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Spanish News Today Editors Roundup Weekly Bulletin Sept 29
FEATURED ARTICLES: "Corvera Airport will have a new international destination for summer 2024" and "The retirement age in Spain is going up"
In the Spanish Catholic religious calendar, Friday September 29 is the Feast of San Miguel, or Saint Michael. When the whether is unseasonably hot on the day of San Miguel (remember we’re in autumn now), the Spanish say they’re having a ‘Veranillo de San Miguel’ or a small St. Michael’s summer, which is basically the equivalent in English of an Indian summer.
It almost seems impossible to have had the torrential rains of earlier in September, what with the hot and sunny weather more suited to the heights of summer, we enter October with a whole host of exciting news for you.
There’s a Harvest Super Moon in the skies this weekend, exciting changes to international flight rules on the horizon, an equally new destination planned from the controversial Region of Murcia airport for summer 2024, and not-so-exciting changes to the retirement age in Spain.
Plus, a couple of extras which are truly out of this world… ready to lift off!
Flying away on a wing and a prayer…
Travellers from the UK can look forward to another year of stress-free travel as the Spanish government has announced that it won’t be implementing the ETIAS visa waiver scheme until at least 2025, rather than at the end of this year as was originally planned.
ETIAS – European Travel Information and Authorisation System – is a special permit for travel within the Schengen zone, similar to the ESTA scheme required for entry into the United States. Once it’s in force, Brits and other third-country nationals aged between 18 and 70 will have to apply and pay for the permit before visiting any of the 27 member states. Over-70s will also need to apply for the ETIAS, but it will be free.
The cause for the delay seems to be a second blunder with a new airport initiative known as the EES, or the Entry/Exit System. This will be a new type of scanner that automatically registers the passports of third country citizens each time they cross an EU border, and is intended to speed up the airport security process while keeping tighter control on visa requirements and such restrictions as the 90-in-180 rule, which states that Brits can only spend 90 days out of every 180 in Spain or on European soil.
The trouble is that the ETIAS visa waiver and the EES go hand in hand, and the travel permit system can’t be rolled out properly until the Entry/Exit procedure is up and running for at least five or six months.
At the moment, the planned launch for the EES is still sometime in 2024, with Brussels expected to lock in a date before the end of this year. For now, Britons can rest easy knowing that the go-live date of ETIAS won’t happen before May 2025, at the earliest.
If that wasn’t enough to take some of the hassle out of flying, we could all soon be boarding planes with free hand luggage if Brussels has its way. This week, members of the Petitions Committee of the European Parliament have unanimously voted in favour of demanding that airlines operating within the EU stop charging passengers for carry-on bags, as a small piece of luggage is considered “essential” for travel.Most people have been stung at least once by the strict policies of the low-cost airlines, many of whom only permit travellers to take a tiny handbag or backpack on board free of charge. Anything larger and passengers have to pay extra.
Several budget carriers including Ryanair, Vueling and easyJet came under the scrutiny of the EU Court of Justice back in August over their unfair luggage policies and the ruling reiterated that all airlines should, in theory, allow free a carry-on, once it meets “reasonable requirements” regarding its weight and dimensions.
And the changes could be coming soon, since the resolution is set to be approved in the Plenary Session of Strasbourg as early as October!
Look up to the skies and see!
There’s still time to catch the very last supermoon of the year, but only just. One of nature’s truly spectacular shows, the Harvest Super Moon, will reach its zenith on the night of Saturday September 30, but it will actually be visible above Spain to some degree a few days before and after this.
A supermoon is so-called because it occurs when the moon is closest to the Earth and appears particularly bright. This Friday’s Harvest Super Moon is the fourth and final one of 2023. The Harvest Moon is always closest to the date of the autumn equinox in the Northern Hemisphere and, according to legend, the brightness of the full moon allowed farmers harvest their crops well into the night, hence the name.
Retirement age in Spain goes up
Last week we told you about the extension to the UK state pension scheme which will give Brits in Spain (and elsewhere) the chance to fill any gaps in their National Insurance contributions that could stop them receiving a full UK pension.
This week, there is news for anyone who has paid their National Insurance payments in Spain – better known as Social Security or ‘Seguridad Social’ – and it’s not necessarily good news.
If you’ve ever worked in Spain and paid into the Seguridad Social public pension pot, you will be eligible for a Spanish state pension, not to mention unemployment benefits and other benefits.
But here’s the rub: the retirement age in Spain is due to increase over the next four years.
Yes, the Spanish government has decreed that, starting from 2024, the retirement age will start going up progressively until 2027, meaning anyone working in Spain will have to keep the nose to the grindstone for that much longer to be able to retire with a 100% pension payment.
As of 2023, the current retirement age in Spain in 66 years and 4 months. From January 1, 2024, this will go up by two months and people who work in Spain and who have paid their Social Security contributions for more than 37 years and 9 months will be able to retire when they reach the age of 66 years and 6 months.
Anyone over the age of 65 who has paid Social Security for more than 38 years will be able to access ordinary retirement with 100% of their pension.
These gradual increases in the retirement age will continue every year until 2027, by which point it will reach the age of 67.
Is it me or does it feel like the more you work, the further away retirement feels?
Murcia
The big news for the Region of Murcia this week was the announcement by the regional president, Fernando López Miras, that Corvera Airport will have a new international flight destination for summer 2024.
It’s no secret that the Region of Murcia International Airport has had a disappointing July and August, with passenger numbers not quite where airport management and tourism bosses would like them to be, and far below the figures that San Javier airport saw 10 years ago.
But things are going full steam ahead and the regional powers are determined to make a success of it, adding new flight destinations for later this year and for next summer.
As well as the domestic flights to Madrid and Barcelona coming at the end of this year, either November or December, which we already knew about, the new announcement this week has been that there will be flights to the city of Porto in northern Portugal for the summer 2024 flight season.
It is maybe not the flight destination many were expecting or hoping for, with many preferring international connections with more UK airports and others in the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and more. But flights to Portugal are a start, and Porto really is a lovely city if you’ve never been.
Other suggestions to try and boost airport traffic numbers are not reducing the number of flight destinations so much in winter, but keeping the same flight paths all year round. Currently, there are 20 destinations you can fly to from Murcia (and from which you can fly to Murcia), including 9 airports in the UK, but many of these will be dropped from the end of October when the summer flight season comes to an end and the winter schedule kicks in.
This year has actually been a bumper one in terms of tourism to Murcia, with one million visitors and three million overnight stays between January and August, and a growth rate that is the fourth largest of any autonomous community in Spain, just behind the Balearic Islands, the Valencian Community and Andalucía.
And it seems that many of those visitors are being lured to stay in the Region, with Cartagena recently coming top of a list of the best-value place in Spain for foreigners to live.
Murcia’s foremost port city of Cartagena in the Region of Murcia has risen above every other city to be voted the cheapest and most desirable place in Spain for foreigners to move to. This is according to the Moving To Spain website, which, as its name suggests, specialises in advising expats on relocating.
The good value for money is what helped Cartagena to pip other Spanish cities to the post, with the average price of a long-term let coming in at just 525 euros per month and basic services costing 95.94 euros per month, a fraction of the price of the other cities in the rating.
Overall, Cartagena scored 6.76 points out of a possible 10, followed by Getafe, Madrid (6.29) and Oviedo in Asturias (6.00). Murcia city also appears on the list, occupying sixth position with a respectable score of 5.71.
You might think, though, that one would be put off coming to the Region of Murcia if it’s been declared a disaster zone, which is what the Spanish government declared this week. It sounds dramatic, but in reality this designation – officially known as a ‘Zone Seriously Affected by a Civil Protection Emergency’ – has been extended to 28 areas of Spain following the heavy rainstorms at the beginning of September.
The DANA storm that swept through Spain on September 2 caused untold damage, including fatalities, landslides, power cuts, railway disruption, bridges downed and whole communities cut off. In Murcia, especially, the damage was centred around the crops that were lost due to the torrential rain, and in that sense the new categorisation of the area as a Catastrophe Zone is really a good thing.
You see, the fact that the storm damage has been recognised as being so severe allows the affected communities to request aid money from the government for repairs, using these funds to rebuild communities and recoup farmers for their losses.
Talking of losses in the community, there are still thousands of schoolchildren across the Region who have been left without public school buses to be able to get to class. Although we’re almost in October already and kids have been back to school for about a month now, the regional contract with the transportation company never materialised.
Students, parents and educators have joined forces to protest loudly about the lamentable situation, and have taken the opportunity to highlight other school failures in Murcia, including pre-fab classrooms being used on a more permanent basis than they should be and insufficient school meals.
Parents say they are taking it in turns to carpool and ferry children to school, but this stopgap solution is really not good enough and it’s time for the regional authorities to step up and supply public transportation for children to be able to get to school, something they say they are “working tirelessly” towards doing “in the shortest time possible”, which by the looks of things may not be until January 2024!
What the folks at City Hall in Murcia capital have been able to get a contract for, after two years of absences, is the giant, iconic Christmas tree that is usually installed in the Plaza Circular. The tree was missing for the last two Christmases, an oversight the authorities blamed on Covid but which was really a contracting error with the decoration company. This year, the Council is determined to bring the popular tree back and has already opened up the tender process for any companies interested in offering this service to bid for it. It’s never too early to start thinking about Christmas!In the spirit of which, if you’re looking for the perfect Christmas gift for that special someone this year (or you fancy a bit of relaxation and beauty therapy yourself!), check out one of these thermal spas, thalassotherapy centres and other anti-stress facilities where you can enjoy a bit of TLC!
From the ‘balnearios’ in Archena, Fortuna and Isla Plana to the spas located in hotels and resorts up and down the Region, there is no shortage of opportunities for you and your loved ones to disconnect from the stress of everyday life and treat yourselves to a little health and beauty therapy.
Check out our EVENTS DIARY for more ideas of what to do in the Region of Murcia:
Spain
A plane full of passengers flying to Spain from Glasgow recently had a horrifying ordeal. Jet2 light LS189 to Palma in Mallorca, carrying 187 passengers and six crew, was forced into a holding pattern due to a storm raging in Spain, and spent more than an hour circling the skies above the airport at 35,000 feet.
As a result, the plane came dangerously close to running out of fuel, and the pilot had no choice but to radio down and request an emergency landing. According to official sources, his distress call indicated that “if they remained in flight, they would land with less than 1,159 kilos of fuel.”
Just in the nick of time, the plane was given priority landing and the plane touched down in Mallorca three hours and 26 minutes after takeoff.
Earlier this week, a 57-year-old UK citizen died in a motorcycle accident in northern Spain. The victim was travelling over a winding mountain pass near the town of San Pedro del Romeral in Cantabria when he came off his bike.
An ambulance rushed to the El Puerto de la Matalena pass and transferred the badly injured Brit to the Marques de Valdecilla University Hospital in nearby Santander, but he sadly died just moments after arriving.
The ever-controversial tradition of bull ‘sports’ has been dealt another blow this week after a man was gored to death during an annual bullrunning event in Valencia.
A brief but harrowing video clip shows the moment the bull was released from his cage on the streets of Pobla de Farnales and immediately made a beeline for spectators, who were lining the road.
Dozens of people were watching the spectacle behind a gate but the victim and his friend can be seen climbing through the bars to goad the animal. The father of two was pierced by the bull’s horns as many as four times, one of the attacks damaging his lung and liver. He was rushed to the Hospital Clínico de València for emergency surgery but sadly died a short time later.
Y en la Pobla de Farnals sigue el arte en la calle. Un arte en el que la cornamenta del artista ha dejado un muerto y un herido grave, es que no aprenden... 🔊🎵🎶😛 pic.twitter.com/2tPoYmXrJa
— El Ratón Pirulero (@RatonPiruleroEl) September 24, 2023
The victim’s 63-year-old friend was gored in the legs by the same bull but he is understood to be in a stable condition in hospital.
Alicante
Having waited the entire year for the most rudimentary beach facilities, Orihuela Costa tourists and locals are furious that the makeshift chemical toilets installed by the council half way through the summer have already been removed, despite the fact that the weather is still scorching and the beaches are heaving with sunbathers.
Due to a botch-up with contracts, the chiringuitos, or beach bars, who are also responsible for the area’s bathrooms, sunbeds and umbrellas, haven’t been allowed to open this year. Those who frequent the Orihuela Costa will remember a similar debacle a couple of summers ago.
Eventually, the newly-elected Orihuela City Council got its act together and installed temporary toilets at the beaches, but these were unceremoniously shut on September 15 when the contract ran out.
For the Cabo Roig y Lomas Neighborhood Association, the decision to only sign a contract for the toilets until mid-September is “incomprehensible”, since the mild climate means that the high season on the Orihuela Costa runs well into October, if not November.
Now, many Orihuela Costa residents have long felt neglected by their governing City Council, who have been accused of funnelling money that is badly needed on the coast into more urban projects. And it’s fair to say that locals have a fair bit to grumble about this autumn, since it seems yet another contracting mess means the resort’s green areas and parks won’t be pruned.
This time around, the problem is with some “alleged irregularities” detected in the tender process and while the Valencian Anti-Fraud Agency is investigating, the new five-year maintenance contract, worth 10 million euros, won’t be issued.
But the Neighbourhood Association has its hands full with all manner of complaints, which is brought to Councillor for the Coast Manuel Mestre earlier in the summer while demanding an urgent shock plan to tackle the many ongoing issues. Orihuela Costa is still waiting for this shock plan to materialise, in case you were wondering.
Among the main concerns are the state of the roads around Villamartín and the pruning of palm trees throughout the Costa, which hasn’t been carried out for two years. The group has also asked Orihuela Council to carry out long-needed repairs at La Caleta beach in Cabo Roig and to finally greenlight the pedestrian bridge over a lethal stretch of the AP7 near Lomas de Cabo Roig.
For its part, the council has agreed to reopen the Aguamarina cliff-top promenade, but prompt rubbish collection and street cleaning still leaves a lot to be desired.
The Association has complained about “the lack of specific dates and commitments by the Coast Council, despite its good intentions and interest, to immediately carry out the measures included in our proposed shock plan,” which the group believes would lead to “a change of image and things starting to work in Orihuela Costa”.
An area where there’s seemingly no lack of ready cash is in commercial development, as residents of the coastal Playa Flamenca district are learning. A stone’s throw away from the shoreline, this bustling area is filled with pretty homes, bars, restaurants and small local businesses.
But if one development company gets its way, then the natural beauty of this central neighbourhood could be complemented by a towering 10-storey office block.
Commercial company ‘Villas Don Quijote’ has submitted plans to Orihuela City Council to build the tower on the site where the Mercadona supermarket currently stands, right off the N-332 and on the front line of the beach.The company’s proposal, which has only been opened up for public viewing in the last few days, suggests keeping the existing commercial floor space as it is but building up, going from the current permitted one floor to between six and ten. In addition, 1,338 square metres of new green area is planned between the front of the plot and the N-332 roundabout.
In theory, the site is perfect for this kind of venture and crucially, the land isn’t affected by the local rule that prohibits infrastructure within 500 metres of the coastline, since the plot was already built upon before this law came into force.
For now, the proposal will remain on public display for 30 days, during which time local residents or other businesses can raise objections to the development.
If you’re hungry for a day out with a difference, Torrevieja has not one, but two, exciting culinary events coming up. This weekend, the Vega Baja city will play host to the seventh edition of the International Tapas Day on Saturday September 30.
For one day only, customers will be able to sample a delicious tapa and a beverage for just 3.50 euros from 13 different establishments.
Hungry diners will have an opportunity to try some of the most famous dishes in Spain including mini ‘cachopo’ – a gooey, cheesy meat feast which hails from Asturias – plus black rice, Castilian casserole, Serrano ham and cheese croquettes and ‘arepas’, which are corn patties stuffed with meat and vegetables.
Once your taste buds have been sufficiently tickled, make your way to Torrevieja’s Park of Nations from October 11-15 for a gastronomic event with a difference. Celebrating its five-day Street Food Market, this well-loved avenue will come alive with concerts and DJ sessions, children’s activities, a vintage market packed full of artisan products and no fewer than 12 food trucks offering themed cuisine from all over the world!
Check out the Costa Blanca What’s On and Where to Go Facebook group to see more things to do around Alicante province!
Andalucía
Travelling to the cosmopolitan city of Barcelona from Malaga will become more convenient than ever this autumn with the announcement from Renfe that two new high-speed AVEs will run the route every day from Tuesday October 17.
The first trip will depart from the Costa del Sol station at 8.30am and the second will leave Barcelona at 3.15pm. With these additional services, Renfe now offers 12,000 seats per week between the two cities.
Waterproofing works to tracks are still ongoing on nine viaducts in the province of Córdoba but these are due to finish up on the same date, at which point the schedules for the AVE and Avlo trains between Malaga and the Barcelona will change.
All of the new timetables are available on the Renfe website and tickets can currently be purchased for travel until December next year.
Maybe you’ve been to Andalucía before and it was nice, but you feel like if you go again you’d want to try something totally different. If you get the chance to visit the province of Almería, there’s little more recommendable than a trip to one of its many hidden caves.
The passage of centuries has created an incredible underground world in Almería, a hidden labyrinth of crystals and stalactites beneath the arid landscape.
From the Cuevas de Sorbas cave network at the eastern end of the Tabernas Desert, with its innumerable crystalline formations of columns; to the Geode of Pulpí, right near the border with Murcia, which has guided tours to see the stunning walls covered with enormous gypsum crystals; and the Cueva de Los Letreros in Vélez-Blanco, the UNESCO World Heritage site where there are several cave paintings that are believed to have been made by the first settlers in the southeast of Spain; there is no shortage of natural wonders for you to visit in the earth beneath Almería.
Or, if you prefer to stick above ground, there is a fascinating event taking place this Saturday, September 30, in the Cabo de Gata town of Mojácar. This is the “Night of the Candles 2023”, when the old town is spectacularly lit by more than 8,000 candles all along the streets, in nooks and crannies, as well as in shop windows and private homes, creating a truly magical atmosphere.
Several towns around Spain have similar events nowadays, but in Mojácar this weekend the Candle Night will be marked out by the fact that there will be several free, open-air concerts starting at 9pm in many of the town’s squares and plazas, including bilingual folk-flamenco-pop from Ashley Cathcart.
All participants have been asked to go along wearing white to add to the special atmosphere, and since it will be so dark it will also be a great place to be able to see the supermoon in the sky!
You may have missed…
- Third time lucky for Spanish space rocket lift-off next month.
They say that the third time’s the charm and that’s certainly the hope of Elche company PLD Space, whose rocket ‘Miura 1’ is scheduled for yet another launch attempt next month after two failed attempts so far this year. - Work will finally begin to demolish Murcia’s Lagomar ‘Ghost Building’ building in October.
The demolition work on the structure of the Lagomar building, located in La Manga del Mar Menor and abandoned since the 1970s, will finally begin in October 2023 and is expected to finish in January 2024. - British woman dies after cosmetic surgery operation in Spain.
A British woman has died after suffering “a series of complications” during a cosmetic surgery operation in Palma de Mallorca. - School stabbing shocks Spain.
A 14-year-old child was arrested this Thursday for stabbing three teachers and two other students at his high school in Jerez de la Frontera, Spain. - Spanish company vows to take 10,000 tourists to space within the decade.
Fancy a holiday with a difference? How about something out of this world? If you can hold off for a few years, the company Halo Space might just have the trip for you as it’s committed to shuttling 10,000 tourists to the outer realms within the decade...
That’s all for this week. As ever, thanks for reading your weekly bulletin. We hope you liked it, and we’ll be back with another next weekend.
See you then!
