👋 This Week in Spain: Goodbye, Golden Visa
Also: An anti-smoking plan, Mayor Almeida's wedding and Puigdemont's future.
By @IanMount and @AdrianBono | April 11, 2024 | Madrid | Issue #52
🎉 Welcome to The Tapa, an English-language, weekly newsletter about all things Spain!
🥜 This Week in a Nutshell: Spain’s housing crisis is bad. Really bad. Renting is getting harder for young people and don’t even think about buying a place. So the local government is getting rid of the “Golden Visa” scheme. Sorry, foreign investors! (Will this solve the current housing crisis? Lol, no.)
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🔑 No More ‘Golden Visa’ For You!
Spain’s “Golden Visa” program—or at least part of it—may be finally coming to an end. Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez this week announced his government would begin the process to eliminate the real estate part of the ‘Golden Visa’, the one that lets foreign nationals basically buy Spanish residency by purchasing a property worth at least €500,000.
Sánchez made his way to the Sevilla town of Dos Hermanas on Monday to visit a new social housing development, praise the €1.5bn housing investment the regional government has made since 2018 ("This is the housing model we want.") and announce the end of the real estate ‘Golden Visa.’
What the man said: Sánchez, of the center-left PSOE, said they planned to “modify the law approved by the [center-right] PP government in 2013” and would “take the necessary measures to guarantee that housing is a right and not a mere speculative business” that has pushed Spain toward “devastating inequality.”
First, is the housing situation really that bad? Yes, it is. Nationwide real estate prices have risen 7% in the last 12 months and are only 1.7% below all-time highs, according to Idealista, and in some of the most desired areas (you know who you are—the Balearic and Canary Islands, Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia…) they’re setting new records monthly. Rental prices are soaring too—up 12.6% over the last year.
That means it’s tough to get housing. A house costs 7.5 years of an average household income, according to the Bank of Spain, and requires those households to spend 39% of their salary on mortgage payments—the most in 12 years. Renting’s worse: An average Spaniard had to dedicate 43% of his or her salary to rent before the recent 12%+ increase in 2023. (Explaining why Spanish kids live at home past 30.)
The reasons? The usual—barely rising salaries, a lack of new housing, high demand in hot cities—and the unusual—recent mortgage rate rises, and rent control laws that (people say) have pushed owners to turn to more lucrative short-term rentals. And, of course, rich foreign buyers.
Now, about these rich foreigners… The 2013 Ley de Emprendedores set a series of investment minimums to acquire a “Golden Visa”—€2m in Spanish treasury bonds, €1m in shares in a Spanish company or investment fund, and, the most accessible, €500,000 in Spanish real estate. At the time, Spain desperately needed investment 💶 to support the economy—and a distressed real estate market that had plunged after the 2008 financial crisis
And you guessed it! Most people went for the cheapie. Housing Minister Isabel Rodriguez said on Tuesday that Spain had expedited some 14,576 golden visas linked to real estate investments between 2013 and 2023. As we reported last year, of those who came in through the Golden Visa program, 94% used the real estate option. Like, all of them.
But are they really driving prices up that much? It depends how you look at it. An Idealista spokesperson says foreign buyers only accounted for 0.1% of the market between 2013 and 2022 and has not caused any problem in Spain: “The housing problem in Spain, both for sale and rent, is not caused by the Golden Visa but by the increasing lack of supply and the exponential increase in demand.”
Then again: Golden Visa buyers have accounted for 7.1% of purchases in Marbella and 5.3% in Barcelona from 2013 to 2022—i.e. part of the “exponential increase in demand”—which could move the needle a bit.
So is this really, like, all about housing affordability? Not really. It could help around the margins, especially in the most desired cities, where a €500,000 investment, which might have seemed like a lot of lujo in 2013, certainly isn’t now. Such a low floor means foreigners can muscle aside middle-class Spaniards. But there are two other reasons.
The EU would like to keep actually dirty foreigners out. Back in March 2022, shortly after Russia invaded Ukraine, the European Commission urged member states to “immediately repeal any existing investor citizenship schemes and to ensure strong checks are in place” to stop money launderers and other undesirable folks from using them. Scheme-users in Spain were mostly from China, Russia, the U.S. and U.K., Ukraine, Iran, Venezuela and Mexico.
Scoring political points! 🎯 Did we mention that PM Sánchez called the Golden Visa the “law approved by the PP government in 2013”? We did. Taking action now, then, is a way to try to pin the housing crisis on the PP—and change the domestic political chatter away from that whole ‘amnesty’ and ‘corruption’ nastiness.
P.S. Not to be ignored, Sánchez’s hard-left coalition partner Sumar said it wants to prohibit all home purchases that are not destined to be the primary residence of the buyer. (Hint: Not gonna happen.)
Ultimately? It’s a good move to cut down on money laundering and ease housing unaffordability (a little) in the hottest markets. But will it solve the housing crisis? Not even close.
More news below! 👇
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💬 Five things to discuss at dinner parties this week
1.🚭 Health Council Approves Anti-Smoking Plan
Non-smokers, rejoice! (Smokers, be afraid).
The Ministry of Health’s new “Comprehensive Tobacco Prevention Plan 2024-2027” was approved last Friday after a meeting of the Interterritorial Council of the National Health System (basically a big meeting of all Spain’s autonomous communities). It’s not a surprise: Health Minister Mónica García had flagged the new plan almost since her first day in office last year.
Why now? Spain has a high percentage of smokers, according to the WHO: 10.13 million people (25% of the population). In Europe, only Germany, France and Italy surpass Spain.
The Health Ministry, however, says that number is closer to 33.1%.
Spanish smokers start buying cigarettes at 16 years old.
And so, the goal is to reduce the percentage of young people who smoke and/or vape, avoid the normalization of smoking in public spaces (and in general), and promoting awareness, among many other things.
Now, before you start freaking out and complaining about the government taking away your freedom, you should be aware that this is not a law (at least not yet), but a “roadmap” for a nation-wide prevention plan that aims to curb tobacco use in Spain. In other words, nothing’s changed for most of the population. Unless…
Autonomous communities were given the right the “fully or partially” adhere to the plan, and the only ones to fully support it were Asturias, the Basque Country, the Canary Islands, Catalonia and Navarra. These five will have the green light to start implementing the changes outlined in the plan even before it becomes law.
The rest of the communities had lots of objections, but García reportedly accepted 94% of them. She did, however, dismiss requests from Madrid and Galicia to “self-regulate the expansion of smoke-free areas”. She also rejected labelling vaping as an “alternative” to smokers who are trying to quit.
Once all the communities in the council reach a consensus (considering today’s polarization, maybe when hell freezes over?), the plan will become a bill to be debated in Parliament and passed as a law.
If and when that bill is passed, it will modify and update an anti-tobacco law from 2010 (Law 42/2010).
So what are the specific actions outlined by the plan? Between 2024 and 2027, Spain hopes to:
Increase the price of cigarettes and similar products through raising the taxes on products included in the scope of the Tobacco Excise Tax.
Ban smoking in areas of public use such as parks, beaches and terraces (this is the area in which most of the communities clash with the Ministry’s plan).
Equate the sale and consumption of other nicotine-related products—such as e-cigs, vapers and hookahs—to traditional tobacco products.
Promote a new tax for nicotine-containing electronic cigarettes.
Implement generic packaging of cigarettes (no more colorful and flashy brands, just black and white colors and hi-res images of decomposed lungs. Yay!), and ban additives that give pleasant flavors or aromas to tobacco and related products.
Help people quit smoking through dissemination of informative material.
Increase research into other harmful effects of tobacco on the population and environment.
If you were thinking of quitting, this may be the time.
2. 🧑⚖️ Gruesome Thai murder blamed on Spanish actor’s son goes to trial
The trial for that gruesome murder supposedly committed by Daniel Sancho began this week on Ko Samui, the Thai island known for palm-fringed beaches and coconut groves. Sancho is accused of killing and dismembering the Colombian surgeon Edwin Arrieta on another Thai island, Ko Pha Ngan, the tropical paradise (not for Mr Arrieta) famed for its monthly Full Moon Party.
Sancho’s arrest for the crime last August riveted Spain’s attention for its gruesomeness, its contrast with the blissful locale where it was committed—and for the identity of Sancho, an itinerant chef/nepo baby son of actor Rodolfo Sancho, best known (to us) as a star of El Ministerio del Tiempo and Mar de plástico (if you haven’t seen ‘em, do it).
Sancho Jr. has never denied cutting up Arrieta and disposing of the parts on the land and sea around Ko Pha Ngan. So at least that’s clear, right? But the other part’s not so clear—and it’s the part that determines whether this bloodbath was murder or an accident/self-defense. Sancho Jr., you see, has provided three confessions. The problem? They’re not the same.
The first and the third are basically identical. In them, Sancho Jr. claims that when he tried to end his year-long relationship with Arrieta, the Colombian tried to have sex with him so he pushed Arrieta, which accidentally caused him to hit his head on the sink and die.
But the second is more intentional. In this one, the blow on the sink only hurts Arrieta, who comes at Sancho Jr., who then bangs Arrieta’s head on the sink until he stops moving. Which does sound an awful lot like murder.
It gets worse. Scared that the authorities might mistake the accident for murder (Confession 1 and 3) or just catch him (2), Sancho goes to a nearby store, buys a meat knife, gloves, bags and the like, dismembers Arrieta, spreads his parts around the island and then…reports him missing to the police!
The knot unravels: Sancho forgot to remove the store receipt from one of the bags he used to, um, “dispose” of Arrieta in a dump. The police tracked the bag back to the store, which had a security camera, which showed the kid who bought the stuff as well as his moped’s license plate 🛵, which led the police to the moped rental joint, which had a copy of Sancho’s passport 🪪…and Sancho’s tale fell apart.
Why are we telling you this? Beyond the fact that it’s an amazing peek into the dark side of mankind’s soul? Well… because we’re terrible voyeurs. Because we want you to know what gross crime news people are obsessively watching on bar TVs. And because… the story has a weird Hollywood twist. 🎥
HBO Max is filming a four-part documentary on the crime and trial, El caso Sancho—and Daniel Sancho’s actor father Rodolfo is participating in it. The first episode premiered on April 9 and featured Sancho Sr. breaking his silence on the case and revealing how he learned his son had been detained.
Why would Rodolfo do this? Simple answer: 💰. According to a family spokesperson, he did it "for money…to cover the financial need that a father has to try to save the life of his son.” She added, “Thailand is a bottomless pit.”
Rodolfo’s interview did not go uncriticized. El Confidencial columnist Carlos Prieto took a hammer to it, as in, “It is surreal that Rodolfo says that it is very easy to criticize dismemberment ‘from the couch at home’, because no one, according to him, is free from outbursts, as if chopping up Colombian surgeons at Thai raves was our daily bread.”
The closed-door trial—about which the lawyers are not allowed to speak publicly—is scheduled to finish May 3. The other three episodes of the HBO Max series will come after it ends. Sancho Jr. could receive the death penalty.
3. 🗽 ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses…’
Parliament voted to take up a bill regularizing some 500,000 irregular immigrants in Spain. And for once—in the most polarized moment in the land of polarization—every political party voted for it (save Vox, natch), passing it 310 to 33. Who knew helping “illegal” immigrants was such a point of consensus? 🤷
It came from the people. The bill did not come from any political party (which may explain why it has such wide support). Instead, it’s an ILP—an Iniciativa Legislativa Popular, or Popular Legislative Initiative—which is basically a constitutionally defined citizens’ petition that requires 500,000 signatures to be presented to Congress. And this one? It got almost 700,000.
It wasn’t always popular. When the ILP process began, both Vox and the PP were against it and the PSOE said it wouldn’t fit with European legislation. But then the signatures (some 700,000) and the NGO support (some 900, including Catholic groups), and the PP and the PSOE changed their tack.
What would it mean? Assuming it gets passed in more or less the form in which it was presented, immigrants without papers who’ve been living in Spain since Nov. 1, 2021 will have the chance to become residents. That’s about 500,000 people, according to Save the Children, the majority of whom are from Latin America. Most are women and some 112,000 are under 16.
Spain is actually pretty cool with irregular immigrants. This is far from the first regularization—and both the left and right have done it. The Zapatero government (PSOE) regularized 578,000 in 2005; José María Aznar (PP) did it twice, in 1996 and 2001, for a total of 454,000; and Felipe González (PSOE) did it twice more, in 1985 and 1991, for 147,000 people.
Politicos were largely happy (in public) this time—of course, except for Vox. Whose MP Rocío de Meer said, “We want Spain to continue being Spain and not Morocco, nor Algeria, nor Nigeria, nor Senegal. And this is not hatred nor xenophobia, nor racism, it is pure common sense." (Always so nice to hear from Vox.)
But, but, but… Don’t break out the 🥂just yet. This just puts the bill into consideration. It has to survive amendments, votes, and a long, hot Madrid summer. History says the odds aren’t good: Since the constitution became law in 1979, only 12 of the 179 ILPs presented have gone through the parliamentary process, and only two of those became law, Newtral reported in 2022. Fingers crossed. 🤞
4. 🫠 Puigdemont will take his toys and go home if you don’t vote for him
Catalonian Separatist and Junts party leader Carles Puigdemont, who masterminded the 2017 illegal independence referendum and is now living in McMansion exile in Brussels Southern France, is preparing his grand return.
After avoiding the Spanish law for years abroad, an imminent amnesty deal will finally allow him to reenter his hometown while riding the symbolic elephant that is his candidacy for the regional presidency (i.e. governorship) of Catalonia.
As the regional election date (May 12) gets closer, however, the “spiritual” leader of the pro-independence movement has said that if he is defeated and fails to be invested president of the Generalitat, he will withdraw from “active politics”.
He still would certainly return to Catalonia to participate in the investiture session, he said an interview on RAC1 radio, but after that he would not continue in the regional Parliament as leader of the opposition and would instead assume a purely institutional role as a former president.
Puigdemont also assured he would not return to the autonomous community before the amnesty law is applied (he would certainly be arrested, which would be great optics for his campaign). "We did not exile the presidency of the Generalitat for it to be arrested now or held hostage by Spanish justice," he said.
Puigdemont is, however, snuggling up to Catalonia.
News broke last week that he was leaving the comfort of his home outside Brussels to move to the Vallespir region in Southern France, only 30 km away from the border with Spain. This guy is living dangerously-ish.
On the Spanish side of the border, another Catalonian separatist entered the lion’s den (okay, Madrid) this week: Current regional presi Pere Aragonès (from the other separatist party, ERC) appeared before the Senate to not only defend the amnesty law but to defiantly warn that another referendum was coming, adding that it was “inevitable”. The PP holds a senate majority so you can imagine how that went.
Aragonès, who is competing with Puigdemont in the regional election/separatism olympics, said that once the amnesty law was implemented, the next step would be getting full fiscal sovereignty for Catalonia (we covered it here) and after that, the holy grail of the indy movement: a legal referendum on whether the region should secede from Spain.
“Everyone said [amnesty] was impossible and unconstitutional,” Aragonès said. “However, suddenly one day, the amnesty stopped being impossible and unconstitutional. The same thing will happen with the referendum.”
Or maybe not. Speaking from PSOE HQ in Madrid, spokesperson Esther Peña once again said the socialists have been “very clear about this issue: there is and there will not be a referendum”. (Though, as Aragonès suggests, Sánchez has been clear about a lotta things and then, well… 🤔)
5. 💍 Wedding of the Year: Mayor Almeida says ‘I Do‘
Look at us! 🙄 We’re one article away from turning into Hello! Magazine.
But while covering the wedding of Spain’s number one golden bachelor may sound frivolous and irrelevant to some, let us assure you that this once-in-a-lifetime event was anything but.
It was only 10 months ago that we announced the very important news that Madrid’s Mayor and perpetual célibataire José Luis Martínez-Almeida had finally found a girlfriend. Teresa Urquijo y Moreno (who was 26 at the time) is a real estate analyst who, by the way, is related to the Royal Family (her grandmother is cousins with King Emeritus Juan Carlos I).
👰♂️🤵 Fast forward to last weekend, when the mayor celebrated a high-profile Madrid wedding, in an the event that became a who’s who of center-right politicians (honestly it looked like a PP summit) and a who’s that of royals that you (mostly) never heard of.
Here are a few fun facts (then we move on to the just plain fun videos):
Mayor Almeida (48) is the city’s first mayor to get married while in office. The couple chose to hold the ceremony in the Jesuit Parrish San Francisco de Borja, in the upscale Salamanca district because, of course.
The King and Queen Emeriti (yes, that’s the plural for emeritus, you’re welcome) also attended the wedding.
King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia were invited but “couldn’t make it.” We thought maybe they had long-planned windsurfing classes, but then we decided we were pretty sure they were never planning on attending. You see, though they are technically part of the bride’s family, the optics of having the Reyes spending a day hanging out with PP leaders is just, well, not a good look.
Besides the wedding pomp and protocol, there was a lot to unpack on this unforgettable occasion. Let’s take a look at some of the best moments, shall we?
Mayor Almeida arrived at the church and, jokingly hyperventilating, said he was “very nervous”. Also he suggested he was going to cry a lot.
Almeida danced the chotis (Schottische), a traditional Madrid country dance, with his new wife.
Upon leaving the wedding, former Madrid regional president Esperanza Aguirre’s husband joked to reporters about “drinking a lot”—from behind the wheel. His wife eventually scolded him to the cameras a day later, saying: “my husband makes some jokes that are just not funny, and just to get on my nerves.”
Greenpeace gave Almeida a giant "wedding bouquet” made with branches and trunks of trees, symbolizing (and criticizing) the city’s “arboricidal” (new term alert! Means the planned mass cutting down of trees) policy.🌳
Last but not least, Núñez Feijóo, who, true to form, tripped and almost fell as he was leaving the church. Happens to the best of us. And happens to him all the time.
In the end, it doesn’t matter how many royals, aristocrats and high-profile politicians may be in attendance. A wedding is a wedding, embarrassing moments and all.
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