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Half a Million Euros Worth of Property Purchase will Grant Automatically Spanish Residency |
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Buying property for 500.000 Euros will give Non EU automatic residence rights |
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New Energy Saving Efficiency Regulation in Spain |
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Owners of Properties in Spain will need to comply in order to market their homes with Estate Agents |
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Work starts on Malaga Exclusive Airport Shopping Centre |
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The Costa del Sol Malaga Airport, will soon have one of the most exclusive shopping centres in Spain |
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Marbella Malaga Railway Line Under Study |
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Spanish Government study technical & financial viability of railway connecting Marbella to Malaga |
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Spanish Real Estate News & Lifestyle |
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Spanish Government Elections
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And the Zapatero Legacy...
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Spain goes to the polls in just under two weeks in conditions that look depressingly familiar. Unemployment, already the highest in Europe, has now risen to over 22%. Economic growth has staggered to a halt. Spain's sovereign debt remains under market pressure, in spite of tight fiscal restraint. Neither candidate of the two leading parties inspires, still less do they represent. Just over half of the "indignados", Spain's protest youth movement, turned out in May's municipal elections which wiped out the ruling socialists.
History will probably be kinder to the outgoing socialist prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, than the present is proving to be. Mr Zapatero's election in 2004 was something of a surprise, in the aftermath of the Madrid bombings three days before the vote, and the widespread belief that the centre-right government of José María Aznar had lied in its response to the attacks, blaming them on the Basque separatist group Eta and not on al-Qaida. And Mr Zapatero has always been an easy politician to caricature. When Spain assumed the EU presidency last year, a picture of Mr Bean was temporarily posted on the official website.
But Mr Zapatero was too easily underestimated. The accidental prime minister might have been tempted to coast – Spaniards were growing richer per head than Italians and half the cement used in Europe was being poured in Spain. Instead, he used his first term of office to enact progressive social reforms – the legalisation of gay marriage, "express divorce" laws, increasing the minimum wage, amnestying illegal immigrants. His historical memory law recognised the victims of both sides of the Spanish civil war and Franco's regime. He wanted, his supporters said, to hold a mirror up to modern Spain. He made errors, too: on a charter for Catalan autonomy and by negotiating with Eta after a ceasefire was broken. Ultimately, Mr Zapatero has fallen victim to his times. It was precisely because of all that concrete being poured and the bubble over which he presided that he, like other European centre-left leaders, now appears to have run out of road.
Spain now has to choose between two technocrats: the socialist, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba, and the conservative, Mariano Rajoy. Neither represents the youthful renewal of Felipe González in 1982 or José María Aznar in 1996. Mr Rajoy, a two-time election loser, is hardly a fresh face either, but Spain seems so fed up with its government that the only question appears to be the extent of his victory. The task awaiting him, however, is the same that faces the current generation of European leaders whether of left or right – the management of decline, hard times and a troubled electorate.
Source: The Guardian
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