st be g ’s ma ain rty sh Sp pe Engli pro in
From Conquistador palaces to palatial railway stations, the 10 hot new hotels to kick your heels this year, PLUS celebrating the Spanish designs P of Europe’s top architects roperty
Kick off your heels at Spain’s hottest new hotels See page 6
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May 2023
Find our 32-page PROPERTY magazine inside
OLIVE PRESS
Tragic death of hiking guru
Page 5
Freed by a brushstroke The Andalucian slave turned by Velazquez into a master
Page 14
Under a rock
Discover stunning Setenil...possibly the coolest village in Spain
Page 20
FREE
Golden Millionaire See Partners in Design
page 22
SPAIN’S golden visa pected to survive… scheme is ex- Spain’s Golden but it’s going to Visa double in price. rise to €1 million andscheme to survive… but investment While Portugal and threshold it could encourage Ireland recently scrapped their programmes, spending in less-populatedlikely to vestments of more than €1 million By Walter Finch the visa scheme is expected in Spain But the government areas in deposits or shares of Spanish capwas quick to vestment. to be extended. deny his claims, insisting ital companies, or more the minis- However, than €2 milGovernment sources It comes after left try lion in government it has been frequently wing political tiveswas actually looking at alterna- icised bonds. crit- Certain only those investing indicate that party Mas Pais claimed with suggestions from for €1million or that Spain’s various sures and creating inflationary pres- fessionalsdesirable highly skilled promore will be given came under scrutiny and family reunification a three-year res- Social Security Ministry had provi- political parties. for idency permit. sionally confirmed it was to scrap One of these is to allow investment encouraging black money into the cases are also eligible for this resiA source told El Pais the scheme. but only in less-populated Spanish economy. dency permit without will be doubled from that the figure Leader Inigo Errejon socially beneficial projects.areas or in Currently, the scheme In 2022, Spain grantedinvestment. claimed the 2,462 golden allows forof €500,000 invested the current total scheme had led to a ‘brutal’ increase Introduced in 2013 in the wake of eigners to obtain a three-year resi- visas to property investors, an inas an investment in a in real estate or in house prices, adding: the Euro crisis, the dence Spanish company. scheme was in- two, permit, extendable for another crease of nearly 60% from the pre“Spanish cit- tended izenship cannot be bought”. vious year. Only a by investing at least as a means to re-inflate handful invested €500,000 in in companies the real estate, excluding housing market through or government bonds. any mortgages. foreign in- The mechanism also applies to in- Since the scheme began some 31,000 people have acquired a golden visa.
ANDALUCÍA
The Final walk for ‘Peter Pan’
Swiss salute!
A MAJOR global exhibition is to recognise work of architectural the giants Herzog & ron, as they reach De Meutheir 45th anniversary. The Royal Academy ring the Swiss pair’s show, in London, is explohealthy half dozen incredible designs, with a built in Spain. These include (from top left) the Forum, Madrid’s CaixaForum and Barcelona remarkable 2007 (main) the HQ Since 1978 the pair of Spanish bank, BBVA. have grafted on jects, many yet to be built, including 600 proFrontera’s City of Jerez de la Flamenco.
Vol. 17 Issue 419
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Your expat
voice in Spain May 17th - May 30th 2023
Nº1 if it comes to
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952 58 75 73
SYSTEM FAILURE
A GIANT two thirds of British voters have been eliminated from the electoral roll for the forthcoming May elections. A staggering 61,500 expats have lost the right to vote in the May 28 council elections. The 63% drop comes with a large percentage of British residents failing to re-register their right to vote by the January deadline. Figures from the National Statistics Institute (INE) show the giant fall in non-Spanish participation with councils putting it down to lower British registrations. The number of British expats registered to vote in the last local elections in 2019 (97,585) has now dropped to just 36,543 residents, the official stats reveal. The alarming drop of 61,042 people has come about as a consequence of Brexit with British residents now having to separately register to vote every four years, as well as joining the padron. They are no longer automatically included on the roll.
Two thirds of Brits scythed from the electoral roll for May elections By Alex Trelinski & Alberto Lejarraga
Data shows that Brits represent just 8.8% of the foreigners registered to vote in Spain this year, a considerable decrease from 21% in 2019. Just 10,713 British expats are registered to vote in Andalucia with half of them living in Malaga province. This is a ‘system failure’, according to expat councillor Scott Marshall, in Benahavis. The Councillor of Tourism blamed it on unnecessary paperwork and a failure to better explain the new rules. “Because of bureaucracy, British residents have had to re-register again and many of them did not remember or realise on time,” he told the Olive Press. Mijas councillor Bill Anderson agreed. “The numbers don’t surprise me as many Brits got caught short with the
registration process,” he told the Olive Press. “We were not notified until the last minute and there was a lot of confusion,” he added. However, the Scottish expat does not believe it’s the only reason for the low participation. “There is always a degree of apathy in the international community with regards to participating in local elections,” he continued. “For example, only 8% of the foreigners registered to vote in the 2019 elections actually did so,” he explained. Meanwhile on the Costa Blanca it is a similar story. Taking the town of San Fulgencio, as an example, in the 2019 municipal elections, 57% of the electorate was fore i g n , while this
VICTORIA
time the percentage has fallen to 38%, accounting for 1,728 non-Spaniards. San Fulgencio councillor, Darren Parmenter, said: “Many people didn't know what to do and this is despite us publicising registration information.” The mayor of San Miguel de Salinas, Juan de Dios meanwhile, has predicted problems on polling day with registered foreign voters now down to 11% in his municipality. “We will see people turning out to polling stations that have voted for years who will discover for the first time they are not on the register,” he warned the Olive Press. Despite most media groups publicising on how to register to vote, most British expats have missed out on a fundamental right to express their views on who should be running their local services. Opinion Page 6
The King and I
EXCLUSIVE: Our man at the Coronation, See page 6
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