Live News From Spain As It Happens

2021 will start as 2020 ended: with the cornavirus pandemic dominating the news. The COVID-19 crisis will carry on having a knock-on effect on the economy over the coming year. There will be good news and bad, so let’s take a look at some of the changes on the cards for our pockets in 2021:

Income tax to increase for highest earners

Income tax (IRPF) will increase by up to 3% - from 23 to 26% - for those who earn more than 200,000€, with those whose salaries exceed 300,000€ paying a further 2%. This measure will affect 36,194 taxpayers and bring 580€ million in revenue for the tax office in 2022.

Higher VAT on soft drinks

Next year's budget includes a VAT increase on fizzy and sweetened soft drinks from 10% to 21%.  As justification for this increase, the treasury has cited a need to promote a healthy lifestyle. Both the OECD and the European Commission have encouraged governments to limit reduced VAT levels for these types of products. The government expects to collect an extra 340€ million in 2021 thanks this measure. 

Higher tax on assets over 10€ million

Tax on assets will rise from 2.5 to 3.5% for fortunes of over 10€ million. Nevertheless, regional authorities have control over the collection or otherwise of this tax. In some regions, like Madrid, it is reimbursed 100%. 

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

After the cancellation of Seville's Feria de Abril announced by the city's mayor a week ago, it was only a question of time before the famous Holy Week processions were also cancelled because of the coronavirus health crisis.

Yesterday morning, the Archbishopric of Seville released a statement confirming that the archbishop, monsignor Juan José Asenjo, had signed a decree cancelling all the Holy Week processions for next year because of the coronavirus pandemic

The decree, signed by the archbishop, states that "taking into consideration the organisational complexity of the external displays of popular religion" which take place during not only during Passion Week, but also during Lent, the church "feels obliged" to take decisions that "help stop the spread of the pandemic." 

The announcement added that "the numerous civil and health authorities consulted" continued to advise against "large gatherings of people" in view of the incidence of the illness and the planned vaccination programme. 

Certain small gatherings to celebrate Holy Week will be allowed with the express permission of the Archbishop granted at least 30 days in advance, provided they meet "the health authority rulings in place at the time". 

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

According to the latest Gallup International poll, the Spanish are the happiest nation in the European Union.

Although the overall happiness of Spaniards has gone down by 7% compared with 2019, they are still the second most optimistic nation - after Finland - in Europe, which is statistically the most pessimistic continent in the world.

The Worldwide Hope "End of Year" survey, in which Spain participated via Madrid-based market research company Sigma Dos, interviewed some 38,709 people, around a thousand men and a thousand women in each country, between October and December 2020.

According to the survey, Spanish people are slightly more optimistic than the worldwide average (43%). The survey found that 46% of Spaniards believe that 2021 will be better than 2020, compared to the 29% who believe it will be worse and the 23% who believe it will be the same.

Across Europe as a whole, only 35% of people admit to being optimistic about next year, with Italians, somewhat surprisingly, the most pessimistic of all - only 13% of them think 2021 will be better than 2020, followed by the Poles (15%) and the Bulgarians (16%); at the other end of the scale and showing much greater optimism about next year are the Finns (57%).

When it comes to happiness in general, 65% of Spaniards describe themselves as either happy or very happy, compared to the 7% who feel unhappy and the 26% who said they felt neither happy nor unhappy. In 2019, 72% of Spaniards said they were happy.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

As New Year's Eve draws closer and in the light of rising numbers of positive cases of coronavirus, some areas of Spain have tightened their Covid-19 restrictions.

In the Balearic Islands, authorities have decided to keep the 10pm curfew for another fortnight. In Mallorca, the outdoor seating areas of bars and restaurants will have to close at 6pm from today onwards and indoor shopping malls are going to be closed at weekends and on bank holidays. Family get-togethers are limited to a maximum of six people, except in open-air spaces in Ibiza where a maximum of 10 people are allowed.

Authorities in Madrid have restricted movement until January 11th in a further four healthcare regions, and people will not be able to enter or leave these areas without just cause. This makes a total of 10 healthcare regions effectively under lockdown in the capital.

In Catalonia, despite the rising numbers of Covid-19 cases

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Winds of up to 122kmph were registered last night in the Sierra de Alfabia, in the Tramuntana area of Mallorca thanks to storm 'Bella', which has been battering northern Europe since last Saturday. Gusts of up to 91 kmph were also recorded at Palma airport.

AEMET, the Spanish state meteorological agency, also highlighted some of the other more extreme wind conditions across the Balearic islands last night - 93kmph winds at Cap Blanc, in Llucmajor and 85 kmph gusts in Calvià.

In Banyalbufar winds of up to 80 kmph were recorded, whilst in Santanyí they reached 79 kmph. Binissalem and Sa Pobla saw gusts of 73 kmph and 72 kmph respectively.

Strong winds were also experienced across the other Balearic Islands, with Ibiza airport recording gusts of up to 82 kmph, and Mahón airport in Menorca registered winds of up to 78 kmph. Formentera was also battered by 73 kmph squalls. AEMET data suggests that these high winds will start to drop from around 2pm today (Monday), although both Ibiza and Formentera are likely to see further gusts of high winds during Tuesday.

Temperatures have also taken a sharp drop in the Balearic Islands, with overnight lows reaching -3.1ºC in Campos, and -1.9º in Binissalem.

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The president of Andalusia's Regional Government, Juanma Moreno, has confirmed that he and his colleagues are looking into the possibility of issuing some kind of "certificate" of vaccination against covid-19 which will allow the holder to travel, go to football matches and other big event venues. However, he also stressed that vaccination will never be compulsory.

Moreno made the comments to journalists during a press conference held in the Sierra Nevada ski resort in Granada, explaining that whilst vaccination will not be obligatory, a certificate of vaccination might well become compulsory in order to be able to travel or to take part in certain activities.

The regional president reiterated that the authorities could not make anyone have the vaccination against their will, but that it was a "moral obligation that we owe to ourselves and to others" and that it in no way infringed anyone's personal liberties.

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Mailing books in Spain just got cheaper thanks to a deal between the president of Correos (the Spanish postal service), Juan Manuel Serrano Quintana, and the Minister of Culture, José Manuel Rodríguez Uribes. 

The agreement, signed on Wednesday in Spain's National Library in Madrid, is designed to support local book shops and encourage reading in the wider population. Specifically, the initiative will help independent bookshops either launch or expand their digital commerce presence. The Ministry and the post office will offer both logistical support and tools for online book selling at a "more competitive" price.

Correos will provide independent book shops with a number of logistical tools to help them enter the digital commerce sector, allowing them to sell their physical books via different channels with favourably low mailing costs. In summary, it will provide them with a new sales channel.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

The first doses of the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine arrived in a distribution centre in Guadalajara at 7.30am this morning, after spending the night under armed guard at the Guardia Civil Headquarters in Lerma (Burgos).

Sources in the security forces confirmed that the first truckload of doses crossed the border from France on Christmas Day and were then transported under police escort to the pharmaceutical company's distribution centre first thing this morning, from where they will be distributed to other parts of Spain.

The first doses will be administered to patients - an elderly resident and a health care worker at the Los Olmos old people's home in Guadalajara - at 8.30am on Sunday.

This is Spain's first delivery of the Pfizer vaccine and one which will be followed up every Monday, with further deliveries to be divided out among the country's autonomous communities, most of which have not revealed their storage locations.

For obvious security reasons, the vaccine storage details are being held a closely guarded secret as authorities endeavour to avoid any criminal incidents.

Neither the Interior Ministry nor the health authorities have released any details about either the warehousing or the transport of the thousands of doses of the vaccine, which will arrive in Spain under armed guard provided by the Guardia Civil and the National Police, with regional cooperation from the Ertzaintza in the Basque Country, the Mossos d'Esquadra in Catalonia and the Policía Foral in Navarra.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

"Sadly, for both the economic and sentimental impact it will have on so many families in Seville, there will be no Feria de Abril again in 2021". 

With these emotionally charged words, the mayor of Seville, Juan Espadas, confirmed a rumour that has been circulating for days and that just needed official confirmation from the city hall.

A press release has finally issued by the city council on Wednesday, following a meeting with regional health ministers to study and analyse the projected level of the Covid-19 pathogen in the population (seroprevalence) in 2021 and taking into account the "imminent" start of the nationwide vaccination programme. According to the latest National COVID Seroprevalence Study, the current level in Seville is 8.4%, whilst the projected levels for the months of April and May next year are around 30%, well below the 60-70% required to provide any kind of herd immunity, which would have allowed council officials to relax measures.

In view of this forecast, the press release concluded that "conditions are not right for Seville to hold an event like the Feria de Abril with the inevitable huge crowds involved and the impossibilty of enforcing safety measures" across the 450,000m2 venue, and confirmed the cancellation of the world-famous spectacle.

Meetings will now be held with representatives of the sectors most affected financially by the cancellation, in order to analyse how best to implement measures "that will minimise the impact" of the situation.

Whilst PP members of the council said they would support Juan Espadas' team in the organisation of parallel activities to "incentivise the industry sectors most severely affected" by the cancellation of the Feria and pledged to take "an active part" in the special committee created by the mayor to deal with the problem, they also emphasised that the priority had to be to "safeguard people's health".

Ciudadanos spokesperson, Álvaro Pimentel, acknowledged that it was "a very difficult decision to take", but also agreed that it was the "responsible" option and promised his party's support for any economic initiatives aimed to help those most affected. 

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

In light of the current healthcare crisis, regional governments around Spain have revised their rules and restrictions for the upcoming festive season, in particular for December 24th, 25th and 31st and January 1st.

With ever-rising numbers of people testing positive for COVID-19, the Basque Country and Catalonia in particular have tightened up Christmas restrictions just two days ahead of the main festivities.

One of the measures to be aware of, apart from the curfew and the restrictions on traveling outside of your own autonomous community, is the maximum number of people who can get together to celebrate Christmas - a number which varies from region to region. 

Here is a summary of the limits placed on Christmas gatherings within each of the different autonomous communities:

Andalusia: non-residents are allowed into the region to visit immediate family & close friends or relatives; a maximum of 6 people are allowed at gatherings; 10 on the days mentioned above. 

Aragon: travel is only permitted to visit family members, and the maximim number at any gathering is 6, rising to 10 on 24th, 25th, 31st & Jan 1st.

Castilla and León: travel is only permitted to visit family members, not friends, but 10 people can get together in any one house.

Castilla-La Mancha: on the festive days mentioned above, gatherings are limited to 10 people, and travel is permitted to visit both close friends and relatives. The curfew has been brought forward from 01:30 to 00:30.

Asturias: the regional government has reduced the number of people at any gathering over the festive period to 6.

Galicia: if the people getting together are from just two households, there is a limit of 10 people; if they are from more than two households the limit is 6 people + up to 4 children under the age of ten.

Navarra: gatherings are limited to a maximum of 10 people from 2 separate households on 24th, 25th, 31st & Jan 1st. 

Valencian Community: only 6 people are allowed at any Christmas gathering.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

The effects of the coronavirus pandemic have reached as far as our Christmas food shopping trolley, but for once, the news is good. With just days to go before Spaniards celebrate Christmas Eve with their traditional gourmet spread, prices of the most popular festive food items have dropped by an average of 4.1% compared with last year according to OCU, the Spanish Consumer Association.

In their analysis, OCU tracked the prices of 15 typical Christmas food items (suckling lamb, rolled veal, pullet, turkey, pre-cut Iberian ham, red cabbage, pineapple, sea bream, farmed sea bass, hake, elvers, cooked langoustines, Galician barnacles, clams and oysters), which are all in high demand at this time of year, across municipal markets, supermarkets and hypermarkets in Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao, Seville, Valencia and Zaragoza.

Despite the fact that fish and shellfish have been getting gradually more expensive over the past few years, this year has seen lower prices than last year for sea bass (-20%), barnacles (-17%), clams (-13%), red sea bream (-11%) and langoustines (-9%). In contrast, elvers and oysters have both increased substantially in price (+25% and +11% respectively).

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

Spain is the latest country to suspend travel from the UK in the wake of the emergence of a new strain of coronavirus, which the British Health Minister, Matt Hancock, recently described as "out of control".

On Sunday, Belgium, Netherlands, France, Italy, Germany, Ireland, Bulgaria, Turkey and Austria all placed an immediate ban on flights from the UK. India, Hong Kong, Canada and Switzerland joined the list this morning, and Spain and Portugal followed suit this afternoon. 

After an EU crisis meeting was held in Brussels this morning, both Spain and Portugal took the decision to stop people flying in from the UK. From midnight tonight, the only people who will be allowed to fly into Spain are Spanish nationals and residents.

All passengers coming into Spain are already required to show proof of a negative result for a COVID-19 PCR test carried out in the 72 hours before entering the country, and this additional protective measure will remain in place.

In addition, the Spanish government reported that border controls between Spain and Portugal are also going to be tightened.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

The number 72897 has won the 'Gordo' , the 4,000,000 euro top prize in Spain's special 2020 Christmas lottery. The number was drawn at 12.02 today.

The number has been sold in many different parts of the country, including Punta Umbría (Huelva), Reus (Tarragona), Granada, Madrid (Doña Manolita), Boñar (León), O Grove (Pontevedra), Bilbao, Granadilla de Abona (Santa Cruz de Tenerife), Jávea (Alicante), Cáceres, El Puerto de Santa María (Cádiz), Córdoba, Haría (Las Palmas), San Pedro del Pinatar (Murcia), Vigo (Pontevedra), O Porriño (Pontevedra), Salamanca, Bonavista (Tarragona), Oliva (Valencia), Alfara del Patriarca (Valencia) and Zamora.

Today's Christmas lottery has 2.4 billion euros in prizes up for offer - 28 million more than last year. 

So far, the third prize has also been drawn - number 52472, and the fourth prize which was drawn at 11.56am - number 75981. The second prize is still to be drawn, as well as one fourth prize and two fifth prizes.

The first winning numbers to be drawn were two fifth prizes at 9.17am and 9.20am: 86986 and 37023 respectively. 

A little over an hour later, and again close together at 10.42am and 10.44am, the third and fourth fifth prizes were drawn: 19371 and 49760 respectively. The fifth fifth prize, number 55483 was drawn at 11.16am and the sixith fifth prize went to number 28674.

Amongst the prizes shared out during the course of the Christmas Lottery, the drawing of which lasts most of the day, is the most famous prize of all known as  the 'Gordo' (the Fat One), which is the first prize and is worth 400,000 euros per décimo (20€ ticket). Then comes the second prize, worth 125,000 euros per décimo, and the third prize worth 50,000 euros per décimo. In addition, here are two fourth prizes worth 20,000 euros each and eight fifth prizes worth 6,000 euros each per décimo. 

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A polar air mass from the inner regions of Europe is heading towards Spain and will bring an abrupt drop in temperatures from the middle of the week, just ahead of the country's Christmas celebrations.

Between Thursday and Friday - Christmas Eve and Christmas Day - temperatures will drop by around ten degrees, giving the country a much more wintry feel.

Christmas Eve

Thursday 24th will bring rain to the north of Galicia, to Cantabria and to the Pyrenees - light showers in general, but with localised heavy rain and snow above 1,000 metres, or even lower in some areas. In contrast, much of the eastern and southern parts of the country will have more or less cloudless skies.

The most noticeable change will be the drop in maximum temperatures as the polar air mass moves in across the country. In many northern towns and cities the mercury will struggle to reach double figures and the highs across the country will remain below 20 ºC. The lows will also be dropping in the northern half of the country, especially in mountainous areas and in Castilla y León.

Christmas Day

The anticyclone in the Atlantic will linger into Friday, affecting the north of the country, bringing cold north/north-easterly winds and rain to Cantabria and the Pyrenees, to the extreme north east of the country and to the Balearic Islands, with a slight risk of rain along eastern coastal areas and in the Strait of Gibraltar.

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IT'S THAT time of year everyone in Spain has been waiting for and which always involves huge amounts of cash being dished out.

Oh, and it's nearly Christmas, too. That falls on a Friday this year, so hopefully not on 13th. Best check your diary if you're superstitious.

The El Gordo lottery does not normally produce multi-millionaires, but it does involve more prizewinners than your average national draw – the odds are higher, the payouts are smaller, but generally, a top-four win will be enough to change your life and maybe even to pay off your mortgage.

Or perhaps you'll find it's enough to buy yourself a nice new home or holiday home in Spain – if so, look no further than our property for sale page where you can find practically anything within your budget, no matter what that budget is.

Every year on December 22, Spain tunes in to channel one, or TVE – the country's answer to the BBC – at midday to watch the children from Madrid's San Ildefonso primary school choir 'sing' the winning numbers as the balls roll out one at a time, and whatever day of the week December 23 falls on, notaries' offices are always open for winners to sign for their cash.

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The tradition of Christmas hampers being sent by businesses to their clients or their staff is widespread in Spain, but few people know that this festive tradition actually dates back to Roman times.

Every year, thousands of baskets full of gourmet goodies like cured meats, cheese, wine, cava, marzipan treats, turrón and polvorones wing their way to customers and employees thoughout the month of December.

Although the festive box itself is a relatively new concept, the custom of workers receiving a gift at this time of year began many, many centuries ago in ancient Rome.

The first historic references to the practice date back to the time of the Roman Empire, when small gifts were typically distributed to slaves by their masters in the days running up to Saturnalia, a major pagan festival held between December 17th and 23rd.

At this time of year, slaves and workers received a series of small gifts from their masters and one of these gifts would be the famous sportula, similar to today's hamper of food. 

The festivities would begin in the Roman Forum with a sacrifice at the Temple of Saturn, followed by a public banquet, where roles were reversed and masters waited at their slaves' tables. Wicker baskets full of figs, laurel leaves, and other seasonal food items would be exchanged. 

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Christmas dinner is just around the corner and everyone is hoping to be able to celebrate with at least some of their loved ones and, above all, without anyone getting or spreading the COVID-19 virus.

Doctors and other health workers are publishing lots of tips to keep your, your family and close friends as safe as possible over the festive period. Here are just a few of them:

Right at the top of the list is avoiding all unnecessary contact with other people in the days leading up to Christmas, and always using a mask when in the company of others.

Specifically with the Christmas meal in mind, the Spanish Association of Paediatricians (AEP) has given the following advice to minimise risks: apart from the already well-established recommendations about not mixing with people you don't live with, respecting the safety distance and always using a mask, ventilate your home as much and as often as possible, increase social distancing where elderly people are concerned, do not share food, have the apéritif part of the meal standing up and, wherever possible, out of doors, and do not clink glasses when making a toast.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

Fernando Alonso returned to the Formula 1 scene today, taking part in a test event in Abu Dhabi and notching up the fastest lap time of the day.

The Spaniard was behind the wheel of Renault's 2020 season RS20 car in a warm-up race for young drivers ahead of next year's campaign.

The two-time F1 world champion is due back on the grid at the season-opening Australian Grand Prix on March 21st next year. Whether the Spaniard can recover his championship-winning form is yet to be seen, but his return to the cockpit of the RS25 this weekend did not go unnoticed, not least by current F1 world champion, Lewis Hamilton, who was delighted to hear his old rival putting the RS25 through its paces.

The Renault F1 team, which will be officially rebranded as Alpine F1 from January 1st, has been working with the Federation Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA) for some weeks to arrange a test event, specifically for Alonso, who hasn't raced in F1 for two years.  The event is designed to give young drivers the chance to improve and get miles on the clock in an F1 car, and there has been some controversy over the veteran Alonso's involvement.

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Last night saw a socially-distanced, live-streamed virtual gala to celebrate the 2021 Michelin Guide awards for Spain & Portugal. It was held at the Real Casa de Correos in Madrid's Puerta del Sol and hosted by actors and food lovers Cayetana Guillén Cuervo and Miguel Ángel Muñoz (pictured) - respectively the finalist and winner of the first Spanish edition of MasterChef Celebrity.

This year, the Michelin Guide for Spain & Portugal welcomes 3 new 2-star restaurants and 21 new 1-star establishments, as well as 53 new Bib Gourmand, 105 new Michelin Plate awards and 21 green stars - the new Michelin sustainability emblem. A total of 234 Spanish restaurants made it into the distinguished Michelin Guide.

Amongst the restaurants awarded 1 Michelin Star are Silabario, run by Alberto González Prelcic (Vigo); Saddle, run by Adolfo Santos (Madrid); Raíces-Carlos Maldonado, run by Carlos Maldonado Pinel (Talavera de la Reina); Quatre Molins, run by Rafel Muria (Cornudella de Montserrat); Odiseo, run by Nazario Cano López (Murcia); Mu.na, run by Samuel Naveira (Ponferrada) and Miguel González, run by Miguel González Quintela (Pereiro de Aguilar). 

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Spain's first consignment of vaccines against Covid-19 should begin to arrive in the country within the next three weeks. Authorisation from both the European and Spanish drug agencies is expected to be granted on December 29th, with vaccines beginning to arrive on January 4th or 5th. Vaccination itself will not start until a few days later, once vaccines have been distributed to each of the autonomous communities.

The first vaccine expected to be available in Spain is the Pfizer one, which is the one that requires storage at around 80 degrees below zero.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) will meet to analyse the results of the Moderna vaccine on January 12th. If it is deemed acceptable, it could be authorised for use "in a matter of weeks or even hours" according to health minister Salvador Illa.

As established in the government's Vaccination Strategy, the first doses will be administered to the four priority groups identified among the population: elderly or disabled people in care homes, care home personnel, frontline health workers and people in a state of high dependency outside of the care home system.

The Government hopes that this first phase of vaccination will end in March, and it will then continue with the remaining groups into which the population has been divided: people over the age of 64, at-risk individuals, those who work or live in enclosed areas, those at risk for socio-economic reasons, essential workers, teachers, children, teenagers and young people, the adult population at large, pregnant or nursing women, those who are seropositive for Covid-19.

According to this calendar, it is anticipated that 70% of the population will be vaccinated by the end of the summer.

Meanwhile, several regional authorities are considering tightening restrictions again ahead of the country's Christmas celebrations, after numerous fresh outbreaks of the virus were recorded. The Mallorcan authorities have taken action already, reducing the number of people who can get together on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day back down from ten to six, and re-imposing a 10pm curfew. The situation will be examined again on December 28th, but the suggestion is that these measures will more than likely be left in place over the New Year too. 

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

ANOTHER inevitable and disappointing casualty of 'Covid Christmas' will be the absence of Three Kings' parades on the night of January 5 – although all is not entirely lost, as town halls are getting creative to make sure the children can still soak up some of the festive magic.

Sevilla has opted to bring in the Magi by hot-air balloon, since this way, they will have no close contact with anyone on the street.

The city council will stream their airborne arrival live on its Ateneo website.

Even present lists have gone digital: This year, instead of children handwriting letters to the Three Kings and giving them to the Pages in person when they visit towns ahead of the 'big night', youngsters in Sevilla will be able to send their missives via the Ateneo portal.

And the Three Kings have pledged to respond to every single one.

For children who are too young to use email, or who simply prefer to write their lists down on paper, they can deposit them in person in a collection point in the Ateneo patio on the C/ Orfila between Boxing Day and December 29.

Bedouins – desert tribes who would be among the Magi's neighbours – will be on site so the children can see for themselves that someone will be able to gather up and deliver the letters to base.

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Health minister, Salvador Illa (pictured above), said today he believed we were seeing the "beginning of the end" of the pandemia and that by the end of the summer he expected 70% of Spain's population to be vaccinated, generating enough herd immunity "not to see a definitive end, but to put us in a very different state" from our current one.

Illa was confident that the Spanish health authorities would be able to start administering vaccines at the beginning of January and "if all goes well" have a significant proportion of the Spanish and European population vaccinated within five or six months.

"By the end of the summer, 70% of the population will probably be vaccinated. This is a lot, but it won't mean the end of the pandemia, because this will only come about when we have immunised a high percentage of the population worldwide, which will take all of 2021 and a good part of 2022 too, according to the experts", he explained.

Nevertheless, the health minister warned people not to let their guard down too early and to continue employing protective measures like wearing masks and practising social distancing until a significant proportion of the population is vaccinated.

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THE FIRST-EVER successful womb transplant from a live donor has been carried out in Spain, and two months later, the recipient appears to be fertile.

Barcelona's Hospital Clínic says the patient is one of around 5,000 women in the world with the congenital disorder known as Rokitansky's Syndrome, meaning she was born without a womb or fallopian tubes.

She was one of 30 candidates for a uterine transplant at the Hospital Clínic, and turned out to be the only one compatible.

The womb was donated by her sister, who underwent a 12-hour operation for the organ to be extracted – much longer than a standard hysterectomy, since the uterus had to be in a perfect condition when it was removed.

It took another four hours to implant it in the receptor – the work of a 20-strong team who included nurses, auxiliaries, gynaecologists and transplant surgeons.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

THE run-up to Christmas is expected to bring an 'Indian summer' to the Mediterranean and south coast with temperatures of over 22ºC this coming weekend.

Sunshine will be consistent in the Canary Islands, Murcia, the Balearic Islands, the Comunidad Valenciana and Andalucía, with only the northern strip and Galicia likely to suffer any possible rainfall.

Winds could be high in mountainous inland areas, however, but the snowline is set at a fairly high altitude of 1,400 to 1,600 metres.

A GROUND-BREAKING study that could change treatment for breast cancer for the first time in 30 years has included a major contribution by Spanish researchers.

Working with scientists from the USA and South Korea, the team concluded that a third of patients in Spain who would otherwise have been treated with chemotherapy may not, in fact, need it.

A total of 792 women, via 21 Spanish hospitals, made up nearly 20% of the 5,083 patients studied worldwide in trials conducted by Canada's NCIC CTG, France's Unicancer hospital network, the National Cancer Center-Korea, the US-based groups ECOG-ACRIN Cancer Research Group, NRG Oncology and The Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology, and Spain's Breast Cancer Research Group (GEICAM).

The clinical trials were launched by the United States' SWOG Cancer Research Network and the National Cancer Institute (NCI) as part of the RxPONDER project, and discussed at the 43rd San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium – held via video conference this year and due to conclude on Saturday.

Women who have gone through the menopause and whose breast cancer is HER2-negative with positive hormone receptors (RH+), with one to three lymph nodes affected and a recurrence score of 25 or less – on a scale of 0 to 100 – make up a third of patients in Spain with breast cancer and, like everywhere else in the world since around 1980, have been treated with chemotherapy and hormone therapy, typically by taking Tamoxifen or similar for five to 10 years after surgery.

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TRAVELLERS or returning residents to Spain can now show a TMA (Transcription-Mediated Amplification test) showing they are Covid-free instead of a PCR test, and children under six are exempt, the Spanish health authority has announced.

From December 10th, 2020, the TMA test has been incorporated as an accepted diagnostic test in addition to the PCR. Also, from this date, children under 6 years old are exempt from the diagnostic tests for active infection with SARS-CoV-2, in order to enter Spain.

The Transcription-Mediated Amplification test detects the presence of the coronavirus in an individual. Samples are taken in a similar way as a PCR test, via a nasal swab. Like a PCR test, the process looks for and measures genetic material from the coronavirus. The difference in practice is that the results come back in around two hours, instead of four for a PCR test, and a TMA test is usually cheaper – just under €100 compared to over €100.

In all cases, though, the test must be taken less than 72 hours before arrival in the country – not 72 hours before boarding the plane – and results must be negative in order to be able to travel. A certificate must be provided, showing the traveller's name, passport or DNI number, test date, contact details of the centre that carried out the test, the diagnostic technique employed and a negative test result. The personal identification number (passport/DNI number) that you use to get the QR code required for travel must be the same as the identification number that appears on the negative PCR/TMA certificate.

Although Spanish nationals, wherever they live, and residents in Spain of other nationalities cannot be denied entry, they are likely to be fined if they do not have proof of a negative test result.

Also, until now, test results were required to be in either Spanish or English, but they can now also be provided in German or French.

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WITH tomorrow (Tuesday, December 8) being a national public holiday, expect everywhere except petrol stations and the designated 24-hour pharmacy in your town to be closed – although many bars and restaurants continue to trade on bank holidays, just as they do on Sundays, which is otherwise a non-working day in Spain.

Early December sometimes brings a long 'weekend' for workers, depending upon when the dates fall: December 6 is 'Constitution Day', marking the anniversary of the signing of Spain's Magna Carta which is considered to be when full democracy was restored, human rights enshrined in law and the lid put on any possible future risk of any other dictatorship, meaning the 36-year hell under General Franco could never legally happen again.

December 8 is a public holiday to mark the 'Immaculate Conception', and is recognised in several countries with an historic Catholic tradition, such as Spain, France, Malta and Ireland, whether or not it brings a total shutdown to the country.

When a public holiday falls on a Sunday, it is automatically written off, although Spain has a law in place that allows regions to move certain bank holidays to the Monday – provided they have not exceeded their limit of 14 'extra' days off a year.

Some bank holidays are considered 'non-transferable', meaning they can only be taken on the day they fall, and include Christmas Day, New Year's Day, the 'Three Kings' – the Epiphany, or January 6 – and Good Friday, although in the case of Easter, some regions take Maundy Thursday as a holiday and others take Easter Monday, but never both.

For Christmas, unlike in the UK where, if either Christmas Day, Boxing Day or New Year's Day falls on a Saturday or a Sunday – as was the case with 1999 and 2009, when they all did – the immediately-following working days are taken as holiday instead, Spain does not 'substitute' these if they land on a Sunday anyway; they are simply 'lost'.

Also, Boxing Day is not a public holiday in Spain, meaning any non-Spaniard from a country which does observe December 26 as a bank holiday will have to take it out of their annual leave and book it in advance if they want to continue with 'Christmas as usual'.

'Constitution Day' is 'transferable' in regions which have not already used up their 14-day-per-year allowance – this year, it was 'written off' in the Comunidad Valenciana, Cantabria, Galicia, Catalunya, the Basque Country and Castilla-La Mancha, but moved to today (Monday, December 7) everywhere else.

The 'Immaculate Conception' is not transferable, so has to be observed and cannot be substituted.

What opens over public holidays

In parts of the country designated 'tourism zones', a figure affecting individual towns rather than whole provinces or regions, shops and other customer-facing businesses are allowed to open on practically any day and whatever hours they please – but many towns 'awarded' this designation have actually appealed against it, claiming it would give large national chains an advantage over smaller traders who did not have the staff to open 365 days a year.

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'MONOLITH Fever' has broken out in Spain as the bizarre trend for emulating Stanley Kubrick's futuristic 1968 film prop expands across the globe.

The epic, 2001: Space Odyssey centres on a plain, black, rectangular 'sculpture' appearing out of nowhere and which turns out to be the work of aliens – and, on the eve of what would be the 20th anniversary year of this fictitious finding, similar monoliths have been cropping up on either side of the pond.

Firstly, a helicopter discovered one of these strange metal posts in a remote part of the Utah desert in mid-November, and it was taken down that same week by a group of environmental activists who were concerned about the crowds it was drawing in.

A second one, this time with a triangular base, turned up on the Batca Doamnei hillside near the north-eastern Romanian town of Piatra Neamt, towards the end of November, and was also removed.

The third popped up a week ago in a mountainous part of the central coast road through California, disappearing the following day, and a fourth one has since appeared in The Netherlands.

Now, Spain seems to have jumped on the bandwagon: A tall, thin gunmetal-grey squared post, which looks to be made from steel, was spotted at the weekend in Ayllón (Segovia province, Castilla y León).

It was set up in the ruins of the Santiago church, and it is claimed that hundreds of locals have already headed up there armed with cameras.

Ayllón's mayoress has debunked rumours that the council has asked people to stop visiting it.

In fact, she, herself, took a trip up there on Monday morning, and describes it as a 'crude structure made from three sheets of metal bolted together', fitted rather precariously.

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ART DOESN'T just belong in galleries, and sculptures don't have to be made out of rock-hard material and created with a hammer and chisel, or even a potter's wheel. Anyone who's fond of gardening is probably creating a work of art without realising it, and anyone who's hopeless at it probably loves admiring the end result of someone else's slog anyway. 

Neat little box-hedges are, no doubt, something you associate with a colder, northern-European climate rather than in a land with sub-tropical weather where fan palms and cacti grow wild, so it stands to reason that you wouldn't be expecting leafy green statues on display much in Spain, either.

But if you've opened this article, you'll already realise that's not the case: Spain is home to plenty of topiary displays, labyrinths and deciduous garden shrubs that would not look out of place in, say, the grounds of Versailles Palace.

And some of them are so intricate and accurately-shaped that the legendary film hermit Edward Scissorhands might have been given a job there.

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LINGUISTIC historians cannot wait to get their hands on a new 'treasure' unearthed in the Guipúzcoa provincial archives – a poem in ancient Basque, which may shed some light on the origins of this apparently 'rootless' language.

Said to be a love poem and probably dating to between the years 1503 and 1522, the document was discovered tucked away in an old notary file in Oñati, near San Sebastián.

To date, practically no texts in euskera, the Basque regional tongue, from earlier than around the year 1660 have been found, making this latest manuscript an invaluable piece of cultural history.

Additionally, nearly all texts from hundreds of years ago in euskera that are known to exist are very limited example – 'micro-texts', as the regional ministry of culture says, or just 'the odd disembodied sentence or small couplet'.

Researcher Rosa Ayerbe found it and, with the help of archive personnel and regular user Iago Irioja, an expert in 16th-century Guipúzcoa, drew up a transcript.

They all agreed it is 'a very difficult read', an opinion shared by linguistic expert Ander Ros, also a faithful archive-user, who has extensive knowledge of notary documents from ancient eras.

Ros says the group transcript attempts have allowed those present to get an 'initial evaluation' of the text's 'significance', as well as some rudimentary attempts at interpreting 'certain fragments which are very hard to understand'.

“What we have here is one of the few written texts in the Guipúzcoa dialect of euskera, and one of the oldest of them – possibly the only one,” Professor Ros says.

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NEXT year could be a good time to buy a property in Spain and have some cash left over in your budget – predictions are that 2021 will bring a reduction in prices of around 7%, rising to 10% in large cities such as Valencia, Málaga, Sevilla, Barcelona and Madrid.

Sellers may want to hang onto their properties for a bit longer as a result, unless they are planning to move to another area or have decided to find somewhere smaller and cheaper if their line of work is in a business that has been badly affected by the pandemic – as a result, a reduction in national demand is likely to see supply increase and prices fall.

“Even though public spending is helping to contain business closures and redundancies [the extension of the furlough scheme is part of this strategy], these efforts are currently proving insufficient to recover levels of economic activity seen prior to the health crisis in Spain, and we'll take around another two or three years to get back to those while restrictions and confinements continue and a large part of the population will not have been vaccinated yet,” says property market analyst Ferran Font.

The European Commission, despite forecasting 2020 will end with Spain's GDP having shrunk by 12.4%, does not expect this to be a long-term situation: Next year, it will grow by 5.4% and in 2022, by a further 4.8%; based upon the assumption that Europe's estimations will be, necessarily, conservative, it seems likely Spain will be back to normal economic health by 2023 at the latest and will be gradually improving on its present circumstances starting from a few weeks' time.

The rent market has been shrinking in the largest cities, according to Font, including the five mentioned above, but the monthly costs for tenants in Spain's biggest metropolitan areas have, arguably, been too high for the last few years, meaning anyone who is able to undercut average prices in these areas should not have difficulties in finding paying occupants.

Font does not expect the GDP for 2020 to have fallen quite as drastically as the European Commission says, since he believes some of the reduction will spill over into 2021 and it will begin to grow again as more and more of the population is immunised against the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

He expects the full year of 2020 to have seen house prices fall by around 2%, and for 2021, they will drop by between 5% and 7%.

But new builds and 'second-hand properties of excellent quality and in sought-after areas' will be more likely to hang onto their value, Font believes, and home values overall could begin to recover to pre-2020 levels by the end of 2022.

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A BULK purchase of 52 million doses of three different types of Covid vaccine has been authorised by Spain's national government.

As well as the Moderna inoculation, developed in the USA and set to be packaged for distribution in Spain once it gets the European Union's seal of approval – expected to be on January 12 at the latest – those created by laboratories Janssen and CureVac have been bought 'off-plan'.

These are in addition to the already-purchased Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines – the first of which will get the green light from the EU by December 29 at the outside, and the second of which has been created by Oxford University scientists.

Spain's purchase of the other three brands of the vaccine comes as part of a Europe-wide acquisition – so far, the European Commission has closed deals with seven pharmaceutical companies, of which Spain has signed up to five so far.

National minister for health Salvador Illa reported today (Tuesday) that the Commission will distribute vaccines in numbers that correspond with the populations of each member State, which will mean a total of 20,875,725 Janssen doses for Spain over the course of the year 2021.

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SPAIN'S stock market has experienced its best month in history, closing November with a record increase, according to market data.

The Bolsa, as the national share price index is known in Spain, soared by 25.18% between 00.01 on November 1 and 23.59 on November 30, a rise never seen before.

Rocketing share values have been largely driven by pharmaceutical laboratories as market speculators invest heavily in them ahead of the release of the imminent Covid-19 vaccines.

The increase was tempered slightly by a 1.39% shrinkage at opening today (Monday, November 30) leaving it on 8,100 points, pulled down by the fall of Wall Street and the petroleum industry and losses suffered by the banks.

Spain's main share price indicator and list of its top 35 companies by capital, the IBEX-35, dropped by 113.8 points, or 1.39%, to 8,076.9, with an accumulated annual decrease of 15.42%.

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HOTEL bookings have risen sharply for the last few weeks of the year – in Spain's major cities, at least.

Overall, reservations have gone up by around 70% in the past month and an average of 37.47% on the same month in 2019, before the Covid-19 crisis struck.

Valencia is the city which has seen steepest hike in bookings, at 43.31% in November compared with the same month last year, followed by Madrid, with a rise of 33.29% year on year.

Málaga is third, with reservations soaring compared with November 2019 from 30.68%, ahead of Barcelona, which has experienced a year-on-year increase of 25.09%.

The greatest rise was in the last week or two of the month, and 52.55% of bookings during that time were made for stays with dates for before the end of the year.

Another 20.3% show considerable forward planning: They are for summer 2021.

It is widely expected that Christmas and New Year bookings in 2021 will be considerably higher, not just in Spain but also in Germany, France and Portugal.

The ever-increasing flow of hotel bookings in Spain has contributed significa

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