Europe On The Threshold Of Poverty: The Stories Of Readers Of Spain

Joe Haslam, professor at IE Business School in Madrid, writes:

John Hooper, in his book The Spanish new "lush garden flower is sweet Andalusian Spain, but the powder keg" and recalls a lunch with Adolfo Suárez and the Prime Minister. "What made you lose sleep at night?" Hooper asked. A coup, ETA, oil prices, the social security budget out of control? Suarez said that if something was going to lose sleep, it would Andalusia.

[Joe recommend this product to understand the situation of the banks - and this second article on the difficulties of starting a business in Spain]

The article says: "I have lived here for eight years now, The story here is that while things have changed socially (free speech), they have not changed the policy (the same families still run instead) ..

Mr. Dale, a Spanish journalist who works for LaVanguardia.com Barcelona, ​​writes about extravagance of the State in Catalonia, "the jewels we could not"

Corbins is a village of 1300 people who have spent € 2 million to a theater that is now closed. It is too expensive to open, because [the authorities] can not afford to light, air conditioning, water bills, or pay for employees.

Blanes (Girona, population 40,000) has a stadium with a capacity of 4000 people. The city has obtained a loan of € 30 million from a bank today, the village must pay 50% of the loan, and pay on a stadium that cost € 1 million a year just to stay open.

Pont de suerte (Pyrenees, the population in 2500) spent € 3.5 million swimming pool.

Córdoba punished [Rafael Gomez, a developer] with € 24 million to build a late 40,000 square meters of industrial-without permission. Gomez does? Last December, he created a political party, RUE, who was in the May 22 election for mayor. Gomez is the second largest political party, Córdoba, and represents his party in urban planning, the public body has been punished by a fine of € 24 million.

Ariane Higham writes:

I live in Cabanillas del Campo, Spain. In the last month I met Maite, an Argentine biochemist working in a bakery, and Javier, a Spanish engineer working as a street cleaner. Unskilled unemployed do not hold much hope of finding a job when they discover others in unemployment masters incumbent.

I attended a course of unemployed last year with a local company called Cabanillas-Net. They usually have a section on how to apply for jobs and perform well in interviews, but even the instructor admitted it would be difficult to find work and suggested that people start their own businesses.

A number of people working in hospitals are not paid for some time this year, including some of the parents of the school I teach. A high number of new buildings are empty throughout the region. There are also stories on the news about people in Madrid in search of food in supermarket tanks.

Fortunately, my boyfriend and I still have jobs. I work as an English teacher and he is a German firm BASF.

Colin Brooks writes:

As you may know, October 15 there will be demonstrations throughout Spain, including Malaga as part of a coordinated global protests, calls for greater economic justice and democratic participation in response to this crisis.

Many of those attending the event will be the people who live on the poverty line or whose lives have been affected by unemployment, evictions and cuts in education, health and other public sector and those who are simply tired of pay for the greed and incompetence of the financial and political elites.

Platform Affected By Mortgage is also of interest - they are a platform for citizens fighting to stop housing evictions. The hundreds of thousands of evictions have taken place since the collapse of the housing bubble is one of the most dramatic consequences of the crisis in Spanish private debt, and the difference in treatment of bank owners who can not to continue mortgage payments and the processing status of banks in financial difficulties is one of the issues currently causing most public outrage.

Cristina Pozo also mentions the 'Plataforma de por la Afectados Hipoteca:

They try to help the large number of people losing their properties because they can not pay their mortgages because of unemployment in the current crisis.

The law in Spain means that even if the bank can take possession of your property will still pay the remaining debts to the bank, then you lose the property and must pay for it until the debt has been resolved (without the possibility of acting Instead of closure, which is the most important question of the association).

In the period January to June this year had more than 30,000 orders for the restoration, when it was the number of orders throughout 2009. Last year ended with more than 45 000 orders for the return.

To date, the union gathered enough support to achieve a legislative initiative in the Spanish Congress to amend the law and introduce your knees rather than as an opportunity (in Spain, you can ask Congress to amend certain laws by collecting half a million signatures).

But political parties in Congress blocked the initiative and with the election on November 20, it will probably be next year.

Meanwhile, others are asking the support of citizens to assemble a single readmission of certain assets occurs, try to stop him. This helped them to gather media attention needed to make this problem known to everyone in the country.

Contrary to what seems to be the most important message in the media in Europe and the United States, we are not lazy and we have a lot of people who are well prepared, but not opportunities. Therefore, for the first time in many years, people flee the country. 2011 is the first year we have a population of less rather than more.

Natalia Muñoz-Casayús wrote:

In May, among others, Real Democracia Ya, I helped start the public protests that occurred in Spain in recent months. Every week to meet with the neighbors meeting, discussing the impact of recent cuts in public education.

For years, the opposition party (PP), soon to be the government has focused on public schools to private and religious schools. Teachers and parents who participated in the movement found the courage to go on strike and refuse to recent action by the Regional Government of Madrid (and Castilla-La Mancha and Galicia).

And we believe it is just a taste of things to come after the November general election. In this video you can see me (I'm the first person interviewed, a pink sign).

Alicia Wood wrote:

We are based in Asturias in the north and especially the sad story of how the new cultural center, designed by Oscar Niemeyer, is to close after opening in March of this year, the region can not afford to use it.

It 'been a lot of optimism about the future of Aviles, the city's industrial working class, because the center is built, seemed to have the same effect as the Guggenheim in Bilbao. He brought a world-class acts in our area, and the likes of Brad Pitt and Woody Allen (who is director of the Center), and renewed pride in what was a dirty, rundown city.

Many new businesses have opened in the region, to provide "onslaught" of tourists who are likely to close as well.

Jessie Fletcher writes:

I live in Málaga. Have spent the last 10 years abroad and returned to Spain in March. Now I'm in the middle of some hunting to the use of torture to move to London because this thing is dead. I thought after 10 years abroad, I could return to Spain (I'm half Spanish), but this country is actually less.

I have also stories of local people around me, and my father in the city of Cordoba, who runs his own business, a tavern that used to be full almost every night and is now fighting with no one sitting at the table. Spain is a strange place right now.

Kevin Lane wrote:

One of the untold stories big question is how municipalities and municipalities in Spain went bankrupt after the boom and bust of recent years. The City Line (next to Gibraltar, an hour from Malaga airport) is in ruins and has not paid its employees for months. There are demonstrations every day, but without any money coming in, it is difficult to see where you pay.

I'm from Gibraltar, so I followed this news with enthusiasm, especially when the protesters to block access to and from Gibraltar, as part of its strategy.