Live News From Spain As It Happens

SPAIN'S gas market prices are now 'significantly cheaper' than elsewhere in Europe for the first time in history, partly driven by the country's far lesser reliance on Russian supply, according to the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC).

Taking the Dutch TTF as a reference, the Spanish Organised Iberian Gas Market (MIBGAS) has typically featured higher prices, but these have been falling since October 2021.

Last year, the average MIBGAS cost for D+1 was €1.19 per megawatt per hour (MWh) higher than the Rotterdam-based Title Transfer Facility (TTF) terminal.

This, which channels natural gas from a pocket in the North Sea and retails it wholesale across Europe, had been able to offer extremely low prices due to soaring demand in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, as the TTF's national markets were seeing a rapidly-recovering economy, the CNMC explains.

Things began to change in October, creating tension in global markets – including increasing unsettlement in relations between Russia and Ukraine, falling levels in European underground gas deposits, the entry of Russian gas being limited to amounts featured in long-term supply contracts, and delays in authorisation and launching of the NordStream 2 pipeline.

In Spain, gas prices hit historic highs during the winter of 2021-2022 – at their peak, on December 21, reaching €183 per MWh – due to uncertainty over the Russian supply and aggressive competition internationally from GNL.

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TELECOMMS and internet operators Orange and MásMóvil have announced a planned merger worth €18.6 billion, set to go ahead in the second half of 2023 at the latest.

Still subject to competition authority approval, the fusion will be a joint venture rather than a buyout or takeover – each company will participate 50-50 in management, and it is expected both brand names will continue.

French phone giant Orange, which trades as EE in the UK and as Orange elsewhere in western Europe, will hold €7.8bn in capital, and MásMóvil – run by the British holding company Lorca JVCo – will own €10.9bn.

In a joint press release, the two corporations forecast that as a combination, they will see around €7.3bn in annual turnover and €2.2bn in net profits.

The companies say they will be able to benefit from economies of scale and in combining strategies, allowing them to speed up investment in FTTH and the 5G roll-out, 'which will benefit consumers in Spain'.

Their joint deal includes the right to launch a public share offer under 'certain conditions agreed upon by both parties' and 'after a set period of time'.

In this hypothetical scenario, Orange would have the option to buy out all or the majority of its trading partner's shares at their standard price, enabling it to take control of MásMóvil.

The due diligences under way since March this year have revealed a joint potential for growth of around €450 million per year after the fourth year of working together, and the transaction would be funded via a credit of €6.6bn.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

ONLINE retail giant Amazon has just opened yet another logistics centre in Spain – this time outside of its usual target areas in and around the country's biggest cities.

Since Amazon's launch in Spain in 2011and the creation of Amazon.es, packing and storing hubs, among other operations, have nearly all been set up in or close to Madrid and Barcelona.

But this time, the massive plant opened in the last few days is in Onda, a town of around 25,000 inhabitants in the east-coast province of Castellón.

Often taking a back seat to the other two, much more populous and cosmopolitan provinces in the Comunidad Valenciana region - Valencia and Alicante - Castellón is far quieter, more rural and less densely inhabited.

Although it borders to the north on the Catalunya province of province of Tarragona – home to holiday hotspots such as Reus and Salou – and its southern coastline is the well-known Costa Azahar, Castellón province has seen very little incursion by foreign tourists and expats, and its best-known beach towns, one of which is the music festival capital of Benicàssim, are rarely busy even in high summer.

Onda is close to the provincial capital city of Castellón de la Plana (170,300 inhabitants) and Vila-real, or Villarreal (51,000 residents), the two largest municipalities in the province in terms of headcount which, combined, make up nearly half the total number living in Castellón's 135 towns and villages.

The new Amazon warehouse, the size of eight football pitches, is a welcome feature for Onda and surrounding areas, since it will provide jobs with a multi-national firm in an otherwise very rural area which does not often get a bite of the corporate apple.

About four million outsized packages can be stored there at any one time, and the centre will instantly create in region of 500 permanent jobs.

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YOUNG people who have turned 18 in 2022 or are due to celebrate their 'coming of age' before the year is out can apply for up to €400 to spend on arts, entertainment and culture as part of a one-off bid to kick-start the industry.

During the worst months of the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, museums and cinemas were shut, no concerts, festivals or theatre plays went ahead, and although music, films, books and magazines were still being downloaded online or bought as hard copies, passing trade in shops selling them was minimal, and very little in the way of production was happening where this involved people being in close proximity with each other, such as actors.

The move by culture and sports minister Miquel Iceta is an attempt to help them claw back their losses by giving everyone an 18th birthday present this year.

Known as a Bono Cultural, the gift card or voucher cannot just be blown on anything – no spending €400 on video games, for example – since Iceta stresses that, as it involves 'a significant amount of public funds', it must be 'closely audited, transparent and its proper use monitored'.

It will cost the State €210 million, but is hoped to get young adults into the habit of spending their 'leisure money' on arts, culture and entertainment, so as to keep these industries thriving in the future.

CASH-AND-CARRY-STYLE retail giant Makro has teamed up with national electricity board Iberdrola to set up 280 car-charging stations throughout Spain.

In a bid to encourage the electrically-powered vehicle market, every single Makro store, as well as the company's head offices in Madrid, will have a charging station – a total of 37 locations nationwide.

The deal was signed last year, but is only now starting to go live – already, electric car refuelling points have opened at Makro branches in Castellón, Tarragona, Barcelona, Córdoba and Valladolid.

In the next week or so, more are expected to open at the Makro stores in Palma de Mallorca, Granada, Valencia-Albuixech, and Pamplona (Navarra).

All electricity supplied through the charging stations will be from renewable sources, mostly solar and partly wind power, and this can be verified through a kitemark displayed at the station for those car-owners who want to be sure.

Iberdrola's mobile phone App, Recarga Pública Iberdrola, details all charging stations in Spain – including those run by other electricity suppliers – allowing drivers to locate their nearest or those on their planned route via a GPS pin, check in real time whether they are currently occupied, and pay for their use before they get there.

Part of the Makro-Iberdrola deal has included replacing the former's electricity supply with 100% renewable energy – solar panels of six megawatts (6mW) – in 10 of its stores.

Makro is mainly a wholesale chain for supplying hotels, bars, cafés and restaurants, but is often used by the general public for bulk purchases.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

NATIONAL high-speed rail services are breaking into the north – the fast AVE train now runs from Madrid to the cathedral city of Burgos, via Valladolid.

Transport board RENFE is reportedly planning on its next connections being between Madrid and the Basque Country.

King Felipe VI, president Pedro Sánchez, and regional government officials in the centre-northern territory of Castilla y León were present when the red tape was cut on the first AVE train to set off for Burgos.

Famous for its soft white cheese – sold cheaply in most mainstream supermarkets – its river Duero wine region, and a Gothic cathedral widely held to be one of the most splendid on earth, Burgos is now only 90 minutes away from central Madrid.

It set off at 11.00 this morning (Thursday) from Madrid's Chamartín-Clara Campoamor station, arriving at Burgos-Rosa Manzano at 12.30.

En route, the express convoy called at Valladolid-Campo Grande – also in Castilla y León and famous for its huge city-centre park with peacocks roaming loose – and in Segovia, world-renowned for its massive Roman aqueduct and impressive alcázar, or Mediaeval Royal Arab fortress.

These three classical cities are now easily accessible from Spain's capital.

The Burgos-Valladolid route takes just 38 minutes.

ALVIA trains will continue to run along the new high-speed lines, although the actual AVE only operates one service a day to Madrid, leaving at 07.00.

It has taken practically a generation for the 350-kilometre-per-hour express to reach Castilla y León – the European Union flagged up the Madrid-Burgos link as 'priority' back in 2005, but work on the new track needed did not start until 2009.

At the time, the then national president Mariano Rajoy promised the AVE would reach Burgos by 2015, but the works were not complete until 2020.

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UNPRECEDENTED temperatures across northern Europe have led sweltering residents to question, probably for the first time, how high the mercury has to climb to be 'too hot to work' – and, in some cases, no laws have ever been in place, since they have never been needed.

With parts of the UK seeing temperatures higher than in southern and Mediterranean Spain on Monday and Tuesday – shifting the historic record upwards to a top figure of 40.2Cº and hovering between 32ºC and 40ºC in most of the country – schools shut 'for safety reasons' and many employees questioned whether they could legally request to work from home.

It turned out that, although minimum workplace temperatures are in force, there is no set maximum in Britain – only a requirement on the part of employers to ensure the job environment is 'comfortable'.

Part of the argument for the lack of a 'maximum workplace temperature' was that in iron foundries and glass-blowing workshops, and similar environments where employees are, necessarily, exposed to extreme artificial heat, any 'top legal figure' would make it impossible for them to do their jobs.

This could be set to change, as a mass movement across the country is now pressuring the government to rethink existing legislation, given that heatwaves sparking 'red warnings' for the first time in the UK are likely to become more frequent, longer and hotter, due to human-induced climate change.

But what about Spain? 

Even in the coldest parts of Spain, temperatures in the mid-30s and heatwaves pushing thermometers towards the 40s are standard during a Spanish summer; the world-famous 'long lunch hour' is a by-product of the days when a third of the population lived off agriculture, and now that most indoor workplaces have air-conditioning, the only reason for shops and offices to shut for between two and five hours in early afternoon is that everyone has got used to it and they don't want to change it.

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FANTASY film and series fans have been known to travel to the opposite end of the wrong hemisphere to tour the sets of their favourite screen productions – which makes Spain their perfect destination, wherever they're based on Planet Earth. 

From the 1980s' kids' classic, The Neverending Story, one of a long string of features that used Almería province's Mónsul beach for scenes, to the Ducal mansions in the grounds of Cantabria's very own Parthenon where Nicole Kidman was filmed in The Others, to the numerous sites used in the cult series Game of Thrones, plenty of far-too-little-known enclaves in Spain are a cinema buff's paradise.

Not just supernatural, sci-fi or historical fairytale productions, either: Spaghetti westerns, through which a whole generation built up a mental picture of US cowboy country, were actually shot in Almería's Tabernas desert – guided tours of the sets are immensely popular – and British expats on the east coast tended to enjoy the UK slapstick comedy television series Benidorm more than their counterparts in the 'old country', since they recognised the parts of the holiday town of the same name used for filming.

Tolkien's modern-day readers, or those who have given the legendary sci-fi novelist's hefty tomes a swerve and opted to watch the similarly-lengthy screen versions of them instead, have taken trips to New Zealand with the sole objective of touring the Hobbiton, the purpose-built village in Matamata which became Middle Earth for six blockbusters over 13 years.

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A BATTERY of measures to curb the cost of living crisis announced by Spain's government will include windfall taxes on energy companies, an extra levy on bank profits, additional cash benefits for students, and reduced-price or even free public transport.

During the latest State of the Nation Debate, president Pedro Sánchez confirmed two new taxes on industries benefiting from rising living costs will be introduced from January, although they will relate to profits already earned in 2022, making them retroactive, as well as to those earned over the course of 2023, which will be taxed from January 2024.

Electricity providers, gas boards, and petroleum companies which supply either commercially, will be taxed on 'extraordinary' profits – what is known as a 'windfall tax' in countries where this already applies, such as Italy and the UK.

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CUSTOMERS using the car-sharing service Cabify can now pay using contactless without the driver needing to have a card machine, thanks to a new deal between the company and finance firm Divilo.

The latter devised a mobile phone App which the Cabify vehicle owner downloads onto his or her device, then the passenger only has to hold their debit or credit card, or their own mobile if they have a payment application on it, against the driver's own.

Passengers themselves do not have to download an App – all they need is a card to pay with, which they use in the same way as they would for any other contactless transaction in a shop or bar.

It means Cabify drivers do not have to invest in a dataphone, or card-payment machine, which would otherwise be essential unless they only accepted cash.

And cash-only payments, as well as restricting their customer base – precluding them from transporting passengers who want to, or are only able to, pay by card or mobile phone – constitutes a major risk for Cabify drivers.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

TEMPERATURES across Spain could break all records this week, with inland provinces topping 40ºC – and even creeping close to 50ºC.

Holidaymakers in the far north-western region of Galicia know they can usually expect a pleasant warmth at this time of year, but its four provinces are on a 'red' weather warning for this week as the mercury is expected to peak at 42ºC in parts.

The land-locked western region of Extremadura habitually experiences hot, dry summers – although it has plenty of blue-flagged beaches, despite being hundreds of kilometres from the sea – but temperatures forecast for around 44ºC and possibly as high as 47ºC in its southern province of Badajoz for this week are unprecedented.

The Mediterranean coast will see a week of temperatures between approximately 35ºC and 38ºC, probably breaking the 40ºC a short distance inland, although the Balearic Islands are expected to be around 3ºC lower.

Spokesman for the State meteorological agency AEMET, Rubén del Campo, says the next two days will see highs of 'over 35ºC practically everywhere on the mainland'.

He says the heatwave is very likely to last all week and even spill over into the early part of next – a total of around nine days.

Coastal areas, whilst more humid, tend to have slightly lower temperatures during heatwaves – which means that, although the average high on the Costa del Sol over the coming week is expected to be around 31ºC, that of the neighbouring, inland province of Sevilla is likely to reach 43ºC.

Other than in Galicia, most of the rest of the country is on 'orange' – particularly in inland parts of the southern region of Andalucía, including the provinces of Córdoba, Sevilla and Jaén, traditionally the hottest in Spain in summer, and also away from the coast in the province of Huelva.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

HOMEBUYERS from abroad tend to head for coastal areas, large towns and cities, and tourism hotspots, depending upon their criteria - work, retirement, holidays, or eventually all three at different points in time. 

At least, that's the majority, but recent figures released by various estate agencies have shown that a significant minority opt for villages - and specific municipalities have been highlighted as particularly popular. 

They include locations in coastal provinces, some practically on the beach and others a short drive away, but the ones that seem to attract the highest numbers of potential buyer visits are in provinces hundreds of kilometres from the sea.

Land-locked villages top the list

The top three so far this year are Fuente Obejuna (Córdoba province), and Garcirrey and El Milano (Salamanca province, in the centre-northern region of Castilla y León, close to the Portuguese border).

If the name of the first of these sounds familiar, that's probably because of the play written by 17th-century dramatist Lope de Vega, of the same name - although he spelled it as 'Fuente Ovejuna', the pronunciation is the same. It's based on the true story of the resident uprising in 1476 against the occupation of the village, eight years earlier, by the Order of Calatrava at the behest of King Enrique IV.

This literary and theatrical link is what makes Fuente Obejuna a day-trip hotspot for tourists in the Córdoba area, along with the Roman settlement eight kilometres away, known as Mellaria. 

Garcirrey currently has fewer than 70 residents, so peace and quiet is guaranteed, as is a real rural lifestyle - a country hotel with its own riding stables gets plenty of year-round trade.

El Milano, home to approximately 115 residents, is in the heart of two nature reserves - the Cerezal de Peñahorcada and La Zarza de Pumareda - and close to the river Duero, which becomes the Douro when it flows into Portugal and is a key wine region both sides of the border.

On the islands: Holiday hotspots and rural havens

Villages on the islands where more than half the property viewings so far this year have been by foreign home-hunters - whether would-be expats, existing expats looking to relocate, or residents outside Spain seeking a holiday bolthole - include three major coastal tourism magnets in Mallorca: Cala Ratjada, Cala Millor, and Cala Bona.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

IF YOU'RE reading this from the USA, you might have just finished watched the fireworks at the end of one of the nation's biggest public holidays.

And if you're not in the USA, but have always wanted to experience the Fourth of July celebrations, travel agencies in Spain have been running 'Independence Day' holidays to New York City with guided tours and activities to enable you to enjoy the show – so no doubt you can find a decent deal for next year.

Or if not, you could admire a Manhattan skyline from the beach instead – Benidorm (Alicante province) and Cullera (Valencia province) are both famous for their high-rise coastal scenery – and, at any time of the year, you can enjoy a New York-style shopping trip without having to cross the pond. Madrid has been officially named as the world's top city for retail therapy, and Barcelona is world number six, so you're unlikely to have any difficulty in parting with your cash in either.

And Spain even has a Statue of Liberty. 

Two, in fact.

You can get a picture of both without having to lie on the ground on your back to get it all in the frame, and pose for a selfie next to them without looking like a Playmobil figurine at the foot or a full-sized human with nothing more exciting than a wall behind you.

Plus, travelling from anywhere in Spain to the beautiful, green, land-locked northern region of La Rioja is a lot cheaper than transatlantic flights (although direct airline routes from Madrid to the Big Apple started up a few years ago, with reasonably-priced and frequent connections, to cater for the ever-growing community of US-based tourists in the western Mediterranean).

Introducing La Rioja

Whilst it's certainly not Spain's only wine region – the country has literally hundreds, many you've never heard of even if you've lived here all your life – La Rioja is, arguably, the one that gets the most publicity internationally. Spanish wine suffers from lack of marketing, meaning shoppers overseas usually walk straight past it in the supermarket and grab the French, Italian, Australian or South African varieties instead.

It doesn't help that Spanish wine is normally labelled outside of Spain as just 'Spanish wine'. 

Unless it's a Rioja – in which case, everyone's heard of it, and everyone assumes it's the best, if not the only, wine to come out of the country at all.

It definitely is good. We're not going to argue with that. But it's just one of a massive list of good ones you can get in Spain. If it's a Rioja, it'll be delicious; if it's not a Rioja, though, it'll still be delicious. And as is always the case when somewhere is famous for something, there's more to it than the thing it's famous for. In the case of La Rioja, its dramatic scenery, for a start. Of course, this involves a lot of vineyards, but also mountains, rivers, and multi-coloured, orange, yellow, red and rust tinges across the horizon in autumn, bright emerald at other times of the year, ski stations – Valdezcaray being the main resort for hitting the slopes in winter – quaint villages, stately homes, majestic architecture, and rich history oozing out of every corner.

This single-province region is also quite famous for a little municipality called Ashtray.

It's called what?! The burning question

Found on the right bank of the Ebro river, home to just under 2,200 inhabitants, Cenicero's name does indeed translate as 'ashtray', and the remains of fires is thought to be the reason.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

NATIONAL health authorities in Spain have once again recommended wearing a mask in indoor areas, but have not made this compulsory as yet.

Minister Carolina Darías says an increase in Covid cases means it is 'strongly advisable' to pop a mask on before entering shops, banks, post offices and public-sector offices, as it has already been seen that doing so helps reduce viral contagion.

Regional governments in Madrid, Catalunya and the centre-northern Castilla y León had already made these recommendations to residents ahead of Sra Darías' announcement.

At present, masks are only compulsory on public transport or in healthcare settings such as hospitals, GP surgeries, care homes, pharmacies, fertility clinics, and similar, whilst individual workplaces have been given authority to decide for themselves whether to require their staff to do so.

Outside of healthcare environments, public-facing employees have generally not been obliged to wear masks at work, although many choose to do so, and a significant minority of residents continue to put a mask on when entering a shop.

In general, public health experts do not believe there is any need to take further measures, much less apply restrictions of the type seen throughout practically the whole of 2020 and 2021.

One of the main reasons for the rising number of Covid cases is that the Omicron strain and its variants is much more contagious than its predecessors – although Sra Darías' department explains that it is generally less serious.

People testing positive, and being admitted to hospital, are increasing, but the latter rarely needs to be moved to intensive care and there is far less overall danger to life.

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com

A HIGH-SPEED, low-cost train line now operating in Spain has put tickets on sale for the Madrid-Valencia route for just €9 each way.

Ouigo, owned by French national rail board SNCF, became the first-ever train company to operate in Spain other than RENFE, launching south of the Pyrénées last year.

Its first route was the popular commuter trek, between Madrid and Barcelona, starting on May 10, 2021.

RENFE, the Spanish State rail board, had held a monopoly since its creation, but 2021 saw train travel in the country open up to private competition for the first time.

Now, the second Ouigo connection is set to go live, with three trains in either direction per day.

Latest-generation dual-width Alstom Euroduplex trains, each of which have space for 509 passengers, will link up Madrid's Chamartín-Clara Campoamor station with Spain's third-largest city on the east coast.

It will make use of the new tunnel joining Chamartín with Puerta de Atocha and Torrejón de Velasco which opened on Friday.

With the three-times-daily trains in both directions, Ouigo will be able to transport up to a total of 21,378 passengers between the two cities – a figure it describes as the equivalent of 213 airline flights or 10,689 car journeys, based upon two people per vehicle.

Tickets at €9 for a single trip between Madrid and Valencia, or Valencia and Madrid, include one piece of hand luggage and one checked-in suitcase, plus a buffet carriage.

For an additional €9, travellers can get a 'OuigoPlus' ticket, allowing them a choice of extra-large seats, two suitcases rather than one, and unlimited connection to the OuiFun entertainment platform with films, series, podcasts, games and online magazines at the touch of a button.

Otherwise, passengers who buy the standard €9 ticket can opt to increase this by €3 to get on-board WiFi throughout the journey.

 

Read more at thinkSPAIN.com