thousands marched to protest the neglect of Spain's countryside. Here and here.
- Demands for apologies are back in fashion.
- These are the numbers of (some) foreigners resident in Pontevedra Province:-
2. Brazilians 546
3. Portuguese 295
4. Colombians 294
5. Peruvians 151
12. Brits 78 - Of whom I know very, very few*. Up from only 21 10 years ago
15. French 68
18. North Americans 66
20. Germans 39
28. Russians 18
* For my sins, I know more Dutch residents than Brits . . .
Brexit, the UK and the EU
- Richard North today sees it as apt that the Brit¡sh parliament will again demonstrate widespread insanity today, April Fools Day. Specifically, he says, the 'Common Market 2.0/CM2' option has got madder with every iteration. He continues to think that logic indicates a No Deal Brexit in 12 days' time. That is, what almost no one wants.
- As the article below says, it's either this or no Brexit at all. Because Mrs May’s Withdrawal Agreement is a textbook example of a compromise that satisfies no-one,
- The second article below - on internet developments - gives one Brexiteer's reasons for why the UK needs to escape the 'clutches' of the EU. The Copyright Directive, says the writer, is exactly the sort of anti-innovation regulation we should be seeking to avoid. It is also a reminder of the democratic deficit that led to Brexit. My own impression is that Remainers don't give a hoot about these aspects of the (protectionist) EU. Perhaps they really do believe the EU ended and will continue to end all risk of strife. If not economic devastation for some members.
- The 'Flat white’ sector gives the economy a lift as it overtakes industry as the largest driver of UK economic output. The coffee-drinking, bicycle-riding millennials of digital and creative businesses has propelled it to 14.4% of the economy, above the more traditional sector comprising manufacturing, mining, power generation and water supply, which accounted for c. 13.8% The term “flat white economy” was inspired by the tongue-in-cheek idea that expensive property forces millennials to live in coffee houses.
- Fart trumps himself on trade. Mr Reliable.
- Odd Old Word: Rambooze: A compound drink at Cambridge, commonly made of eggs, ale, wine, sugar and rose-water.
- Last call for a camino in late May. Probably 7-10 days in beautiful Galicia.
1. Vox will 'make Spain great again' as part of next government, far-Right party insists:
Harry de Quetteville. The Daily Telegraph
“In Spain we are considered the fascist, ultra-radical right,” says Ivan Espinosa de los Monteros. “But then Spain is the world-champion of political correctness.” He prefers a comparison with Donald Trump and can’t resist promising, in his perfect, American-accented English, to “drain the swamp, build that wall, and make Spain great again”.
In Spain’s case that means firing a lot of civil servants, replacing the fences around Ceuta and Melilla - the Spanish enclaves in Morocco - with walls, and dramatically cutting taxes and bureaucracy. “We’re really, really, optimistic about the future of our great country,” he says echoing, consciously or not, the US president.
Neatly bearded and suavely dressed, Mr Espinosa is the public, international face of Vox, a nationalist party led by Santiago Abascal which in the past year has risen from nowhere to a decisive position in the politics of Europe’s fifth biggest economy.
Last December it won 12 seats in Andalusian polls, helping end almost 40 years of socialist rule. Now, ahead of a general election scheduled for the end of April, it is aiming higher.
Such ambition marks a political transformation in Spain. For the first five years of its existence Vox, founded in 2013, barely troubled the opinion pollsters, as analysts suggested that memories of Franco, and the right-of-centre domination of the People’s Party (PP), had inoculated the country from national-populist surges familiar elsewhere.
Now however, Vox has leapt from 1% in polls to 11, putting it in a position to form a rightwing bloc with the PP (on 20%) and the Citizens (on 15). Together the three look odds on to oust the Socialist Party of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who took over last year after toppling the PP-led government of Mariano Rajoy, but whose own unstable coalition has since collapsed.
“I don’t expect the socialists to be able to form a government,” says Mr Espinosa, in the boardroom of a hotel in London, the third stop in a brisk tour after Poland and Bulgaria. “We three parties - PP, Citizens and Vox - will have to reach agreement. And we will.”
Even being the most junior partner in government would have been far beyond the party’s recent aspirations. But Mr Espinosa now expects to do better still. “I expect us to get to 15%,” he says. “We will not be third of the three parties in that coalition. We will have a larger share of influence in the new government than that.”
Abroad such influence is likely to be seen as further evidence of public discontent manifesting itself in political extremism - from Golden Dawn in Greece to the Front National (FN) in France. But Mr Espinosa is keen to distinguish Vox from those parties, and says he would “never appear on a platform with them” or with a leader like France’s Marine Le Pen. The only thing Vox shares with the FN, he says, is its hard line on immigration. He wants Spain to be able to say “how many [immigrants] and which ones” are allowed in and demand those arriving “accept the basic rules that the Western world has developed to create the most advanced civilisation in world history.”
He puts Vox on a par with Poland’s Law and Justice party or, in Britain, with the Conservatives. The Vox delegation says that, despite the Brexit turmoil, it met “two or three” Tory MPs on its trip to the UK.
Mr Espinosa certainly shares with the many in the Conservative Party an unvarnished advocacy of wealth and job-creation, low taxes and small government, proposing to lower income tax to 21%, do away with many other taxes altogether, and slash the public sector to balance the books. “I want these people [civil servants] to feel the thrill of finding a job - going back to the real world as opposed to living off other people’s taxes,” he says. “There’s no efficiency whatsoever.”
He is equally dismissive of Brussels - “such a concentration of waste” - but has no plans to leave the EU, from which Spain is a net recipient of several billion euros each year. The EU is instead for Vox the site of a cultural battle - having, in Mr Espinosa’s eyes, been “taken over by this cohort of progressives imposing a certain philosophical agenda”.
Such derision only drives Vox’s admiration for Trump and his former political advisor Steve Bannon, who is visiting Spain next week and is close to a key figure in the party, Rafael Bardaji. “Trump has been very strong against the progressive, politically-correct movement in the US,” says Mr Espinosa.
Yet Vox’s “anti-progressive” line is controversial, extending to a proposal to ban abortion except in medical emergencies and following rape, and even those procedures would not be paid for by the state. That, as well as its plan to “erase” a domestic violence law which it says “encourages feminist supremacy”, has angered many.
Such uncompromising language extends to foreign policy too, and to Britain. Mr Espinosa describes Gibraltar as “a European colony within Europe”, and talks of “a gradual process” to take it back. In his eyes, that begins with the territory’s airstrip and water supply - not covered, he says, by the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, which granted Gibraltar to the UK in perpetuity.
He goes on: “If the UK leaves the EU and we’ve no agreement on Gibraltar, then Gibraltar technically is like a country-nation, you need to have borders, you need to close it down. And I don’t think that would be good for anyone.” And while Vox, Mr Espinosa says, has no interest in issuing Britain an “ultimatum”, he adds: “We need to be strong and we need to be clear.”
If that ruffle feathers in Britain, it is only a logical extension of the centrepiece of Vox’s agenda, which aims to reverse the decentralisation and regional autonomy which it claims has fatally undermined the concept of the Spanish nation, and pride in its language, its symbols, its military. That is a message which it claims has cross-party appeal, and is helping it win voters not just on the right, but from socialist rivals and harder-Left Podemos too.
Again, it is a policy which inevitably sets Vox on a collision course with the UK. “When the UK calls and says we’ve found bank robbers in Marbella, the Spanish police arrive in hours, arrests them and sends them over,” says Mr Espinosa. “When the Germans ring and say we’ve found this child molester hiding in Majorca, we’ll get him too. But when we ring and say our criminals are hiding in plain sight - one of them is a teacher at Edinburgh University - the UK comes back and says we don’t trust your judicial system. We don’t really believe Spain is a democracy.”
The criminals he’s talking about are exiled leaders of the Catalan government, and include Professor Clara Ponsati, who was the breakaway region’s education minister (and is actually at St Andrews). “We think Spain deserves more respect,” Mr Espinosa insists.
Vox’s determination to foster Spanish national identity is part of what he unflinchingly calls a “moral and political reconquista” to tackle “the two greatest threats Spain faces today - the separatists and the radical Left”. But he does not accept that reconquista - which refers to the centuries-long battle between Christian and Muslim armies for control of Iberia - is a loaded term. “We admire what's left of the Islamic culture in Spain,” he says. “It’s part of our history.” He pauses, then adds: “By the way part of our history is also fighting against them for 800 years.”
2. The real war over Brexit is only just beginning: Jeremy Warner, Daily Telegraph
Jaw jaw, it is said, is better than war war. No doubt this is true. Yet the problem with the political compromise of jaw jaw is that almost inevitably it ends up in messy, suboptimal outcomes that don’t properly resolve the pre-existing standoff.
So it has already proved with Theresa May’s Withdrawal Agreement, a textbook example of a compromise that satisfies no-one, and so it proved with this week’s indicative votes.
As if straight out of Alice through the Looking Glass, MPs simultaneously managed to vote both for Brexit and against virtually every conceivable form of Brexit available. The exasperation in Brussels is at least understandable.
Yet the votes were not entirely meaningless. The no-deal option failed by an overwhelming margin, so we can therefore be fairly certain that MPs won’t allow that.
The motion that failed by the least, on the other hand, was Ken Clarke’s call for a customs union Brexit.
Logically, then, this would seem to stand the most chance of an eventual majority. Unfortunately it also makes a mockery of the “take back control” rallying call of the Brexit campaign, rendering the UK subject to customs arrangements it is powerless to influence.
For the world’s fifth largest economy to make itself beholden to rules set by and for the benefit of others, with no compensating trade offs, would be an act of extraordinary folly, and would actually be no better than Mrs May’s hated backstop.
The only redeeming feature of a customs union Brexit is that it might conceivably get through. But it would also be a sham. One of the supposed economic upsides of Brexit is that it ought to allow Britain to do its own trade deals on terms that specifically meet the demands of British business and agriculture, rather than having to accommodate the vested interests of 27 other economies. If Britain remains in a customs union with the EU, that freedom is lost.
On the positive side, it should also allow for the continuation of tariff-free, relatively unencumbered trade in goods with the rest of the EU, thus preserving just in time, integrated supply chains for the auto, aerospace and other manufacturing industries that have become dependent on them. And of course, it would help defuse, though not entirely solve, the Irish border issue.
Nonetheless, it would be a rum old place to end up. Being in the customs union but outside the single market would at least allow the UK to end free movement. Any other benefits are much more difficult to see.
Chained to European supply chains, the opportunity for significant divergence in standards and other forms of regulation would be limited.
What is more, customs union membership does nothing to help our financial and business services industries, which wherever they trade are dependent on permission access, and therefore stand to lose much of their European market once outside the single market.
The Clarke proposal partially mitigates the damage to manufacturing, but denies any positives from opening up alternative markets while simultaneously throwing our financial services industry under the bus.
Nissan’s 7,000 employees in Sunderland are implicitly judged to be more important than the similar number of jobs JP Morgan maintains in Bournemouth and Glasgow, never mind the mighty tax dynamo of the City of London. This makes little economic sense.
Why would someone as apparently experienced and measured as Ken Clarke think such an outcome even remotely desirable? This, I suppose, is the answer. He’s already voted twice for Mrs May’s deal, believing it to be the least worst option for a Remainer reconciled to some form of Brexit.
His motion is basically the same as May’s deal, but has the great merit politically of not actually being her deal, making it potentially more acceptable to Labour MPs. It’s also not so far from Labour’s stated position on Brexit, only without the fantasy notion of having some kind of a continued voice at the customs union table when decisions are made.
From the start of this process, the EU has always, as the more substantial economic power, held all the cards. Despite the myriad mistakes made by Theresa May over the last three years, I do not believe a different negotiating style or leader would have achieved a notably better outcome.
The trade-offs would have been the same; the closer we remain to the EU’s single market and customs union the higher the price we pay in sovereignty transferred. It may well be that a different leader would have been better capable of selling these trade-offs to MPs and the wider public, but this is just a matter of communication, not of substance.
Rising above the paralysis of Parliament, the overarching choice has always been the same; the full English or the full Continental – a hard, no-deal Brexit, or no Brexit at all. Anything in between is just not worth the candle.
Despite all the jaw jaw, this is a war whose eventual victor is still far from clear.
3. The EU reminds us why we must escape its clutches: Ryan Bourne, the Daily Telegraph
In delaying Brexit following Parliament’s rejection of her treaty, May willingly risked Article 50 being revoked entirely or us leaving the EU in name only
Tomorrow [March 29] should have been a celebration. Theresa May promised 108 times in Parliament that the UK would leave the EU on March 29. But as the artist Pablo Picasso supposedly remarked, one should “only put off until tomorrow what you are willing to die having left undone”.
In delaying Brexit following Parliament’s rejection of her treaty, May willingly risked Article 50 being revoked entirely or us leaving the EU in name only (permanent membership of both the single market and customs union). If the Commons again rejects her deal today, both those outcomes remain live possibilities, despite being rejected handsomely in Parliament’s so-called “indicative vote” circus.
Politicians wail a lot about Brexit’s long-term costs, yet rarely muse on the downsides of being within the EU’s regulatory tentacles should Remainers succeed. That’s not surprising. Existing regulations are baked in and what the EU might do in future is naturally speculative. Yet recent developments should serve as a warning to MPs of the huge opportunity we would forsake should we fail to leave the single market.
This week, the European Parliament approved new copyright laws that would stifle innovation on the internet, for example. In a world where business models constantly evolve and openness is crucial to fermenting new ideas, the EU’s instincts are to protect struggling firms while treating vibrant tech giants as cash cows.
The most controversial provisions of the new Copyright Directive – Articles 11 and 13 – would transform how the internet operates. Article 11 would give press publishers the right to compensation from websites like Google that link to their content (a so-called “link tax”). Article 13 would require platforms such as YouTube to agree licensing arrangements with copyright holders for material that may be uploaded to their sites, and pre-filter user-uploaded content to screen for violations.
The practical consequences could be profound. Services such as Google News are not big revenue generators, so Google and others may decide in the face of the “link tax” to abandon the service or remove previews to searchable stories, worsening the user experience. Where they do agree deals, websites linking to content will inevitably focus on agreements with the largest press publishers – entrenching the power of dominant news sources to the detriment of media start-ups.
The shift in presumption such that YouTube, Facebook and others must proactively prevent copyrighted material being on their platform will also likely lead to new slower upload processes. Again, this will unintentionally entrench existing platforms. Today’s mega-tech firms can invest in sophisticated screening technology. New platforms won’t have the resources to do so.
The Copyright Directive is exactly the sort of anti-innovation regulation we should be seeking to avoid. It is also a reminder of the democratic deficit that led to Brexit. The UK government apparently supported these provisions and helped craft the legislation. There was no debate or proper scrutiny through our Parliamentary procedures and limited discussion in the mainstream press. Should MPs commit us to non-EU single market membership, we would not have even been able to vote on its adoption.
It’s not just the regulation of the internet. New proposed EU General Safety Regulation for motor vehicles also passed a hurdle this week, moving on to the approval stage of the European Parliament and EU Council. Under these rules, by 2022 all new cars produced or exported to the EU would have to incorporate technologies that limit engine power when exceeding speed limits, build in breathalysers to stop drunk-drivers from starting engines, and install drowsiness recognition systems.
Such features are variously available in high-end vehicles already. But mandating them naturally makes cars more expensive. Again, is this really something Britain would have adopted if free to choose independently?
Individually, any given regulation like this might have a small macroeconomic impact. Extrapolating forward, and thinking cumulatively though, they are a massive economic concern. Yet as a country, we haven’t even begun to debate the sorts of approaches an independent Britain might take on these issues.
Theresa May has, for three years, elevated the importance of an orderly EU exit above everything else. Her single-minded focus on that process has marginalised any sort of domestic post-Brexit economic vision, which international agreements with the EU and others should ideally buttress, not determine. The results of that emphasis are clear. Her backstop risks us being locked into a customs union with the EU, stripping us of an independent trade policy when the international trading system is in flux. The government’s impotence has provided Remainers with the live possibility of keeping us hooked into the EU regulatory juggernaut too.
As a country, choosing such a path amounts to sacrificing long-term opportunity for short-term expediency. Upon exit, the appetite for deregulation may well be small, and so the appeal of remaining or Common Market 2.0 for firms to enjoy minimal disruption is understandable.
But over the coming years, driverless cars, AI, digital tech, virtual reality, robotics, commercial space travel, financial services, the sharing economy, genomics, 3D printers, and much more will see evolving regulatory frameworks that will go a long way to determining our nation’s future economic success.
Having extensive regulation determined by the EU always came with economic costs given its precautionary, protectionist instincts. To consider a permanent arrangement that strips the UK of voting on future regulations in many of these areas would be unspeakably irresponsible.
In the coming days and weeks, Remainer MPs’ attempts to keep us locked into the EU’s economic institutions must be seen off for Brexit to mean anything worthwhile. And if May’s Withdrawal Agreement is passed, a new Prime Minister must commit to delivering regulatory and trade autonomy as we negotiate the future UK-EU trading relationship.
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