spainrico

See El Pais

https://english.elpais.com/politics/...very-fund.html

Retired in Euskadi

Easy. Many politicians and others involved will want to line their pockets.
Expect to see many cases of yet more corruption in a few years' time.
Apologies for being cynical; a bad habit.

spainrico

Yes if there are going to be loads of high-value contracts flying around for new roads, buildings, etc then doubtless many will be adding to their pension funds.

Still, the good news is its EU money and if much of it is grants then maybe we won't end up paying for it.

VFR

The tax payer always ends up paying !

Barriej

Being a bit of a cynic.

Im expecting the 'grants' to go to the likes of Germany, France, Holland, Belgium and the 'loans' to the rest. Namely Italy, Spain and Greece.

Grants will be free money, the loans will allow the richer countries to exploit the poorer ones and end up owning them. Which if Im honest is exactly what any good business would do...

At the end of the day as has already been said The tax payer always foots the bill.

VFR

m2m2012

72 Billion? Not enough!!!

What's it like on the ground in Spain at the moment? Are you starting to see and hear about the economic pain the media is reporting? Here's a story of people selling gold to buy bread:

“Hi. Can you tell me if this earring is made of gold? I want see if it’s worth enough to buy some milk and bread…”
https://english.elpais.com/economy_a...s.html?rel=mas

My parents used to tell me such stories about the great depression and WW2.

Sounds like Spain has been hit for six.

amideislas

I keep hearing about it, but haven't seen it yet. Less crowded than usual for this time of year, but the shopping malls and supermarkets are pretty busy, in the city, it's busy. Cafes and restaurants and bars.. Busy. Beaches are busy, but maybe half of normal.

Now, I don't go to the "resorts" this time of year, for obvious reasons (too packed, expensive, food isn't great) so I haven't actually seen how it is first hand, but my understanding is that the resorts are pretty empty. Hotels closed, not much going on. At least that's what it says in the press.

So, if that's the case, why are there so many tourists here? I recently read that private villas are mostly booked, unlike the hotels. Apparently people feel safer by not being crammed unto a hotel with hundreds of others. Also, villas tend to accommodate 8-16 people, so one villa can be like 8 hotel rooms. Also, it seems luxury accommodation is doing well too.

Luxury tourism takes off in Mallorca

I think perhaps it's again the classic case of two distinct forms
of life here. There's the "resorts", then there's everywhere else.

The "resorts" are comprised mainly of hotels, open from about April to end of October, and in that time, the population shoots up from near zero to jam packed. Starting in November, they're mostly boarded up. Mostly closed. Ghost towns.

"Everywhere else" doesn't change much from summer to winter (except the weather). All the bars and restaurants and shops and supermarkets and the malls stay open all year round and stay sustainably busy.

So, I suspect the reason the decline in tourism isn't so noticeable may be because unless you live in a "resort", the impact of fewer tourists may be hard to detect.

Also, much of the news surrounding the decline in tourism is related to the UK's quarantine policy. But Germans and other Europeans still can freely fly in and out with out problems (I also notice lots of number plates from Germany, NL, Belgium, France, Denmark, etc, so they also appear to be driving) and they've always been the more dominant tourist segment here anyway. And they have money. And those are the voices you hear most right now.

olivefarmer

It is real enough. El Pais reports economy down 18%.

The 72 billion free money is welcome and will do some good infrastructure projects. It will of course attract fraud as these big sums always do. The good news is the EU has overhauled governance to try and limit the usual theft. The bad news is it wont be fully functioning for two more years.