Spain protests: Young protesters in Madrid and beyond have many different demands, but they are united in opposing the Spanish governmentThis article titled “Spain reveals pain over cuts and unemployment” was written by Giles Tremlett in Madrid, for guardian.co.uk on Saturday 21st May 2011 11.59 UTCThe arrival of the table, a battered piece of formica bashed on top of four rough, oversized legs raised a cry of joy. Never mind that anyone on a normal chair would barely be able to see over the top – here was another small triumph of the new Spanish revolution, the gathering of angry Spaniards of all colours, ages and persuasions that is sweeping across the country and beyond its borders.The table that arrived in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol square was part of the swirl of creative chaos, naive enthusiasm and pent-up frustration that has transformed it into a makeshift camp for thousand of protesters who call themselves los indignados, the indignant ones.Tents and mattresses, armchairs and sofas, a canteen, portaloos and solar panels have sprung up in a remarkable display of organisational prowess. And the mass of people jostling around, each pursuing their own dream or demand, or just watching others doing the same, seemed more like something transported from the Arab spring in North Africa than from Europe.As the protests continued to swell on Friday, with 60,000 people defying authorities to obey the campaign’s “Take over the square!” slogan in dozens of Spanish cities, and with copycat demonstrations across Europe, the question was whether this was the new May 1968 – a youth-led popular revolt against an establishment deemed to have failed an entire generation.Esther Gutierréz, an elfin 26-year-old, wandered through the crowd with a battered shopping cart full of fruit.“We’ve got so much food we don’t know what to do with it. People just bring it to us for free and it’s wonderful stuff,” she said. “We want real democracy. Not just freedom for bankers. You’re not from the Spanish press, are you? We don’t speak to them.”Cynical and ingenuous by turns, the Madrid protesters and those who last week refused to obey orders to budge from the occupied city squares have torn up the rule book of Spanish public politics. The heavyweights of old – political parties, trade unions and media commentators – are not wanted here.“I was sacked when the Madrid regional government closed down a women’s centre last year when it imposed cuts,” explained Beatriz García as she bashed a small frying pan with a wooden spoon. “The unions didn’t even bother to turn up.”The political parties were worse, she said. “There is no renovation. There is nothing new or different, just two parties who take it in turn to govern because our electoral laws favour them.”Just a week ago Spain was known for the passivity of its citizens as they put up with one of the most depressing eras in recent history. Despite unemployment hitting 21%, widespread spending cuts and a socialist government bound to obey the diktats of Germany’s chancellor, Angela Merkel, and the financial markets, they had refused to show their pain. Marches, sit-ins or riots were for the French – or British students. The real drama, anyway, was in North Africa. Spaniards stayed at home.All that changed this week as demonstrations organised via Facebook and Twitter became static protests in city squares, mushrooming into something that caught politicians, unions and the media by surprise.While journalists were following the dull routine of campaigning for Sunday’s municipal and regional elections, the steam was beginning to escape from a pressure cooker of discontent.Many Spaniards had told pollsters they were tired of the same, well-known political faces – especially those who are due to be re-elected despite being mired in corruption scandals. Politicians have rarely been held in such disregard, with the prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, and opposition leader, Mariano Rajoy, of the conservative People’s party, rating lowest. Rajoy seems set to take over after a general election next March.When police forcibly evicted the Madrid demonstrators on Tuesday morning, they came back in even greater numbers later that day. By Friday night authorities had lost the battle to impose rules banning public politics on the day before elections. Police could only look on. “Join us, police officers!” the demonstrators shouted.By the early hours of Friday, it was already elbow-room only in the Puerta del Sol – the square which prides itself on being Spain’s “kilometre zero”, the spot from which all other distances are measured.On the statue of King Carlos III, somebody had pinned a sign that read: “We are anti-idiots, not anti-politicians.” Other placards read: “We aren’t against the system, we want to change it”, “Democracy, a daily fight”, and “Take your money out of the bank!”“We’ve brought tents, food and even Trivial Pursuit to keep us entertained,” said Pablo Cantó, a fresh-faced 23-year-old journalism student. Like many younger protesters, and the movement as a whole, he had trouble expressing exactly why he was here. “We want change,” he said. “Things just can’t carry on as they are.”The heavy clouds of cannabis smoke suggested others had brought their own form of entertainment.“I’ve been protesting for decades,” said 60-year-old school teacher Rosa Marín. “I’m glad to see so many young people here. The questions is this: Is this another May 1968, or are they just here for the party?”A gang of drunken skinheads, mindlessly chanting football terrace slogans, were there for the latter.But a neat, disciplined circle of people intently debating social reform showed many were here in earnest. They took turns to stand up and make their proposals, the audience listening and using the sign language applause of the deaf – by shaking their hands above their heads – to show approval without drowning the speakers out.The proposals, due to make their way through a laborious process of committees, working parties and general assemblies, varied from calls for less spending on the military to helping businesses. “Because it is not just money for the owners. They are the ones who give people like us jobs,” said one young man.For some younger protesters, it was a political baptism. “I don’t know what will come out of this, but it is enough just to show everyone how upset we are,” explained Javier de Coca by phone from the protest camp in Barcelona’s Plaza de Catalunya, where there was a surprising absence of the nationalist or separatist symbols of protest movements in recent years.“It’s as if they’ve realised they have more serious problems to deal with,” said one protester. One of those problems is 45% youth unemployment.On a wall beside the tarpaulin-covered command centre in what some were calling Madrid’s “Republic of Sol” – home to a press office, an infirmary and a legal centre – a list of needs had been pinned up. Toilet paper and food were scratched off the list. Bookshelves, wood, rubber gloves and bottles of cooking gas were on it. Volunteers were needed for a creche.“We process the proposals and try to turn them into something that makes legal sense,” explained a volunteer at the legal centre.However, the open assemblies are painfully slow. Some last for hours, as everybody is given their turn to speak. After almost a week of protests, the demonstrators have failed to come up with a coherent set of demands.Electoral reform to end the two-party system and action to both punish corrupt politicians and limit their luxuries and privileges were the main areas of agreement.So is the Arab spring spreading to southern Europe? “You can’t really compare us to people who were risking their lives by protesting,” said 23-year-old computer engineer Jaime Viyuela. “But yes, you can say that we are inspired by the courage of the Arab spring.” guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.Thanks for subscribing to Andy Roberts blogSpain reveals pain over cuts and unemploymentRelated posts:Zapatero says Spain safe from bailoutProtest march against coalition cuts expected to attract 300,000Anti-cuts campaigners plan to turn Trafalgar Square into Tahrir Square
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Spain reveals pain over cuts and unemployment
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May 21 2011, 8:54am | Comments »
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Catalan independence boost after Barcelona vote
http://distributedresearch.net/blog/2011/04/11/catalan-independence-boost-after-barcelona-vote
Nine out of 10 of voters in Barcelona backed independence for Catalonia.
This article titled “Catalan independence boost after Barcelona vote” was written by Giles Tremlett in Madrid, for The Guardian on Monday 11th April 2011 17.08 UTC Campaigners for Catalan independence claim they have made significant advances after one in five people in the region’s capital city, Barcelona, backed a call for a separate state in Sunday’s unofficial referendum. Although the vote was organised by volunteers and had no legal standing, organisers said it had pushed the issue of independence further into mainstream political debate in this wealthy and populous north-eastern Spanish region. Alfred Bosch, spokesman for the organising committee, was happy with the 21% turnout. “We could never, even in our wildest dreams, have imagined a turnout like this,” he said. Nine out of 10 of those who took part backed a separate state, reflecting an overall 20% support for independence seen in similar votes held in hundreds of Catalan towns and villages over the past 18 months. Among key politicians reported to have voted in favour of independence was the regional prime minister, Artur Mas, of the nationalist Convergence and Union coalition. “This marks a change in the political cycle,” Felip Puig, a senior member of Mas’s government, told the Catalan language newspaper Ara. Critics accused Mas of being a “Sunday separatist” as his party has indicated it would not back a vote calling for independence in the Catalan regional parliament on Wednesday. Some observers claimed Mas was using the referendum to put pressure on the central Spanish government of Socialist prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero amid a bruising battle over funding of the Catalan government. The regional government, which is in charge of major services such as education, health and policing, must cut spending to help Spain meet its deficit reduction targets this year. Mas has vowed to negotiate a new and exclusive fiscal deal with Madrid. Anti-Madrid sentiment has been on the increase in Catalonia ever since the constitutional court last year struck out parts of a new autonomy charter for the region that had been approved at a legal referendum. Non-separatists pointed out that the weekend referendum in Barcelona showed the vast majority of Catalans were not interested enough in independence to take part. Spain’s constitution does not allow for the independence of any of the 17 regions into which it is divided. Constitutional change requires the approval of two-thirds of the deputies in the Spanish parliament and two-thirds of the people at a national referendum. Both of Spain’s two largest parties, the governing socialists and the opposition People’s party, oppose the independence of Catalonia. They jointly account for 323 of the 350 votes in parliament.
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April 11 2011, 12:16pm | Comments »
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Zapatero says Spain safe from bailout
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‘Socialist‘ prime minister Zapatero of Spain defends the deficit reduction programme as unemployment rate remains at 20%
This article titled “Zapatero says Spain safe from bailout” was written by Giles Tremlett in Madrid, for The Guardian on Friday 1st April 2011 20.00 UTC Spain’s beleaguered economy is out of the woods and will not need a Greek or Irish-style bailout despite the risk of contagion from troubled neighbour Portugal, according to its Socialist prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. In an exclusive interview with the partner publications from the Guardian’s New Europe project, the continent’s most powerful leftwing prime minister insisted that reforms and an austerity programme designed to reverse a runaway deficit were bearing fruit. He refused to be drawn on his own plans, amid rumours that he will announce tomorrow that he will not stand for a third term at elections due early next year. His Socialist party currently trails the opposition conservative People’s party by 16 points in opinion polls. The comments, from a prime minister whom Spaniards describe as “anthropologically optimistic”, came as market pressure on the country’s sovereign debt showed signs of relaxing, despite growing problems in both Portugal and Ireland. “We now have economic growth. The debt risk has stabilised and is out of danger. And now we are close to creating jobs,” Zapatero said. Zapatero sees no conflict between being a deficit warrior and a socialist, but points to key differences between his cuts package and that of Britain’s coalition government. “There is a deep, deep difference between what our government has done on education during the crisis and what Cameron’s government has done,” he said, pointing to education spending that has risen to 15% of Spain’s GDP for the first time. “The fundamental difference between right and left is the capacity to redistribute spending and remove obstacles to equal opportunities,” he insisted. “We haven’t reduced spending on health. We’ve increased spending on unemployment. We’ve maintained spending on social care of the dependent. Why do we do it? To maintain social cohesion.” Instead Spain’s government had brought down its deficit by, among other things, cutting civil service pay and freezing pensions. Zapatero said that, having met last year’s deficit reduction target, Spain would also hit this year’s 6% goal. “Our priority measure is the strict meeting of the deficit target,” he said. Although he claimed jobs would be created soon, the timid growth that some critics blame precisely on spending cuts has had no impact on a startling 20% unemployment rate. “My main anguish is about those people who lose benefit payments but have trouble finding work,” he said. Reforms in the pipeline should bring more flexible collective bargaining, improved competitiveness and a law to limit deficit spending, he said. “It’s true that some reforms mean cuts, but others are simply changes,” he said. “No project can call itself leftwing unless it commits to a competitive economy … we are going to renew Spain’s economic structure.” He warned Portugal that if it wanted to escape a bailout it had no option but to adopt the austerity package that its parliament rejected last week, bringing down José Sócrates’ Socialist government and triggering a June election. “Carrying out the Sócrates austerity plan presented to parliament is fundamental,” Zapatero said. His comments came even before Portugal admitted that its 2010 deficit was €3bn (£2.6bn) higher than originally estimated. Zapatero, speaking before Ireland revealed that it needed a further €24bn to deal with its banks, said he favoured more aid to Greece and Ireland. “We should be ready to increase the aid if they need it,” he said. Like most Spanish politicians, he is an avowed pro-European and saw greater economic integration within the EU as an unexpected but welcome side-effect of the crisis. “Economic integration is being speeded up. That much is clear,” he said. “Integration in politics and security is going more slowly, but it will come. It may take five or 10 years, but the process is inevitable.” He admits that, like everyone else, he would have liked Europe to react faster to the economic crisis. “But it is obvious that, amongst democratic countries, there is something called a decision-making process,” he said. “The Spanish government is lucky because parliament is always very pro-European … but there are other parliaments in Europe that debate every last cent.” Even the Libya crisis was an example of Europe in action, he said. “Who brought a historic resolution to the [UN] security council to intervene in Libya? Two European countries: France and Britain,” he said. “It is Europe that has taken the lead.” The man who pulled Spain’s troops out of Iraq when first elected in 2004 said the UN resolution was a historic step for human rights. “It is the first time we have had a resolution based on a responsibility to protect people,” he said. “A huge amount of care and restraint is being exercised,” he said of the campaign. “We have not had that thing that is so heartrending – and which discredits these operations – which is civilian victims.” But Zapatero, who has sent aircraft and warships to join the Libya campaign, insisted that military means should not be used to oust Gadaffi. “The use of arms is for protecting the population,” he said. “For regime change we have our political and economic strength.” Europe’s task did not end, there, he insisted. “The north of Africa and the Mediterranean as a whole are going to look towards the north. They will look to Europe, and Europe must not look away.” Wind power became Spain’s biggest energy source for the first time in March, but events in Japan have not changed Zapatero’s policy of using nuclear energy, while refusing to build extra capacity. “When nuclear power stations come to the end of their lifespan they will be closed,” he said. “We don’t propose building new power stations and must guarantee the production of alternative sources to cover the closure of every nuclear power station.”
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April 2 2011, 11:31am | Comments »
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Spain’s financial crisis claims another victim: the solar power industry
The Spanish government has slashed its solar power subsidies because of the financial crisis.
This article titled “Spain’s financial crisis claims another victim: the solar power industry” was written by Tim Webb in Madrid, for The Guardian on Wednesday 30th March 2011 17.37 UTC Spain had one of the world’s most ambitious – and generous – plans to boost the amount of electricity it generates from the sun. That dream, for the solar industry at least, has turned sour. Just days before Christmas, the government slashed the level of subsidies that all new and existing photovoltaic (pv) solar projects will receive. But even the powerful utility companies, who opposed the solar industry, are now warning that the fallout could be long-lasting and reach far beyond the energy sector. The row has pitted the renewable lobby against Spain’s three biggest utilities – Iberdrola, Endesa and Gas Natural – which have been urging the government to take action to stem the wave of subsidised renewable projects being built, particularly solar ones. Carlos Salle, Iberdrola’s director for regulation, told the Guardian that divisions between the renewable lobby and the rest of the energy industry are even deeper in Spain than elsewhere as a result. “We have more controversy here in Spain with renewables against non-renewables … this is an aspect of our system – it provokes problems.” Another Madrid-based businessman, from one of Spain’s leading companies, was franker, likening relations, only half-jokingly, as a “war”. The Asociación de la Industria Fotovoltaica (Asif), Spain’s solar industry body, accuses politicians of telling lies, exaggerating the costs of generating electricity using solar pv to justify the cut in subsidies. It is more than just bragging rights between rival generators at stake. The solar pv industry alone received subsidies last year of €2.6bn (£2.28bn), a sum neither the country – nor the utilities – can afford. The utilities have paid out €20bn to subsidise solar and wind projects, and are still waiting for the government to pay them back. Credit rating agencies threatened to downgrade the companies if something was not done to address the “tariff deficit”. Salle recalled: “The situation was horrible a year ago – €20bn for three companies was an amount comparable to an entire budget for some countries.” The utilities also complain that their coal and gas plants, which the government wanted them to build a decade ago after several black-outs, are losing money because they are now only needed for half the time. But the Spanish regulator forces the firms to keep them on standby for times when the wind stops blowing or at night when solar does not generate. Asif argues that solar projects, which last summer provided a maximum of 4% of the country’s electricity, have been sacrificed to keep profits from dirty coal and gas plants high. The solar industry had enjoyed phenomenal growth due to a subsidy regime which, even Asif admits, was too generous. Companies were able to cut costs too quickly – 70% since the original subsidies were introduced in 2004. Investors poured in and about two-thirds of the current capacity was installed in 2008 alone, before a planned tariff cut came into force the following year. This has left Spain with 10 times the amount of solar pv capacity the government had planned for by 2010 – and a much bigger bill than it had envisioned. Javier Anta, Asif’s president, said that the industry will challenge the cut in the courts, but admitted that this would take years, by which time many solar project owners could have gone to the wall. He added that some investors will not back new projects because they fear the tariff could be cut again retrospectively. “There are some people who say this is not a one-off. They do not trust the government,” he said. This is one point on which both the renewable lobby and the power industry agree: by taking the unprecedented step of retrospectively cutting subsidies promised to projects which have already been built, the government risks scaring off investors of all kinds. Salle says that “even if we recognise that the situation is better than a month or a year ago, the problem is [a lack of] confidence. The uncertainty and [risk] premium does not apply only to that sector [solar pv] but to the whole industry and the rest of the country in some cases. Everyone appreciates the relevance of having regulation which does not make any retroactive decisions because you will have to attract new people [to invest]. The new people will say ‘hey, in the history of this country and this sector these people who have been new in the past and have invested, the government has changed the rules’.” Reflecting change Abengoa, a Spanish engineering firm celebrating its 70th year, is pushing ahead with solar-thermal projects. Unlike the schemes involving reflectors heating a salt water mixture running through pipes, Abengoa has developed towers of pipes that look like mini skyscrapers. It employs 23,000 workers in its solar unit, which had a turnover of more than €3bn (£2.6bn). The firm has conducted sustainability audits of its business for several years and says projects that can’t meet sustainability criteria are modified or abandoned. Controversially, it has championed the refining of biofuels, something anti-poverty campaigners have cited as denying food sources to poor people in the developing world. Carlos Bousoño, director of corporate social responsibility, said the debate had moved on after technology allowed for seeds and fruit to be separated from plants before processing. He said only the stalk and waste material was used in second generation biofuels fermentation, allowing corn, soya or other foodstuff to be saved for making food.
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April 1 2011, 9:35am | Comments »
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