PDF Diario EL PAÍS - Universidad de Murcia

EL PERIÓDICO GLOBAL EN ESPAÑOL
www.elpais.com
FRIDAY, MAY 30, 2008
ENGLISH EDITION WITH THE INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE
Spaniards down Madrid resists Sarkozy
overtures on migration pact
in the dumps
about slump
EL PAÍS, Madrid
Poll shows unemployment, economy
are now country’s biggest concerns
A. EATWELL, Madrid
Spaniards’ confidence in the
economy has plunged since the
start of this year as rocketing
food and fuel prices, rising unemployment and a slump in property values have combined to
crush optimism across the country, a new opinion poll shows.
Unemployment and the economy were cited as the biggest
issues affecting the country by
an unprecedented number of
people in April, according a
monthly survey of consumer attitudes by the Sociological Research Institute (CIS).
For 46.1 percent of respondents the current economic situation is “bad” or “very bad” — a
nine-point increase from the
March survey. More than half
said the situation has worsened
over the last 12 months, while
44.5 percent expect it to worsen
further over the coming year.
Just 10 percent think the economy will be better.
In December, the number of
people describing the economic
situation as negative stood at 36
percent.
Unemployment was cited as
the biggest concern by 52 percent of respondents, its highest
level in two years, reflecting a
recent upsurge in layoffs, particularly from the rapidly slowing
construction and real estate sectors. Recent inflation and housing data is likely to further
dampen sentiments in the CIS’s
May poll.
See Consumer Page 7
French
President
Nicolas
Sarkozy has so far failed to convince Spanish Prime Minister
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero to
sign up to a far-reaching proposal to create a tough common immigration policy for the European Union.
The
five-page
proposal,
which includes strengthening
the EU’s external borders, hastening deportations and intro-
ducing a points system for foreign workers, was sent to the
Spanish government in January
but its existence was only made
public this week.
“Sarkozy is planning to
present this document in the
first European Council meeting
of the French term presidency
[which begins in July] and initiate a debate among all member states,” Diego López Garrido, Spain’s secretary of state for
EU affairs, said yesterday.
Book fair opens The time-saving tunnel under the heart of capital
A man stares down the new tunnel that will main Atocha and Chamartín railway staas industry
take local railway passengers under the tions, shaving eight minutes off journey
of Madrid. The train tunnel, built at a times into the city center for passengers on
celebrates boom heart
cost of ¤550 million, will link the capital’s the C-3 and C-4 local rail lines from July. The
The Madrid Book Fair opens today in the Retiro Park, capping a
booming 12 months for the Spanish publishing industry. Despite
the current economic slowdown,
book sales have grown over the
past year and the fair is expected
to reflect that with more exhibitors than in 2007 and a wider
selection of titles. Latin American authors are expected to dominate.
See BOOKS Page 8
Life’s a beach,
and a cinema,
in Alicante
Arts & Travel
Pages 4 & 5
Hundred peacekeepers
bound for Chad mission
EL PAÍS, Madrid
Spain will send 100 peacekeepers
to Chad to join EU forces operating
under a UN mandate to protect civilians and refugees in the Central
African country, which is being affected by violence in the neighboring Darfur region of Sudan, Foreign Minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos announced Thursday.
The mission in Chad – Spain’s
fifth concurrent foreign peacekeeping operation — was approved yes-
terday by the Congress Defense
Committee along with a plan to
send a patrol boat and an additional 90 soldiers to Lebanon, where
Spain currently has more than a
1,000 peacekeepers deployed.
With the new deployments,
Spain will have 3,000 soldiers posted abroad, the government’s maximum level of foreign deployment.
Most of the forces are involved in
peacekeeping in Lebanon, Afghanistan and Kosovo, with a much
smaller contingent in Kyrgyzstan.
López Garrido noted that
Spain agrees with some of
Sarkozy’s suggestions but opposes others, including forcing all
immigrants in the EU to sign an
“integration contract” that
would oblige them to learn the
language and respect European
customs.
A similar proposal was muted by Spain’s conservative Popular Party opposition in the runup to the general election in
March.
samuel sánchez
tunnel also includes a station at the Puerta
del Sol, built in a 15-meter high, 20-meter
wide cavern under the famous square, which
has been a worksite for the past four years.
2
EL PAÍS, Friday, May 30, 2008
OPINION AND EDITORIAL
The ballot in
Ibarretxe’s referendum
EL ROTO
The Basque premier’s questions contradict his
commitments, and ignore those of his party
TWO THINGS are clear: that there will
be early elections in the Basque Country;
and that the Basque regional premier,
Juan José Ibarretxe, prefers this to happen due to an order by the Spanish Constitutional Court, rather than due to his
losing a vote in the Basque parliament.
Because in the latter case he would have
to resign, or announce that he will not
run again; while if the rejection comes
from the Spanish government and the
courts, he may perhaps manage to attract, as in 2001, the voters of the separatist left, who can no longer use the Communist Party of the Basque Lands
(EHAK) as a front to participate in the
regional election. Behind the Basque premier’s big words there lies, above all, an
astute sense of self-interest.
There will be elections in any case,
because this figures in his “road map” in
the event of his proposal for a referendum on sovereignty being rejected in the
Basque Parliament; and because this
would also be a way out for Ibarretxe
(elections amounting to a plebiscite, with
his proposal as a program), if the referendum is prohibited by the courts at the
instance of the Spanish government,
which on Wednesday announced its intention to challenge it.
The specific formula of the referendum ballot he revealed on Wednesday
seems designed to attract the votes of
EHAK: no condemnation of ETA, contrary to a statement made only a few
days ago by the president of Ibarretxe’s
own PNV Basque Nationalist Party; and a
proposed political agreement couched in
terms of the “right to decide.” In other
words, self-determination. The ballot’s
EDITADO POR DIARIO EL PAÍS, SOCIEDAD LIMITADA
Letters
to the Editor
Letters submitted to this section should not exceed 20
typed lines. It is imperative that
each one is signed and is complete with an address, telephone number and DNI or
passport number of the author. EL PAÍS reserves the right
to publish such pieces, either
in shortened version or as an
extract when it is considered
opportune. Unless otherwise
stated, original letters will not
be returned, nor will information be made available about
them by mail or by phone.
Email: [email protected]
double question once again makes the
end of violence conditional upon the acceptance of the extreme nationalist program: substitution of the autonomous regional government principle by that of
Basque sovereignty, though expressed in
a deliberately ambiguous manner.
With pretended naivety, the premier
announced on Wednesday that he could
not understand how any political party,
including the Ruling Socialists or the Popular Party, could vote against an appeal
to the “voice of the people,” adding that so
far he has only been answered by insults.
But there have been arguments too,
even from within his party. He has been
reminded of his promise to make the referendum conditional upon the absence
of violence, which he declared to be a
necessary “ethical principle,” and the
risk of giving ETA a pretext to go on killing, if the Basque Parliament voted in
favor of his plan and the Spanish state
challenged it (something which could be
taken for granted, given the regional government’s lack of powers to call a referendum). He has also been told that the referendum would be meaningful only if it
ratified an agreement between all parties, and not merely shifting inter-party
division to the general population.
Worse, he insisted on the term “ethical principle” for a proposition that expressly excluded the repudiation of violence, which is the basis of any agreement — all the more so when ETA is
killing people again. His aim is to attract
the votes of the ETA front party EHAK,
which he needs if he is not to be defeated
in the Basque parliament that made him
premier.
PRESIDENT
EDITOR
Ignacio Polanco
Javier Moreno
CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
DEPUTY EDITORS
Juan Luis Cebrián
Vicente Jiménez & Lluís Bassets
CHIEF OPERATING OFFICERS
EDITOR ENGLISH EDITION
Jesús Ceberio & Pedro García Guillén
Guy Hedgecoe
Low-wage earners in Spain
Due to my year of birth, I
have been relegated to
form part of the mileuristas, low-wage professionals
that make about ¤1,000 per
month. In this modern society we live in, one fact is
clear: new university graduates in particular will end
up living and working at
Spain’s biggest cities. In
such urban centers, however, a grim reality awaits
them: the price of a home is
too high, while salaries are
too low. Saving money,
which is an important middle-class activity, becomes
harder after families start
having children. It is at this
point when they discover
that they do not make
enough money to maintain
a family.
The mileuristas, who
are doomed to live a very
challenging existence, have
no choice but to eventually
move out of the cities. But
the mileuristas should
blame themselves for the
situation since some lack
willpower and the courage
to ask hard questions. They
should not blame anybody
except themselves for the
situation.— Juan Soto
Ivares. Madrid
“Hey man! Everything’s inside here now, so what are you still doing out there?”
Lebanon: East and West
m. á. bastenier
Lebanon is a small country that is
struggling to exist within two vast concentric circles. In the outer circle,
which includes the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East, Lebanon is a
sort of hinge between East and West;
its four million inhabitants being onethird Christian and two-thirds Muslim.
And in the inner circle it reproduces the division of the Eastern Muslim
world into Sunnis and Shiites, the latter now outnumbering the former,
plus another six percent of the Druze
minority, called heretics by the Sunnis
and floating between the two main
branches of Islam. The Christians are
similarly fragmented into a majority of
Catholic Maronites, Greco-Catholics of
the Eastern rite but also those obedient to Rome; a Greek Orthodox minority who once owned allegiance to the
Patriarch of Constantinople; and even
a handful of Protestants, converted in
recent centuries.
In this checkerboard of creeds, alliances and conflicts are about as kaleidoscopic as the mathematical theory
of combinations permits. The former
colonial powers, Great Britain and
France until a little after WWII; the US
and the USSR during the Cold War;
and now Washington, Jerusalem, Paris and regional powers such as Syria
and Iran, have all made Lebanon a battlefield by proxy of their local clients,
wrangling for hegemony and influence
in the region.
Lebanon is a test tube for all the
poisonous concoctions in the Middle
East. In this land, where the choice is
always between pact and war, a pact
was reached last week, after six
months of rising risk of civil war. The
parliament will elect general Michael
Suleiman as Chief of Staff — a post that
constitutionally must be held by a Maronite, just as the head of the government must be a Sunni, and the parliamentary speaker a Shiite.
But what is odd about this agreement is that it seems to owe nothing to
external powers, be it the US, Israel or
France. It has been produced locally by
the Lebanese factions themselves.
The forces that have been glowering at one another since the assassination, attributed to Syria, of the head of
government Rafik Hariri in February
2005, have been, on the one side, his
fellow Sunnis, the Druze and a sector
of the Christians, who have supported
the outgoing government, and are now
united in their aim to free Lebanon
from Syrian tutelage, applaud US policy in Iraq, and remain silent about Israeli policy in Palestine.
On the
other side are the Shiites who represent the Hezbollah party and militia,
backed by Iran and Syria, plus some
Christian sectors.
In an embryo of civil war, the Shiites swept away their adversaries in
mid-May; and their victory, together
with their deferential withdrawal
from the army-held enclaves they had
conquered in Beirut (the army remains neutral in these factional conflicts), has been the basis for the agreement signed at Doha in Qatar.
The pact provides for a balance of
regional forces which does not seem to
be the result of outside tampering; a
cabinet of 30 ministers, 19 of them proWestern and only 11 for Hezbollah, but
with a right of veto on major decisions;
a reform of electoral law beneficial to
the Shiites, who with 40 percent of the
population are the most numerous
group in the country; and above all the
choice of Suleiman as military arbiter,
who in the 1990s overhauled the army
under Syrian sponsorship, but is not
thought to be their vassal.
In short, it is a relative victory for
Syria and Iran, which the pro-Westerners say they can live with. But above all
it is a home-made agreement. If we
add the Syria-Israel talks, the upcoming prisoner exchange between the Zionist state and Hezbollah, and the contacts by the Israelis with Hamas on the
possibility of a truce, we may conclude
that something unusual is afoot in this
particular battlefield.
3
EL PAÍS, Friday, May 30, 2008
NEWS
Church learns to play marketing
game with taxpayers’ money the goal
Episcopal Conference launches advertising campaign to ensure bumper funding
R. G. GÓMEZ / JUAN G. BEDOYA
Madrid
As income tax season gets into
full swing in Spain, the country’s bishops are launching an
unprecedented publicity campaign aimed at ensuring that
the Church’s coffers stay full.
The media blitz, including
radio, TV and newspaper advertisements, is intended to
encourage more Spanish taxpayers to assign part of their
income tax to the Church under a quirky Church-financing
system that was first introduced in 1988 before being reformed ahead of the 2007 tax
year.
Under a Church-government agreement in December
2006, taxpayers can now opt
to tick a box on their return
form telling the Treasury to
give 0.7 percent of their income tax bill to the Church.
Their other choices are to dedicate the same amount to social
causes or simply let the tax office keep it for central government finance.
The 0.7 percent represents
a one-third increase on the
0.52 percent the Church — or
NGOs — had been eligible to
receive in previous tax years.
However, until the 2006 agreement, the Church had also received a monthly stipend of
¤12 million from the state
which has now ceased, making it imperative for Spain’s
Episcopal Conference to attract as many contributors as
it can.
Its publicity drive will particularly highlight the Church’s
Episcopal Conference head Antonio María Rouco Varela wants more taxpayers’ money. / álvaro garcía
work for good causes around
the world, with a particular focus on nuns working in Africa.
“We thought it important to
carry out this exercise in transparency to tell society what the
Episcopal Conference does and
to give [the Church] a more modern touch — more in tune with
the times,” Fernando Jiménez
Barriocanal, the Episcopal Conference’s undersecretary for economic affairs, said in a presentation on Wednesday.
The commercials have been
developed by Italian publicist
Stefano Palombi, who has done
similar work for the Catholic
Church in Italy, and will appear
on national television, radio,
the internet and in the specialized press.
Italian example
“Unfortunately, we don’t have a
big enough budget to target the
general press,” Jiménez Barriocanal noted.
He said the cost of the campaign will only be disclosed
once the Church knows how
much money it has received
from income tax returns.
Similar campaigns in Italy,
where a similar Church-financing system exists, have in the
past had little effect on the number of taxpayers favoring the
Church. Typically the increase in
contributions has been around
one percent, although Jiménez
Barriocanal suggested that even
such a seemingly small increase
would be acceptable.
Spanish taxpayers have up
until June 30 to file their income tax returns.
Spaniards revile
Chávez more
than Bush,
study finds
EL PAÍS, Madrid
Venezuelan President Hugo
Chávez is the most disliked
foreign leader among Spaniards, topping both US President George W. Bush and
former Cuban dictator Fidel
Castro on the annual list of
objectionable heads of state
and government drawn up by
Spain’s Sociological Research
Center (CIS).
The 2007 list, based on a
poll of almost 2,500 Spaniards across the country, places Chávez as the most disliked leader for the first time
with a score of just 1.27 points
out of 10.
Notably, the poll was conducted in the same year that
Spain’s King Juan Carlos expressed his own aversion to
the Venezuelan leader, famously telling him to “shut
up” at an international conference in November.
Castro receives a score of
1.89 out of 10, while Bush
comes in at 1.99, having been
crowned the most disliked
leader by Spaniards in 2006.
Among the foreign leaders
Spaniards most admire is Chilean President Michelle Bachelet with a score of 4.93, and
Brazilian leader Luiz Inácio
Lula da Silva with 4.61 points.
Catalonia to
end water
rationing after
May brings rain
EL PAÍS, Barcelona
It’s a dog-eat-dog
weekend as dotcom
aspirants gather
IGNACIO ZAFRA
Valencia
The defender of the “game portal with prizes” has spent two
minutes fielding a volley of questions, when somebody in the
room asks: “Where will the money come from?”
“On top of advertising, there
will be an events zone you can
access by SMS [message],” he answers.
Then other queries start flying: “There are already portals
doing this. It would need massive traffic to make any money.”
“I won’t pay 50 cents to play
if I can go somewhere else for
free,” someone responds.
iWeekend Valencia has just
begun. You have to have a good
idea, talk fast to sell it and improvise. You also have to be a
good loser. The 40 participants,
who include programmers, de-
signers, experts in marketing,
advertising and management,
graduates, students and hackers, have 55 hours over the
weekend to propose their products, choose one, make it into
an internet application, and
start up the company for business.
The event, which ran earlier
this month, is a marathon for
everyone involved, especially
those who come from the Bancaja Foundation just to learn teamwork, and those who brought
an idea that fell by the wayside
in the first three hours of selection.
The founder of iWeekend in
Spain is Luv Sayal, an English
graduate from Mumbai, India,
who settled in Barcelona to create startup technology. “In three
days it’s impossible to set up a
company,” he says. “But you can
get a first version. The impor-
iWeekend participants working against the clock. / tania castro
tant thing is the networking —
the ideas and teamwork that appear when you get together
with people from different backgrounds.”
Much depends on the participants. The challenge is to create
a dotcom that will survive in the
outside world. Selection, though
seasoned with humor, is pitiless. The winner is a hairdresser-reservations application.
Sayal, who cast the deciding
vote to break a tie, asked the
three finalists a crucial ques-
tion: “What do you do, and how
much time can you devote to
the company?” Sayal says he is
following in the footsteps of the
American firm Startupweekend.
com, which was his inspiration
for iWeekend.
On Saturday morning the
team splits up into three groups:
programmers, designers, executives. The last two work out
what the website will look like,
while the last works out the
practical aspects of putting the
new company on the internet.
After suffering from an
18-month dry stretch, the Catalan government plans over the
next few days to officially declare an end to water rationing after heavy rains in May
have given the region a longawaited respite.
Increased rainfall has
helped raise the water levels
of the Ter and Llobregat rivers
to 46.5 percent of maximum.
Reservoir levels are presently
rising at a rate of two percent
per day. By Sunday, the water
level of the region’s reservoirs
is expected to be at 50 percent.
During the drought, water supplies reached a low of 21 percent of the maximum.
The much-improved situation will enable Catalonia to
have by next week enough water to satisfy consumption for
a year. Catalonia’s water supply security will improve from
May 2009 thanks to a desalination plant that will become operational at El Prat near Barcelona. The Environment Ministry said on Wednesday that improved water conditions in
Catalonia will put on hold the
construction of a controversial
water pipeline from the River
Ebro to Barcelona.
4
EL PAÍS, Friday, May 30, 2008
FEATURES
ArtsArts
& Travel
& Travel
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SPAIN
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EL PAÍS, Friday, May 30, 2008
SPORTS
Leading the Giro, the easy way
Nadal breezes
into third round
after apology for
stormy words
Despite low expectations, Contador could be first Spanish winner since 1993
E. GIOVIO / J. B.
Madrid
EL PAÍS, Madrid
Back in the early days of May,
Alberto Contador had different plans in mind to make up
for the fact that he would not
be allowed to defend his Tour
de France title this year, the
Spanish cyclist’s Astana team
having been excluded from the
blue riband event’s guest list
because of its checkered past
in terms of doping.
The Giro d’Italia, which today enters its decisive final
phase with the first of two key
mountain stages before Sunday’s time trial in Milan, was
another race that Contador
thought had closed the door to
him — so the 25-year-old from
Pinto, near Madrid, decided to
mop up minor early-season
events, the Tour de France conqueror stooping to win both
the Basque Country and Castilla y León vueltas. After a nice
break on the coast of Cádiz he
was aiming to show the
French what they would be
missing later in the year by taking part in the week-long Dauphiné Libéré in June, but on
Wednesday he announced that
yet another plan was being
changed. Contador will not
race in the Dauphiné.
The reason for all this disruption is the Giro’s volte-face
just days before the Italian
road race got underway on
May 10; Astana was welcome
after all. Now Contador is
poised to become the first
Spanish winner of the Giro
since Miguel Indurain in 1993,
and in so doing break a run of
11 years in which only Italians
have finished the race wearing
the shocking pink leader’s jersey.
“I came here on the rebound, and I’ve worked myself
into the race day by day,” a relaxed Contador said during
Tuesday’s much-needed rest
Spain’s Rafael Nadal yesterday
eased into the third round of the
French Open, coming through a
rain-interrupted match against
Frenchman Nicolas Devilder
6-4, 6-0, 6-1.
The number-two seed and
three-time French Open champion’s only awkward moment
came when facing a breakpoint
on his serve at 4-4 in the first
set. Having saved that point,
Nadal was never again threatened on serve by the man
ranked 148th in the world, winning 14 of the 15 remaining
games to set up a third-round
clash against Finnish 26th seed
Jarko Nieminen.
Earlier in the day, Nadal admitted that his fiery words criticizing the Paris tournament’s organization over the scheduling of
matches during the weather-affected opening days had not been
entirely justified. Complaining
about his late starts during his
much-delayed first-round match
against Brazilian Tomaz Bellucci, on Wednesday Nadal had
said, “I’m a nobody around here,”
and that other “capos” had far
more clout when it came to influencing the organizers’ decisions.
“I want to say that on
Wednesday I was wrong in the
press conference. I said something I didn’t mean to, or, more
accurately, I explained myself
badly when I said I was a nobody here,” the Majorcan said
yesterday.
Elsewhere, world number
one Roger Federer saw off a spirited challenge by Spain’s Albert
Montañés, 6-7, 6-1, 6-0, 6-4, but
Spaniard Fernando Verdasco
beat Argentina’s Juan Ignacio
Chela in four sets.
In the women’s second
round, Spain’s Carla Suárez beat
French former world number
one Amélie Mauresmo 6-3, 6-4.
A relaxed Alberto Contador smiles before the start of Wednesday’s 17th stage in the Giro. / reuters
“During some stages
I thought I was
going to drop out,
but then I felt better”
day after three sapping Alpine
stages in which he established
a slender but possibly crucial
41-second advantage over his
nearest rival.
The Alpine slopes allowed a
fitter-by-the-day Contador to
show his class, but earlier in
the race it was just a question
of hanging in there.
“There were stages in
which I thought I was going to
drop out, but then I began to
feel better,” the maglia rosawearer confessed. The very secret, however of the Span-
J. L. RON
Sunny
Cloudy
Pontevedra
Santander Bilbao
San Sebastián
Oviedo
A Coruña
Lugo
Vitoria
León
Ourense
Showers
Rain
Fog
Valladolid
Zamora
Stormy
Guadalajara
Cuenca
Cáceres
Toledo
Castellón
Valencia
Rough Seas
Palma de
Mallorca
Albacete
Badajoz
Ciudad Real
Alicante
Swell
Córdoba
Slight swell
Huelva
Jaén
Murcia
Sevilla
Granada
Almería
Cádiz
S. C. Tenerife Las Palmas
de Gran Canaria
Teruel
Madrid
Lisboa
Barcelona
Zaragoza
Tarragona
Frosty
Heavy swell
Lleida
Soria
Ávila
Snow
Girona
Huesca
Segovia
Salamanca
Windy
Toulouse
Pamplona
Logroño
Palencia Burgos
Oporto
was Jens Voight of Team CSC,
the German making a successful breakaway from the pack
as the leading riders prepare
for the final three decisive
days.
Today the remaining riders
return to the mountain peaks,
with a 228-kilometer stage finishing high on Monte Pora. On
Saturday the Rovetta to Tirano
stage includes three high-category peaks where attacks on
Contador’s leadership are sure
to materialize. Finally, Sunday
sees the cyclists race against
the clock over 28.5 kilometers
in Milan.
Meanwhile, Spanish cyclist
Igor Astarloa, who abandoned
the Giro after just one day due
to abnormal blood-sample results, could leave his Milram
team, it was reported yesterday.
Useful information
Weather: Spain
today
WEATHER
SPAIN
TODAY
Changeable
iard’s success, so far, may have
been the sheer absence of expectation. Asked about the
pressure on him to emulate Indurain and add the Italian
crown to his Tour triumph,
the cyclist answered, “I don’t
feel it. I came here without any
pressure, I was conscious of
the fact that I could get off the
bike the moment I started to
feel bad.”
This relaxation of the Tour
champion has extended to the
verbal arena, where he has studiously avoided giving any response to the sniping from his
closest challengers, the Italians Riccardo Riccó and Gilberto Simoni, who remain 41 seconds and one minute, 21 seconds behind after yesterday’s
relatively gentle 147-kilometer
18th stage between Mendrisio
and Varese. The stage winner
Málaga
Ceuta
Melilla
Showers throughout Spain
Expect more cloud over the peninsula with
light-to-moderate rain showers that may
be accompanied by storms. Rains will be
more intense in the northeast and southeast of Spain. Today’s highs: A Coruña
18ºC, Salamanca 18ºC, Cáceres 19ºC,
Madrid 19ºC, Bilbao 20ºC, Cádiz 20ºC, Barcelona 22ºC, Málaga 23ºC, Tenerife 24ºC,
Valencia 25ºC, Zaragoza 25ºC, and Lisbon
18ºC.
All emergencies............. 112
Ambulance ....................061
Fire Brigade .................080
Municipal police ............092
National police .............091
Civil Guard ....................062
Catalan police ..............088
Traffic ..............900 123 505
Consumer
information........900 775 757
Forest fires.......900 850 500
Domestic
abuse............... 900 100 009
Coast Guard ....900 202 202
Immigration
information.......900 150 000
Power
supplies ..........900 248 248
Directory ..................11818
International
directory inq ..............11825
Barcelona .......93 298 38 38
Madrid .............902 35 35 70
Valencia ..........96 159 85 00
Málaga ............95 204 88 04
Palma ..............97 178 90 99
TRAINS
RENFE ............902 240 202
International ....902 243 402
EMBASSIES
Australia...........91 353 66 00
Canada ............91 423 32 50
Ireland .............91 436 40 93
New Zealand ..91 523 02 26
UK. ...................91 700 82 00
US ....................91 587 22 00
CITY WEBSITES
www.munimadrid.es
www.bcn.es
www.sevilla.org
TOURIST POLICE
Madrid .............91 548 85 37
Barcelona ........93 290 33 27
Gran Canaria 928 30 46 64
PORTUGAL
All emergencies............ 112
Breakdowns....... 219425095
AIRPORTS
AENA (flights, customer services).............. 902 404 704
MOROCCO
Police..............................190
Fire Brigade....................150
7
EL PAÍS, Friday, May 30, 2008
BUSINESS
Iberia pulls
Spanair bid
as hard times
lie ahead
Consumer prices on the
boil as oil fuels inflation
CLH
Enbridge sells stake
in Spanish company
for ¤876 million
May sees record high of 4.7% despite slowing demand
EL PAÍS, Madrid
A. SIM, Madrid
Leading Spanish carrier Iberia on Thursday said airlines
are facing tough times due to
the “brutal surge” in oil prices as it announced it was
withdrawing its bid for domestic rival Spanair.
Soaring crude prices have
created a “situation for airlines that could be described
as dramatic,” Iberia Chairman Fernando Conte told a
news conference on the occasion of the company’s annual
shareholders’ meeting yesterday.
“We don’t have an easy
year ahead of us, but we are
confident we can get through
it,” Conte said. “This is the
first time in the sector that
we’re seeing such a big increase in costs combined
with a global economic slowdown.”
Conte said fuel costs now
account for 30 percent of operating costs, double the
amount of personnel costs,
and three times the cost of
leasing airplanes.
Iberia has 43 percent of its
fuel needs for this year covered at a price of $83 a barrel,
but the probable scenario for
the next two years is prices of
around $110-$120.
Iberia had tabled a joint
bid for SAS unit Spanair with
local operator Gestair. It said
its management board yesterday had decided to withdraw
the offer.
However, Conte said merger talks between its low-cost
affiliate Clickair and domestic rival Vueling were at a
“very advanced” stage. Vueling’s share price closed up
3.49 percent yesterday.
Surging oil prices pushed Spanish inflation to its highest level
in 11 years in May despite growing signs of a rapid slowdown
in the economy.
The National Statistics Institute (INE) on Thursday estimated the harmonized index of consumer prices accelerated from
4.2 percent in April to 4.7 percent in May.
The May figure was the highest since 1997 when the INE
started to compile the index,
which is used for comparative
purposes with the rest of Europe. The INE will provide a
breakdown of the figures on
June 11.
Oil prices have risen some
82 percent over the past 12
months, with Brent crude trading at an average of $122 a barrel in May. Farm commodities
such as wheat and rice have also hit record highs.
Meanwhile, data released
yesterday pointed to a deepening crisis in the housing market and its potential knock-on
effects on the overall economy.
The Ministry of Public
Works said building permits
for housing dropped 59.7 percent in the first quarter to
87,427. The fall was even more
dramatic in March alone,
when permits plunged by almost 72 percent.
At the height of a 10-year
boom, annual housing starts
reached levels of around
800,000, but developers estimate these could fall to a low of
250,000 this year as a result of
a stock of some 600,000 unsold
new homes.
Residential
construction,
which has been one of the pil-
Period of turbulence
Economy Minister Pedro Solbes
lars of over a decade of strong
uninterrupted growth, accounts for about 9 percent of
Spain’s GDP, twice the average
among leading industrialized
countries. This makes the
broad economy particular vul-
No respite for retail sales
Retail sales in April fell for the
fifth month in a row as higher
inflation and unemployment
took its toll on consumer confidence.
The INE said Thursday that
sales in April at constant prices, and after correcting for the
number of shopping days available, dropped 3.5 percent from
a year earlier on top of a
5.5-percent fall in March.
There were more working
days in April 2008 than the
same month a year earlier be-
The financial markets have entered a phase of turbulence in
which it is difficult to make out
which of these markets is impacting the other.
The Spanish blue-chip Ibex 35
closed yesterday up 0.30 percent, which allowed it to regain
the 13,500-point mark. That performance was more or less in
line with the rest of the European bourses. The benchmark index fluctuated within a band of
200 points and ended the session
at the mid-way point of that
range.
The debt markets continue to
bet strongly on a rise in interest
rates, which was reflected yesterday in higher yields on 10-year
government bonds in Europe
and the United States. Meanwhile, the oil markets surprised
with initial rises only to retreat
later, eventually trading at slightly above $127 a barrel in New
York, and below that level in London.
The economic data released
yesterday went only half way towards explaining the movements in the different markets
yesterday. While the rise in bond
yields was consistent with the increase in money supply in the euro zone and the upward revision
to the US GDP growth figure in
the first quarter, the data failed
to explain why oil prices fell.
The euro-zone economies
have put in a mixed performance over the past few weeks,
with Spain drawing attention to
itself because of rising inflation
and slowing growth. Germany
on the other hand has had a
more stable ride of late as reflected in the employment figures for
May.
The subdued reaction of the
stock markets yesterday appeared out of synch with perceptions interest rates are on the
way up. The fall in oil prices also
did not fit in with the idea that if
the United States does suffer a
recession it will not be long-lasting.
cause the Easter holiday this
year fell in March, a month earlier.
The Bank of Spain said
Wednesday consumer and retail sector confidence hit their
lowest levels in April since
March 1994 and February 1993
respectively. The last time
Spain slipped into recession
was in 1993. Food sales in April
were up 1.2 percent, while other items fell 1.3 percent. Purchases of household goods
dropped 5.8 percent.
IBEX35
Equity
Abengoa
Abertis
Acciona
Acerinox
ACS
Banco Popular
Banco Sabadell
Banco Santander
Banesto
Bankinter
BBVA
BME
Cintra
Criteria
Enagás
Endesa
FCC
Ferrovial
Gamesa
Gas Natural
Grifols
Iberd. Renovables
Iberdrola
Iberia
Inditex
Indra
Mapfre
REE
Repsol YPF
Sacyr Vallehermoso
Técnicas Reunidas
Telecinco
Telefónica
Unión Fenosa
Portuguese indicator
Consumer confidence
falls on gloomier
outlook for economy
The National Statistics Institute
(INE) said Thursday the consumer confidence index dropped to
minus 43.4 points from minus
41.8 points in the previous
month. It said the fall reflected a
more pessimistic outlook for the
situation of household finances
over the next 12 months.
Automobile industry
Vehicle production in
Spain up 2.9 percent
in first four months
The National Association of Car
and Truck Manufacturers said
yesterday output of motor vehicles in the period under review
stood at 1.024 million after an
increase of 22.5 percent in April
alone to 274,369 units.
CONTINUOUS MARKET
Latest
price
Daily variation
Euros
RAFAEL VIDAL, Madrid
nerable to a slowdown in the
sector.
House sales have also plummeted this year, with the College of Property Registrars
Thursday reporting a drop of
29.1 percent in transactions in
the first quarter. The INE reported Wednesday that existing home sales in March
dropped 46.4 percent.
In an interview published
Thursday by French magazine
Nouvel Observateur, Spanish
Economy
Minister
Pedro
Solbes acknowledged a more
rapid slowdown in the economy could mean growth for this
year coming in below official
forecasts. If that were the case,
he said the government could
post a budget deficit this year.
The administration recently
slashed its estimate for GDP
growth for 2008 to 2.3 percent
from 3.1 percent.
“Events can give the lie to
the best of estimates,” Solbes
said.
Canada’s Enbridge announced
Thursday it had signed a binding agreement to sell its 25-percent stake in leading Spain oil
transportation company, Compañía Logística de Hidrocarburos (CLH), for ¤876 million. The
stake is being acquired by subsidiaries of Deutsche Bank, the
Canadian Public Sector Pension
Investment Board, pension fund
Stichting Pensioenfonds Zorg
en Welzijn and AMP Capital Investors. Enbridge, which is Canada's largest oil transporter,
said it expects the deal to be
completed in mid-June. CLH
Chairman José Luis López de Silanes said Enbridge’s decision
to offload its stake would not affect the company’s investment
plans.
22,42
20,21
184,70
16,96
38,79
10,42
6,41
13,25
11,13
9,24
14,35
29,30
9,86
4,32
20,40
33,05
44,35
50,95
31,83
36,80
18,57
4,53
9,22
2,11
31,07
18,15
3,48
45,37
26,73
23,27
54,05
10,18
18,41
41,65
0,31
0,13
-0,60
-0,23
-0,11
-0,05
-0,03
-0,06
-0,02
-0,58
-0,14
-0,05
0,63
0,58
-1,30
0,23
1,06
0,14
-0,01
-0,05
-0,63
0,28
0,05
0,44
0,29
-0,08
2,65
-0,01
0,21
0,11
%
1,40
0,65
-0,32
-1,34
-0,28
-0,48
-0,27
-0,65
-0,14
-1,94
-1,40
-1,14
3,19
1,79
-2,49
0,73
2,97
0,76
-0,11
-2,31
-1,99
1,57
1,46
0,98
1,10
-0,34
5,16
-0,10
1,15
0,26
Yesterday
Min.
22,10
20,00
183,40
16,68
38,40
10,25
6,30
13,09
11,01
9,05
14,20
29,00
9,69
4,31
19,75
32,35
43,82
50,35
31,50
35,73
18,35
4,50
9,18
2,06
30,70
17,84
3,44
44,87
26,34
23,05
51,65
10,14
18,24
41,45
Máx.
22,83
20,25
189,00
17,29
39,10
10,53
6,44
13,42
11,22
9,44
14,48
30,15
10,07
4,38
20,50
33,19
44,50
52,60
32,09
36,90
18,64
4,58
9,40
2,15
31,79
18,20
3,52
45,69
26,91
23,64
54,35
10,30
18,46
41,80
Annual Variation %
Previous
-13,1
2,9
53,7
-27,0
-4,8
-14,8
-12,6
4,6
-20,6
5,3
-8,1
48,7
-14,6
-1,5
13,5
1,5
-33,4
-34,9
53,4
33,4
52,6
6,6
25,6
8,7
3,0
-0,2
-12,0
33,1
-7,0
-40,9
50,3
-18,9
37,8
23,2
BIGGEST HIGHS
Current
-7,28
-3,72
-14,83
0,77
-4,58
-10,94
-13,50
-10,41
-16,38
-26,37
-14,38
-36,20
-4,55
-16,44
2,05
-9,08
-13,72
5,88
-0,47
-8,05
20,51
-19,82
-11,35
-29,67
-26,06
-2,31
15,61
4,93
9,64
-12,52
23,46
-41,86
-17,15
-9,83
%
Española del Zinc
Realia
Técnicas Reunidas
Ercros
Vueling
Enagás
Gas Natural
Adolfo Domínguez
Barón de Ley
Bayer
Euros
5,58
5,53
5,16
3,70
3,49
3,19
2,97
2,72
2,50
1,99
0,12
0,21
2,65
0,01
0,25
0,63
1,06
0,47
1,25
1,10
BIGGEST LOWS
%
Federico Paternina
Vocento
Prisa
Jazztel
Renta Corporación
Inmobil. Colonial
Urbas
Sol Meliá
Parquesol
Sniace
-4,31
-4,10
-3,69
-3,57
-3,28
-2,94
-2,94
-2,92
-2,70
-2,70
Euros
-0,34
-0,42
-0,40
-0,01
-0,20
-0,02
-0,01
-0,25
-0,44
-0,05
FOREIGN CURRENCIES
Buy
US dollar
Japanese yen
Sterling pound
Australian dollar
Hong Kong dollar
Swiss franc
Norwegian kroner
1,5508
163,8010
0,7855
1,6248
12,1037
1,6297
7,8836
Sell
1,5508
163,8000
0,7854
1,6247
12,1012
1,6296
7,8821
Units per euro at 18:00
FRIDAY, MAY 30, 2008
MADRID: Miguel Yuste, 40. 28037 Madrid. 91 337 82 00.
Fax: 91 327 08 18. Legal deposit: M-14951-1976.
© Diario El País, S.L. Madrid, 2002. “All rights reserved.
According to articles 8 and 32.1, second paragraph, of the
intellectual Property Law, it is expressly prohibited to
reproduce, distribute or communicate in public, including
making available, the entirety or segments of this publication for
commercial ends, in any shape or form, without the authorization of
Diario El País, S. L.” Authorized press clipping company: Acceso Group, S. L.
ENGLISH EDITION WITH THE INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE
Books buck the trend as pockets feel pinch
Spain’s publishing industry is enjoying a healthy turnover despite economic woes
JESÚS RUIZ MANTILLA
Madrid
The housing market is falling
apart, cars aren’t selling, and
loans and spending are on the
wane — but Spaniards are still
buying and reading books.
Not only has the publishing
sector escaped the economic crisis that is rewriting growth forecasts for the next couple of
years, but it also beat all records
in 2007 and is on its way to bettering them in 2008. Why is this
industry flying in the face of the
Spanish — and world — economy? There are several reasons.
Firstly, the number of Spaniards who read regularly has risen in recent years, and is now at
57 percent (60 percent of whom
are women). There is still some
way to go before Finland’s
90-percent rate is matched, but
the point is that the figure is on
the rise. Secondly, new marketing strategies, which are increasingly sophisticated, aggressive and invasive, have taken
root. And thirdly, the market
has diversified, making books
that until recently were barely
worth being put on sale into valid products.
In addition there has been a
freak spate of books published
recently that have mass appeal
— from El juego del ángel (due to
“Last year was our
best ever. This year
we expect to grow
five percent more”
The new novel by
Carlos Ruiz Zafón
has had a print run
of one million copies
be available in English as The
Angel’s Game in 2009), by Carlos Ruiz Zafón and Ken Follet’s
World Without End, to the last
installment of the Harry Potter
series.
So the big names are having
huge success. But there’s room
for others, too. Jorge Herralde,
an editor at the independent
publishing house Anagrama,
has noticed the change in readers’ attitudes. “Last year was
the best in our history. We
turned over ¤14 million. This
year we expect to grow five percent more,” he says. Salamandra, which publishes the Harry
Potter novels in Spain, took ¤24
million.
“Leaving aside Harry Potter,”
says their Spanish editor Sigrid
Kraus, “we published fewer titles than ever this year so far,
but have seen sales grow 13 percent more.”
But the first four months of
the year have left the same editors confused — most of all at
Planeta, which has exceeded ex-
Books on sale in Barcelona on April 23, Catalonia’s national celebration and Spain’s book day. / joan sánchez
Aggression the watchword in the ivory tower
J. R. M.
Madrid
Books are now as likely to feature in big advertising campaigns
as any other escapist product.
What’s more, competition is biting, with 70,000 titles published
in Spain every year, meaning that
the gaps on the shelves are only
filled by the highest bidder.
pectations thanks to the Zafón
phenomenon. The new novel by
the author of The Shadow of the
Wind has appeared on the market with an unheard of print
run — one million copies for the
first edition. “I’ve been in this
business for 13 years and when
I started, books that broke the
100,000 barrier were an event
in themselves,” says Carlos
Revés, head of Planeta’s editorial department.
To make his point Revés
cites Nielsen data, the most reliable guide for publishers in the
market. “According to them, the
100 biggest-selling titles in the
first four months of last year
saw 2.8 million copies hit the
shelves. This year, for the same
period, that figure is 3.4 million
copies, which is 20 percent
more.” Ruiz
Zafón has got the public interested in reading. “It was the
book that sold the most copies
in the shortest time,” Revés
adds. According to Planeta, the
first edition has nearly sold out,
That’s why publishers are
becoming more and more
aware of the effective strategies that they need to sell
their products well. Marketing is one of the most crucial
elements in the new climate
for publishing.
“We’re more aggressive
when it comes to advertising
nowadays. That’s where the
sector in Spain is more advanced,” says Armando Collazos, from the publishing house
Santillana.
“Treating the book as an
event,” says Carlos Revés of
Planeta, is the key. That’s why
cinema trailers, as well as TV,
radio and press ads are all being used these days. The only
downside to this is that big spec-
tacles need big stars, which
could cause a future crisis. So
says Sigrid Kraus, from Salamandra.
“The bidding for international rights has got out of control
at book fairs,” she says. “Literary agents are the ones really
rubbing their hands. We could
find that with time, that ends
up costing us dear.”
and 400,000 more copies are
due for publication in the summer. And all that in the space of
a month.
The competition has sat up
and taken notice, and the feeling overall is a good one — but
there is a sense of caution in the
air, too. “We’ve grown four percent above the rate of inflation,
although the crisis will end up
affecting us,” says Armando Collazos, the head of Santillana Ediciones Generales. The good
news is that they feel they have
more weapons at their disposal
to deal with it. “We’re better prepared, and we’re more creative,” Collazos says.
Oriol Castanys, from RBA, is
also cautious. “We would prefer
to wait until the first six months
are over. May and April are good,
but June and July… we’ll have to
see.” And, somewhere between
discrete and content, Toni Lopez
from Tusquets says: “We’re still
in the game and we’ve grown
somewhat, which is an achievement in itself,” he says.
New strategies have borne
fruit just as the crisis has hit.
“We’re much better than we
were a few years ago. We take
more care with the covers, the
editions and the launches,”
says Sigrid Kraus. The book is
also a profitable product at a
time of crisis. “It’s cheap and
it requires plenty of time,”
says Castanys. What’s more,
he believes that the diversification of themes, titles and authors has attracted a public
that did not previously buy
books. “Subjects such as travel, cooking and self-help all
create new readers,” says the
RBA editor.
The euphoria in the publishing market will no doubt be evident at the Madrid book fair,
which begins on Friday and
runs until June 15. A sign of
what is to come lies in the statistics, with more stalls and exhibitors on offer in the Retiro park
than last year. The 2008 fair
will see a total of 364 stalls, 20
more than last year, with some
428 exhibitors, compared to 362
previously. Bookshops are also
learning to thrive in the new
technological age. “We are getting progressively better at
sales over the internet,” says
Michele Chevallier, head of the
Spanish Confederation of Bookshops (Cegal), which brings together 1,500 sales points among
the 4,000 that exist in Spain.
For booksellers, shifting
their stock is crucial, and
they’re managing it. “One of our
priorities is to make [books] visible,” says Chevallier, who nonetheless points out that running
a bookshop in Spain is still a heroic act.
“You have to remember that
75 bookshops open every year in
this country, but there are 90
that close, too.”
Feria del Libro de Madrid. From
May 30 to June 15 in the Retiro Park.
From 11am to 2pm and 6 to 9.30pm.
Saturdays, Sundays and holidays: from
10.30am to 2.30pm and 5 to 9.30pm.
www.ferialibromadrid.com