With a population of just 300, Frias is Spain’s smallest city See page 14
CITY LIFE but not as you know it
Princess in her fairytale The little house that has been turned into a picture perfect home
BUYERS BEWARE ROAD signs have appeared in Torrevieja warning that people face €200 fines for people buying from illegal street sellers - but everyone seems to be ignoring them. The yellow and black hoardings have been erected in areas which see the largest concentration of the so-called ‘looky looky’ men. Nevertheless they have had close to zero impact as buying and selling has continued as normal right by the signs. The unlicenced traders mainly sell fake sports-related goods, taking up pitches along the city’s main promenade between Hombre de Mar right up to the end of Avenida de los Marineros at Playa de Cura. Three warning signs are now in place along the Paseo de Juan Aparicio and two at Los Naufragos beach. Other areas covered are La Mata, Los Locos, and El Curahas, with more signs planned. The initiative started last year with signs going up, but they were taken down within hours and there were no reports of any customers being penalised. The new crop of warning signs has been erected at a higher level and within the viewing range of security cameras. Increased patrols of plain-clothed police officers have also been promised. Legitimate businesses have complained for years that their livelihoods are being threatened by the vendors. Torrevieja council has been battling the illegal hawkers since 2010 with little success as the authority said it got little support from the Guardia Civil and Policia Nacional.
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Vol. 5 Issue 119
www.theolivepress.es
July 11th - July 24th 2024
Whitewash claims as former leaders who oversaw Spain’s biggest corruption scandal could avoid prison THEY oversaw the biggest public money fraud in Spanish history, syphoning €680 million into a pot of cash known as the ‘reptile fund’. Dwarfing all other corruption scandals that have plagued the country, it saw politicians famously redirect public funds from Brussels and Madrid into secret bank accounts. The enormous slush fund - which was meant to help struggling businesses, create new ones or to help pay redundancies - was instead spent on friends, families and paying off enemies. Yet the sentences handed down to former PSOE leaders Jose Antonio Griñan and Manuel Chaves, convicted of overseeing the huge theft, could soon be overturned.
By Walter Finch
In an extraordinary judgement, the Constitutional Court in Madrid has already significantly reduced the sentences of 15 politicians who were convicted in Andalucia’s infamous ERE scandal. The decision has led to the slamming of Pedro Sanchez’s government with claims he is ‘pardoning his PSOE friends and covering up his party’s past.’ The decade-long scandal involved many senior figures of the party, including Chaves, a former vice president of the PSOE in Madrid. The most infamous abuse of power saw an ex-Employment Minister and his driver set up two bogus companies, which were handed €350,000 each
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PARDONED: Chaves and Griñan oversaw €680m corruption scandal
in grants. Javier Guerrero and his so-called ‘Cocaine chauffeur’ infamously spent much of the money on prostitutes, cocktails and drugs, after knocking off work at 2pm. “We knew exactly what those funds were used for, and it was certainly not for the general interest or progress,” said PP minister Ana Mestre this week. “If they governed today,
Covid returns REPORTED cases of Covid have rocketed six-fold in the Valencian Community compared to a year ago. The latest figures from the end of June show 221 cases per 100,000 people in the region - a similar figure to last Christmas when mask-wearing was ordered in all hospitals and clinics. A year ago, the infection rate was just 37 cases per 100,000. Figures for people hospitalised with the coronavirus are now 2.6 people - average age 79 - per 100,000 admitted compared to a rate of just 0.6 in early June.
the PSOE would just do it all over again.” But this hasn’t stopped Madrid’s Constitutional court from significantly reducing the sentences of 12 of the convicted 15 politicians. Former ministers Antonio Fernandez, Francisco Vallejo and Jesus Rodríguez will now all walk free. And, incredibly, the six year sentence handed to Griñan for his involvement between 2000 and 2009 is to be overturned as well. A draft ruling, expected to be approved next week, will mean Griñan never sees the inside of a prison cell. Chaves is also likely to see his nineyear disqualification from public office quashed. The rulings, which were confirmed by seven votes to four, were opposed by the four conservative judges, who accused the court of granting ‘immunity’ to former PSOE officials. Antonio Sanz, a PP minister at the Junta de Andalucia, declared his party would ‘still do everything possible to recover all the stolen money.’ “No matter how much the PSOE tries to erase its past of corruption, it will not be able to cover up the biggest case of corruption in the history of Spanish democracy,” he added.