steviedeluxe

A big one too - and just €100m

http://www.theolivepress.es/spain-ne...or-only-e100m/

There is a catch though...

Not going to happen, is it?

Fredbargate

Just think with a fairly central position like that Ryanair could fly people to the new Costa del Sol / Costa Brava and all costas in between plus Madrid airport putting all destinations on one plane.

notacontrathinker

The grafitti artists there look a bit short on ideas.

stuboy

Another vanity project. People moan about control from Madrid but at the end of the day most of Spain's woes stem from the their model of Government. The autonomous regions have too much power, the local hacienda has too much power and the local mayor has too much power. They each (the regions) have their own agenda, much like a large management team in many large organizations. Each jockeying for position. There is no such thing as Spanish, they are divided. They are divided along political and social lines. We in the UK may well talk about Geordies. Scousers, Mancunians and Cockneys and stereotype them accordingly. The Spanish do the same with Catalans, Basque, Andalucians and God help you if you come from Murcia. At the end of day we all believe that despite our accents and oddities we are British. It means something to most of us. Most Spaniards identify themselves as x then Spanish and then maybe European. Spain's problems are not going to go away any time soon. For every unused airport there is an under used motorway paid for by EU money. Anyone who has driven let's say from Malaga to Alicante would have enjoyed endless miles of unimaginably quiet and fast roads. Spain is at a crossroads, prior to cheap flights from other European countries it was a piss poor country. It was just awakening from the Franco era, it recognized and seized the opportunities but the love affair is over. And like most divorces you have to move on. Spain has to find new markets and quickly. It has some amazing retail and technological businesses. It still has a strong attraction to more Northern based Europeans because of its weather. Its size and topography provides numerous tourism related opportunities. It needs to ditch all the shitty, badly built, ugly, badly insulated apartment blocks. It needs to get rid of the lager lout (as Dublin has done) Spain is undoubtably a beautiful country in so many ways. I just wish it would pull together and shake off its image of corruption and unfairness.

HBG

Quite an accurate assessment of an extremely large and diverse country on the southern edges of Europe. A massive nation with a glorious and sometimes bloody past, which conquered a large chunk of the world in its glory days.

The crazy building of the noughties, when EU money flooded into the country, was uncontrolled lunacy with rival regions trying to outdo each other and corruption rising to unprecedented levels.

A large sell-off is now underway, and it is failing; it's failing for airports, motorways, museums and tens of thousands of unfinished housing schemes where nobody in their right mind would wish to live.

Spain will recover, the EU will make sure of it, the EU couldn't exist without it, but it will take many years. There is no magic wand, the Russians and Chinese will only make a tiny dent in the proceedings, ditto the British and other Northern European neighbours.

It's a painful time for Spanish people, and the million British expats who live in Spain, of which I am one.

jackytoo

The EU should ask for a repayment for the grants it paid out for useless projects.

Domino

they did try it for a while after they fell out with the great and good of Granada, but there are no operational facilities, it is a huge hike to the AVE and of course RYA didn't factor in that the AVE wouldn't be running at the times they wanted to land/takeoff.
there were no taxi's and as there were no facilities passengers couldn't buy a bottle of water (more profit for RYA).

it was originally intended to be an alternative for Madrid for the low cost operators especially. but the only person who made any money was the crop dusting aircraft (single) that was landing there.

Lets face it, everyone has to land "relatively" near their destination and it is really great fun on holiday to have a large air conditioned coach to take you to your hotel - even if it is over 2 hours away.

`

andyrich666

Do we ?

I am English first, I hate being called British and although it is on my passport now it never used to be, My birth certificate says I am English born in England and that cant be changed, so English, then British (if it has to be) and then maybe European so I guess it is the same for me as it is for them.

I would even go as far to say I was a Londoner (originally) or a Essex boy (now) before English, Brit then European as well. So I think very much some of us would disgaree with your above assumption ?

Its as important to me as it is to them.

cricketman

The EU vetted every project that Spain did, they are as much to blame as Spain are

It is the same with all the money the cajas wasted. Why are most of the cajas on the verge of bankrupcy? Mainly because German banks lent them loads of money with no questions asked, hoping for a good return on it

In this respect, Germany, the EU and Spain are equally to blame and have been equally wasteful

The eyes of bankers lit up when Spain joined the Euro because at that stage the country and its inhabitants had hardly any debt. So it was a great opportunity for foreign institutions to make loads of money by getting the whole country and all its people in debt. They were just as greedy as the Spaniards were who gratefully accepted it all

All the vanity projects were just ways of spending this money in what was thought to be a win-win situation. The mayor gets prestige for the project, the banks make money through the interest payments and the brokers run off with a massive cut. Nobody ever thought whether the project would actually be viable because there was so much money flying around and fortunes to be made! Both legally and illegally

agoreira

The country is awash with failed vanity projects, with unfinished projects all over the country, I wonder how they could get their figures so horribly wrong. Not once, but dozens of times. Where did they think all these people were coming from to use these airports, roads etc. I read of a motorway that will take over 600 years to pay for it at current useage, the number of road users would have to have multiplied many times for it to even pay it's way. Many Spanish blame their woes on joining the EU, well they've been the largest recipient of monies from the EU, they've had billions thrown at it, and pretty much wasted it all. It's a bit like these people you read of that won millions on the UK lottery and are now broke, they squandered the lot. Meanwhile, I see the UK net contribution this year is around 10 billion, we can't imagine what it must be like to be in the reverse situation.

andyrich666

They will have more if they have the Olympics in Madrid ?

steviedeluxe

I see Aggy is bringing in the UK, that great conserver of money. Let's not mention £11 billion down the drain on the NHS IT project shall we? Or the ID cards fiasco. Or the Millenium Dome. Or the Firecontrol project that had to be cancelled. Or various other wasteful govt IT schemes that had to be scrapped. Still, when they spend £40 billion (or is it £50 billion now?) on HS2 no doubt that will be a good investment.
And as for over £300 billion of QE, that's obviously a great investment as it prices out first time buyers in the UK, and makes the currency weak.
Incidentally whilst Spain has 152 airports, the UK has 462 !!! Many of those are old military bases, that are waiting for suitable buyers such as housing estate developers to get the local permission.

Dick Dasterdly

Well I suppose we should be used to it by now.

It's more or less standard Spanish policy, as has been the case for a very long time, to build first and think later.

jackytoo

Well at least they wasted their own money, they didn't expect other countries to fork out for it

Dick Dasterdly

Quite.

I really don't know what else Stevie expected ?

He started the thread knowing full well that it was yet another Spanish Vanity project gone down the plughole, then spit his dummy because ppl. started discussing it and other similar dead loss projects ?

Apparently I'm on ignore, ..again,.... J2,.... so I hope you don't mind me directing my comments in your direction.