Costa Blanca Property For Sale In Javea, Moraira Luxury Villas » Houses Spain LV-001

Moraira Villas, 2 Bed Villa For Sale, Large Underbuild [REDUCED]

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Villa Moraira Details

Real Estate Ref No: LV-001
Year Built: 2001
Plot Size (sq m): 1000
Bedrooms: 2
Views: Residential
Pool Terrace (sq m): 120 (approx.)
Heating: Gas Central Heating
Reduced: Yes, from €325,500

Listing Price (€): 289,000
Floors: 2
Property Size (sq m): 84
Bathrooms: 1
Pool: 8m x 4m
Parking: Uncovered Driveway
Air Conditioning: None
Current Status: For Sale

About This Property In Moraira

Well-presented 2 bedroom detached Spanish property for sale situated in a private location near Villotel area of Moraira (click here for Moraira villas). Constructed on 2 levels the main living area is on the upper floor and is accessed by a semi-circular porch area that faces the pool. This leads to an open-plan living area that includes the lounge, dining area and kitchen. There is adjacent access to 2 double bedrooms and a bathroom.

The property in Moraira enjoys considerable outside area which comprises an 8m x 4m rectangular pool, outside shower and ample pool terrace. To the rear there is another terrace area and access to a considerable underbuild that is currently used for storage. There is another 80 to 90 sq metres of convertible space here which could easily be made into a separate, self-contained accommodation.

El Portet beach in Moraira is only 5 minutes drive away as are the communal facilities of Villotel. This is an excellent property, priced to sell and ideal for a couple, small family looking for a Spanish property investment, comfortable villa or holiday home.

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Three Britons die in legionnaires outbreak at Spanish resort

Giles Tremlett — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:41:41 GMT

British holidaymakers aged between 73 and 78 were among more than 20 people to contract disease at hotel in Calpe, Spain

Three British holidaymakers have died in an outbreak of legionnaires disease at a hotel in the Spanish resort of Calpe.

The three unnamed Britons, aged between 73 and 78, were among more than 20 people to have contracted the disease at the Diamante Beach hotel.

The deaths were confirmed over the last 24 hours, almost three weeks after Saga holidays was first informed of the outbreak at the four-star spa and convention centre.

The regional government of Valencia confirmed on Friday that the first death had been on 26 January and another had come five days later. The latest death happened at the Clinica Benidorm hospital on Thursday.

"The three dead were British and aged between 73 and 78," a spokesman said. A further 14 other people, ten of them British, were being treated for the disease.

Confusion surrounded the date on which the legionella outbreak had been confirmed, with Saga saying it was first told about it on 14 January.

The regional health department, however, said a preliminary test had failed to locate the bacterium that causes the disease. It did not publicly inform of the outbreak, which was confirmed by a second test, until Friday.

Authorities ordered the disinfection of the hotel's water system, but said Diamante Beach had not broken maintenance rules.

Saga said a further three people remain in hospital in Spain. Five other people who recently stayed at the Diamante Beach had been treated in hospital in the UK though all but one have been discharged.

"It was reported to us on Saturday 14 January that a customer who had stayed at the Diamante Beach hotel in Spain was being treated for pneumonia caused by legionella," a Saga spokesman said.

"When that happened we immediately sent out a scientific expert to Spain and informed our guests there and offered to move them to a different hotel.

"We also contacted people who had stayed at the hotel in the previous month telling them to contact their doctor if they were experiencing flu-like symptoms."

Health authorities said the hotel had now been temporarily closed. "With the closure we have a guarantee that there will be no more contagion and we can then evaluate the measures taken with the rigour required by the situation."

A spokesman for the hotel said it expected to reopen on Monday.

Saga said the company eventually moved all clients to a new hotel after their expert conducted tests on water samples.

A holidaymaker who died in his hotel room on 31 January had not said he was feeling sick and Saga had not originally known the cause of death, the spokesman said.

"This is clearly a very upsetting time for families and staff. We have sent extra people to Spain to support them in any way we can," the spokesman added.

Saga will be offering compensation to the holidaymakers who contracted the bacterium and has suspended sending clients to the hotel.

"We have done an inspection of the plumbing and made some recommendations to reduce possibilities of a further outbreak and they will need to make changes before we consider using it again."

The Foreign Office said it was providing consular assistance to those affected by the outbreak and their families.

Legionnaires' disease is caused by a bacterium usually found in standing water and can be contracted by breathing contaminated air.

Older people as well as those with weak immune systems or lung problems are most susceptible.

Giles Tremlett

Saving Spain's Socialists: ex-minister fights for control of a party in tatters

Giles Tremlett — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 13:28:28 GMT

Victory for Carme Chacón in leadership contest would set her on course to be country's first female PM

Spain's opposition Socialist party may set the former defence minister Carme Chacón on the path to becoming the country's first female prime minister at a nail-bitingly close contest for a new leader .

Chacón is in a two-way contest with the former deputy prime minister Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba to take over a party in tatters after a rout at elections in November.

Although both candidates worked closely with the former prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Chacón is seen as closest to the man who governed Spain for eight years until December.

Zapatero has publicly declared himself neutral in the fight between the two career politicians, but is privately reported to back Chacón.

Rubalcaba, 60, has the open support of Felipe González, who was prime minister from 1982 to 1996. The wily veteran also has the backing of Patxi López, the popular Basque regional prime minister, and of many party veterans.

Chacón, a 40-year-old Catalan who studied part of her law degree at Manchester University, has called on the party's women to back her and appears to have the support of a younger generation of Socialists.

Her team are sure they have won enough pledged votes from delegates who have started gathering in the southern city of Seville for her to win. "She is going to get it," one of her team said.

But Rubalcaba's side also claims to be narrowly ahead in the battle for a majority of the 956 votes at the conference, with a block of up to 100 undecided delegates set to be key.

There is little difference, politically, between the two candidates. Both have veered further left since they were ejected from government in November, but neither belongs to the more rebellious wing of a party that competes for leftwing votes with the communist-led United Left coalition.

Higher taxes on the wealthy and support for the Tobin tax on financial transactions is mixed with a call for Spain to slow its austerity drive to prevent an even deeper fall into recession.

Spain's political system is mostly a two-party affair, with either the Socialists or the conservative People's party (PP) of the current prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, running the government since 1982.

Whoever wins the post of secretary general can expect to challenge Rajoy for the prime minister's job at the next elections, which are due in late 2015 or early 2016.

They can also expect to preside over a fractious party that is bitter about losing power in Madrid as well as in many regional government and town halls.

The first major electoral challenge will be a vote for the regional parliament in the traditional socialist stronghold of southern Andalucía in March. Opinion polls there show the party in danger of losing to Rajoy's PP.

The task of turning around the Socialist vote is immense. It received its lowest overall vote since 1977 at the November general election, with just 110 MPs in the 350-seat parliament. Voters punished it for the economic crisis, massive unemployment and for Zapatero's 2010 U-turn on the economy. Rubalcaba was the candidate for prime minister at that election and Chacón campaigners point to his inability to stave off disaster.

Zapatero imposed austerity, raised the retirement age, froze pensions and cut civil service pay in May 2010 as bond markets put massive pressure on Spain's sovereign debt after the collapse of Greece and neighbouring Portugal.

It is still unclear how much the two candidates can distance themselves from Zapatero – especially as both were cabinet ministers when he performed his policy turnabout.

As opposition leader, they will shadow Rajoy, who has already performed his own U-turn by raising taxes as part of his attempt to cut back a budget deficit of more than 8% last year. With unemployment at 23% and still growing, many Socialists believe Rajoy will soon become vulnerable.

Spain has just entered the second phase of a double-dip recession, with the International Monetary Fund predicting the economy will shrink 1.7% this year. Many economists see the recession stretching into 2013, and Rajoy's embrace of greater austerity will also see more job losses.

The prime minister was recently caught on camera privately admitting that his planned reforms to the labour market, to be announced next week, would provoke a general strike.

Chacón's popularity leapt in 2008 when, aged 37 and seven months pregnant, she was appointed as Spain's first female defence minister by Zapatero. His second-term cabinet, with nine women to eight men, was Europe's first majority-female cabinet.

Giles Tremlett

Spain did not swing to the right, the left collapsed | Ignacio Escolar

Ignacio Escolar — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 10:19:32 GMT

Spanish voters felt betrayed by the left's response to financial crisis. Its future is tied up with the evolution of the economy

On 20 November 2011, Spain's Popular party (PP) won the general election with the most absolute majority ever won by the Spanish right in democratic times. The left collapsed. The Socialist party (PSOE) lost a third of its seats and 38% of its voters in its worst result since 1933. Of the 4 million voters to abandon the Socialists, only 600,000 did so for the United Left (IU) – a coalition led by the Communist party.

It is, without doubt, payback for the economic crisis; part of the same wave that has swept the majority of leftwing governments from power in Europe. Has the crisis caused Spanish society to shift to the right, or is it that the left has been stranded without discourse and without ideas? In truth, the answer is more complicated than these two oft-repeated cliches.

The election results reveal that the conservative absolute majority is not built on the unstoppable rise of the right. Mariano Rajoy, the new prime minister, won 10.8m votes in the November election, only 500,000 more than in 2008, when he lost to José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. Opinion polls do not show an ideological shift to the right either. According to the Centre for Sociological Investigations, the majority of Spaniards describe themselves as centre-left, ahead of right or centre-right. Rajoy's landslide at the polls was down to the abstention and break-up of the left, not the growth of his social base.

So what caused the electoral collapse of the Spanish left? It's a problem of supply, not of demand: in government the left was incapable of living up to the ideas and discourse of its voters. During the years of the property bubble, the PSOE embraced liberal economic policies, especially in terms of taxation. "Lowering taxes is of the left," Zapatero frivolously declared as he introduced numerous tax cuts that greatly benefited the upper classes. Then came the recession, and Zapatero was slow to react, lost in an absurd semantic debate about the word "crisis".

The point of no return came on 12 May 2010, when the prime minister, cornered by the pressure of the markets on Spanish bonds, announced the biggest public spending cuts in Spain's history. Instead of looking for a social democratic way forward, Zapatero utterly embraced liberal recipes to resolve the crisis. Instead of putting taxes for the richest back up, he cut workers' pay. Instead of tapping the profits of the banking sector, he froze pensions.

Did Zapatero have an alternative? There was without doubt space for other policies, even in the context of the austerity imposed from Europe. But how to apply policies of the left in the midst of the crisis, in a globalised economy and in a European Union where most states are governed by conservative parties? Zapatero's cuts were seen by a huge number of those who had elected him as an intolerable betrayal. Voters turned their back on the PSOE. If the only way out of the crisis was to support the right, then better the original than a copy.

The rigid institutional design of the EU, the European Central Bank and the euro – the only currency without its own treasury – has converted the countries of southern Europe into nations without economic sovereignty and indebted in a currency they don't control, as was Argentina with the dollar. Britain can devalue the pound or print more money: generate inflation and so reduce the weight of its debt. In Spain, without the peseta, it is people, salaries, the welfare state and workers' rights that are devalued.

The real problem is common to all the European left: the fiscal joy of the bubble years and national governments' lack of autonomy. The discourse is not wrong, but its application is impossible. There is no swing to the right, but the destruction of the left. It's not political theory but its practice. It cannot be true that the same welfare state that paid for (the recovery of) broken, ruined postwar Europe is today an unsustainable utopia.

The future of the left in Spain will depend on two things: its ability to ally the interests of the middle and lower classes, a tough challenge in a country frightened – the most pessimistic in terms of when we might emerge from the crisis, according to the Eurobarometer – and with 22% unemployment; and the evolution of the economy.

Rajoy has come to power as Spain enters a second recession, worse still than the first. No optimism is possible, at least for a couple of years. Despite the fear of the majority of the public, there will also be street protests – the 15M Indignados movement is there – and they will gather momentum if the penance of the cuts doesn't lead to paradise at the end of the crisis.

If the economy recovers, PP can look forward to a long period of hegemony that will only be broken if it makes serious mistakes. If the crisis continues, it's not impossible to imagine that Rajoy might serve only one term in office. But if the PSOE and the other parties of the left aren't able to win back the public's trust, the next Spanish prime minister could turn out to be a technocrat such as Monti or a populist such as Berlusconi.

Ignacio Escolar

Two British pensioners on Spanish holiday die of legionnaires' disease

Thu, 02 Feb 2012 23:06:24 GMT

Two men died after staying at hotel in Calpe, Valencia. Three more guests are still in hospital while six have been discharged

Two British holidaymakers have died after contracting legionnaires' disease while on holiday in Spain.

Two male pensioners died after staying at the Diamante Beach Hotel in Calpe, Valencia, Saga Holidays said. One died in hospital this morning while the other was found dead in a hotel room.

A further three people remain in hospital in Spain while another has already been discharged. Five other guests who recently stayed at the same hotel have been treated in hospital in the UK and all but one have been discharged, the company added.

A spokesman for Saga said: "It was reported to us on Saturday January 14 that a customers who had stayed at the Diamante Beach Hotel in Spain was being treated for pneumonia caused by Legionella.

"When that happened we immediately sent out a scientific expert to Spain and informed our guests there and offered to move them to a different hotel.

"We also contacted people who had stayed at the hotel in the previous month telling them to contact their doctor if they were experiencing flu-like symptoms."

He added: "Five people who had since returned to the UK had been to the doctors and were confirmed as having contracted Legionella. Four were discharged and one is still in hospital in the UK and responding to treatment.

"In Spain there were five people treated in hospital, one was treated and discharged and three are responding to treatment in wards.

"One gentleman was treated in the intensive care unit and passed away this morning."

Brussels discovers new €15bn black hole in Greece's finances

Larry Elliott, Katie Allen, Giles Tremlett — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 20:05:20 GMT

• Revelation raises pressure on stricken economy
• EU states to be asked for further financial help
• Ireland cuts growth forecast
• Spain demands banks raise €50bn in capital

Pressure on Greece's recession-stricken economy has intensified after international debt inspectors admitted an additional €15bn (£12.5bn) would be needed to fill a newly discovered black hole in the country's finances.

On a day when Ireland's government reduced its growth forecast and Madrid told Spanish banks to raise an extra €50bn to cover toxic assets, Brussels officials said European countries and state-owned banks would be asked for contributions to help Athens out of its fiscal troubles.

The fresh evidence of Greece's desperate financial plight came as it continued to discuss the terms of a deal with private sector creditors aimed at writing down debts by €100bn, and was an admission that the "haircut" being taken by banks, hedge funds and insurance companies would not be enough on its own to remove the risk of a default.

International Monetary Fund officials said that time was running out to finalise the negotiations in time to trigger payment of the next tranche of its €130bn bailout from the European commission, the European Union and the IMF.

The so-called troika has recognised in the past few days that Greece faces an impossible task in reducing debt when the economy is in such deep recession, and now accepts that the country's sovereign creditors will have to supplement the debt relief being provided by the private sector. Spending cuts, tax increases and the general uncertainty of the crisis have already pushed Greece into a slump, which in turn has eliminated many of the gains from the austerity measures.

Although China's premier, Wen Jiabao, raised hopes after talks with the German chancellor Angela Merkel that the world's fastest-growing emerging economy would consider boosting its contribution to Europe's bailout fund, there were fresh signs of strain in those countries most affected by the sovereign debt crisis.

Spain's finance minister, Luis de Guindos, ushered in a fresh round of consolidation when he told banks they had to make provision for bad loans and write downs in the country's troubled property sector.

With Spain falling into the second part of a double-dip recession and unemployment at 23%, de Guindos's new rules exposed the still dire state of the property market. Officials claimed it was the most ambitious attempt to cleanse banks' balance sheets in Europe. "Spain's banking system will emerge from this process stronger, with fewer but more solid banks," the economy ministry said.

Banks have absorbed large amounts of toxic assets as building developers default on loans in a country with a glut of 500,000 unsold new homes. They have already made provision for a third of the €176bn of "troubled" assets on their books, according to Spain's central bank.

Under the new rules total provisions against building lots, many of which are illiquid, will reach 80%. Those against ongoing building developments will hit 65%, while provisions against completed houses will reach 35%.

The measures show how developers, rather than mortgage-holders, became the biggest danger to Spain's banking system after politically controlled savings banks lent freely to them during a dizzying building boom that halted in 2008.

Many of those banks have already disappeared after a round of mergers that began in 2009. The fresh mergers will reduce the total even further, with all eyes now on Bankia, a troubled group formed from the merger of seven savings banks.

The country's bank restructuring fund will receive a €15bn top-up, though this will not add to the deficit. Banking reform was one of the major planks of a programme promised by conservative People's party prime minister Mariano Rajoy, who won November elections.

Meanwhile, Ireland's central bank slashed its growth forecast for 2012 from 1.8% to just 0.5%, blaming a slowdown in consumer spending and a tougher outlook for exports due to Europe's debt crisis.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny refused to accept the government's more optimistic budget forecasts were out of line with those from the central bank and claimed the real priority was creating jobs. "The government's growth figures are median figures and we are prepared to stand by those," said Kenny.

Market attention on Friday will focus on the US where the latest official unemployment data is expected to show further slight improvement in the job market.

While the unemployment rate for January is likely to stay at 8.5%, the world's largest economy is expected to have added 150,000 jobs. That is slightly below growth of 200,000 in December, however, with economists expecting seasonal layoffs of couriers after Christmas to knock job creation.

Data on Thursday reinforced a growing view the US labour market is slowly improving, with new claims for unemployment benefits falling more than expected last week.

US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke sought to reassure markets that there had been signs of modest improvement in the labour market, but conceded the pace of recovery was slow. Bernanke told Congress there were signs uncertainty dogging the US economy was letting up, but that the eurozone crisis still threatened the country's recovery.

Larry Elliott

Katie Allen

Giles Tremlett

Does Spain have the right to look at its past or not? | Miguel-Anxo Murado

Miguel-Anxo Murado — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 12:03:55 GMT

Star judge Baltasar Garzón opened an investigation into the killings of the Franco dictatorship. Now he sits in the dock

No habrá paz para los malvados. "No rest for the wicked". That's the biblically inspired title of a recently released Spanish thriller about crime and revenge. But in the real Spain, the wicked may be having some rest after all. While prominent corruption trials come to nothing, star judge Baltasar Garzón, seen all over the world as an embodiment of the principle of universal justice, sits in the dock, facing not one but three separate indictments that are expected to put an abrupt end to his hyperactive judicial career.

Garzón stands accused of opening an investigation into the killings of the Franco dictatorship (1936-1975). You may be surprised to learn that looking into these 114,000 murders is a punishable crime in Spain, but that is how it is. The specific charge against Garzón is "perverting the course of justice".

What Garzón did, at the behest of hundreds of relatives of people who were murdered during and after the civil war, was to open an inquiry to account for the tens of thousands of bodies still scattered around the country, secretly buried by their executors in ravines and ditches. For decades, their loved ones have tried to give them a proper burial. Some bodies have been retrieved with the help of volunteer archaeologists but the law is so fuzzy, and the attitude of many local judges so hostile, that only a fraction of the corpses have been unearthed. Spain continues to be a gigantic neglected graveyard. Garzón, who had helped with the investigation of similar crimes in Argentina and Chile, thought the same principles could be applied to Spain.

We're talking about non-natural deaths here, so the operation had to include a criminal investigation, which meant indicting Franco and his henchmen. When judge Garzón proceeded to do just that, even symbolically – they're all dead now – two far-right organisations sued, one of them the very Falange Española (the Spanish fascist party) which carried out many of the killings back then. Picture Radovan Karadzic successfully suing The Hague.

The fact that Garzón is facing two other charges (one an obscure corruption allegation, the other a rather technical misdemeanour in the handling of a corruption case) detracts from, rather than adds to, the credibility of the case against him. The timing seems all too suspect and the number of simultaneous accusations against a single judge unprecedented in Spain.

But if you think this means the Spanish justice system is still in the hands of ultraconservative judges and Francoist nostalgics you're missing half the picture, because only about half of them are. The other half hates Garzón for other, less ideological, reasons. Some of them have always resented his desire for prominence, or feel his reputation is undeserved. Socialist politicians never forgave him for going after the death squads that were set up in the 1980s to kill the armed Basque separatists of Eta. And he angered the conservatives too when he investigated a corrupt network affecting the now ruling People's party.

I'm not a Garzón fan myself, for my own reasons. I never liked his self-righteousness, and he represents an approach to justice I don't trust: that of the all-powerful judge with a mission. I believe that the ultimate guarantor of justice should be a clear law and not the mood or the idealism of a judge, and I guess Garzón is beginning to agree with me as he is becoming the victim of a confusing law and a few judges with a mission of their own: to put him out of business.

My personal feelings aside, I think there's more at stake here than his professional future, the petty quarrels of his trade or the intractable fuzziness of Spain's laws. What is at stake is whether we have the right to look into our recent past or not, and whether it is not the wicked, but the innocent, who will never be able to rest.

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Miguel-Anxo Murado

Treasure from sunken galleon must be returned to Spain, judge says

Giles Tremlett — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:03:50 GMT

US court says $500m of gold and silver coins recovered by US treasure-hunters from Atlantic in 2007 belongs to Spain

It is one of the greatest underwater treasure troves of all time, a glittering haul of gold and silver recovered from a mysterious sunken Spanish galleon and secretly flown across the Atlantic to the US.

But now an epic battle over ownership of 594,000 gold and silver coins scattered on the ocean floor has ended with victory for the Spanish government, with the American treasure-hunter Odyssey Marine Exploration ordered to send the valuable haul back home.

A jubilant Spanish government announced on Wednesday that the $500m-worth (£308m) of gold and silver coins found at a site that Odyssey called "Black Swan" would be back on Spanish soil within 10 days.

"This sentence gives Spaniards back what was already theirs," said the culture minister, José Ignacio Wert. "There is a space of 10 days in which the coins must be returned."

The court decision puts an end to nearly five years of intrigue on the high seas since Odyssey scooped the precious haul from the Atlantic seabed in May 2007. To the fury of Spanish authorities it secretly landed the trove in Gibraltar and flew it out in chartered aircraft to its base in Florida.

A American circuit court judge has upheld a decision by Atlanta judge Mark Pizzo, who had declared the trove came from the Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes, a Spanish frigate sunk by a British squadron off Cape St Mary, Portugal, in October 1804.

The judge rejected Odyssey's argument that there was no clear wreck site, with the coins scattered so widely it was impossible to say exactly which vessel they came from.

The treasure-hunting company, he said, had set out to find the Mercedes and had clearly done so.

Pizzo argued that the coins, all dated prior to 1804, matched the Mercedes' cargo of coins minted in Lima, Peru – part of a haul being brought back to finance Spain's European wars. He also said cannon found there matched those on the Mercedes.

Rightful ownership of the coins, which fill 600 barrels, now belongs to Spain and to descendants of the 250 Spanish sailors who were lost when the vessel blew up.

However, the whereabouts of a further 400,000 coins from the Mercedes remains a mystery.

The treasure was found by one of Odyssey's remote-controlled, deep sea robots as it scoured the seabed 1,100 metres down.

Odyssey's decision to use Gibraltar led to a tense stand-off in disputed waters off the rock. Shortly after the coins had been spirited off to Florida, a Spanish warship forced the company's 250ft Odyssey Explorer salvage vessel into the nearby Spanish port of Algeciras, while it was searched. Its captain, Sterling Vorus, was arrested, but later freed.

The Wikileaks release of state department cables revealed that US diplomats had offered to side with Spain against Odyssey. The US ambassador in Madrid sought to tie the treasure to attempts by an American citizen, Claude Cassirer, to recover a painting by Camille Pissarro that hangs in Madrid's Thyssen-Bornemizsa museum.

"It was in both governments' interest to avail themselves of whatever margin for manoeuvre they had, consistent with their legal obligations, to resolve both matters in a way that favoured the bilateral relationship," Aguirre told the then culture minister, César Antonio Molina, in July 2008.

In contrast to its battles with Spain, Odyssey has done deals with the British government to recover and share sunken treasure.

An agreement to excavate a wreck thought to be the 80-gun warship HMS Sussex, which sank in 1694 carrying up to 10 tonnes of gold, led to complaints that a unique heritage site was being despoiled. The Sussex and 12 ships in its fleet sank in storms in 1694 while on a secret mission to bribe the Duke of Savoy to act as an ally in a war against Louis XIV of France.

"The whole arbitration process is still not one that gives us confidence in what ministers have told us, which is that the archaeological issues are paramount." said George Lambrick, director of the Council for British Archaeology, adding that serious concerns remained.

Neil Cunningham-Dobson, a British archaeologist who led initial examinations, denied the company would spoil the site: "Odyssey are one of the best and most reputable firms in the business and use the latest technologies."

Wert said some of the coins would be distributed to Spanish museums. "We want people to see them," he said.

He admitted the only stumbling block to the immediate return of the coins might be a further appeal by Odyssey, if it was accepted by a higher court and a suspension order placed on the sentence.

A spokeswoman for Odyssey, Laura Barton, indicated an appeal might be forthcoming. "Currently, there is no final order from the court to give the Black Swan coins to Spain," she told the Guardian without giving further details.

"It is certainly reasonable to assume that should the cargo recovered by Odyssey be transferred to Spain, it will never be returned," the exploration company had argued before the appeals court.

Giles Tremlett

Santander's UK profits plunge 40%

Jill Treanor — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 18:40:25 GMT

Owner of Abbey National and Alliance & Leicester says it has not lent cash it has borrowed from the ECB to customers

Santander admitted on Tuesday that it was hoarding the cash it had borrowed from the European Central Bank rather than granting new loans to customers as it revealed that profits had fallen sharply as a result of troubled property loans.

In the UK, where the Spanish bank owns Abbey National, Alliance & Leicester and part of Bradford & Bingley, profits were down 40% to just under £1bn. A flotation of the UK business, already severely delayed, now appears to be more than a year away as it grapples with an economy that is growing much slower than it had expected.

The bank, whose home country is on the brink of recession after contracting for the first time in two years in the final quarter of last year, reckons the UK economy will now grow by 0.6% in 2012, a cut in its original forecast for growth this year of 1.6%.

Provisions for bad loans of €3.2bn (£2.65bn) dominated the results of the bank, which is the biggest in the eurozone, and knocked profits 35% lower to €5.35bn. Even without the spin-off of the UK business, Santander has managed to raise the €15bn that European banking regulators had demanded it find to shore up its financial position for any worsening of the eurozone crisis.

Alfredo Sáenz, Santander's chief executive, said that the funds it had obtained from the ECB through its special liquidity operations had not been lent to customers. The bank was holding on to it as a "buffer", he said, which might disappoint the authorities who had been hoping the funds would be lent to individuals and small businesses.

Of the €3.2bn of provisions, some €1.8bn was intended to allow the bank to write-off up to 50% of the losses on repossessed properties compared with 31% a year ago. In total, the bank has €32bn of loans to the Spanish property sector which was booming before the 2008 banking crisis.

"The numbers have been greeted with relief that the bank is beginning to account for losses properly and insert a degree of realism in its figures," said Louise Cooper, markets analyst at BGC Partners.

"The fact that the share price actually rose on such a dismal set of results says a lot. Fears of massive bank writedowns and losses are still high in investor minds, so some acknowledgement of the problem helps sentiment. The new Spanish government wants its banks to clean up their loan books and take proper losses on real estate, so expect other Spanish banks to follow. The government also wants the banks to improve their capital positions without needing money from the taxpayer," she added.

In the UK, the contribution to the group was knocked by a £538m provision for mis-selling of payment protection insurance. As it warned the outlook for 2012 would be "challenging", the bank stressed it had met its targets under the Project Merlin deal with the government, lending £4.3bn compared with the £4bn required. Santander did not sign up to the provision on bonuses last year, which require payouts to be lower and the disclosure of the five highest paid staff.

Jill Treanor

Baltasar Garzón trial opens in Spain

Giles Tremlett — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:24:29 GMT

Spanish judge who had Augusto Pinochet arrested in London accused of abuse of power in investigating Franco-era crimes

Crusading Spanish magistrate Baltasar Garzón has told a court trying him for abuse of his powers that an investigation he opened into the deaths of 114,000 opponents of the Franco regime was based on the same principles used to order the arrest of Chile's Augusto Pinochet.

The judge was giving evidence as he faced charges of deliberately abusing his powers in order to open a formal court investigation into human rights crimes committed by dictator General Francisco Franco's regime between 1936 and 1975.

Garzón, who had a brief and controversial parliamentary career as a Socialist MP, denied he was motivated by political ideology.

He told a panel of supreme court judges he had simply been seeking the truth and looking after the rights of the victims and their families.

"There was no ideology in this, but there were thousands and thousands of victims whose rights had not been dealt with," he said.

Garzón faces being fined and struck off as an investigating magistrate for 20 years if he is found guilty in this trial, which is just one of three different cases against him going through the supreme court. He said his investigation into Francoist crimes was similar to those he carried out - backed by the Spanish courts - into human rights offences committed by Pinochet's dictatorship and Argentina's military juntas.

Garzón had Pinochet arrested in London in 1998 and the British courts accepted he could be extradited to Spain to face trial.

Among other arguments used by Garzón in the Pinochet case was that the crime of "disappearance" — when someone is taken away and never seen again — cannot be covered by amnesty laws as it is an ongoing crime of kidnapping that is still being committed today.

He used this principle in the Franco case as the bodies of many of the victims, which are believed to lie in secret mass graves, have never been found.

Garzón also brought a successful prosecution against an Argentinian navy captain, Adolfo Scilingo, who was jailed by a Madrid court for throwing drugged prisoners out of aircraft into the sea.

"I based myself on the Scilingo case from Argentina when accepting this investigation [into Francoist crimes]," he said on Tuesday.

Garzón said he had declined to open a separate investigation in the mass killing of thousands of prisoners of the leftwing republican government during the Spanish civil war because he did not think it was a matter for the national court to deal with.

"Garzón showed today that his decision to take up the investigation of the crimes of the Franco era was fully supported by international law," said Reed Brody, an observer from Human Rights Watch. " But the spectacle of a judge as a criminal defendant, having to justify his investigation into torture, killings and disappearances was itself an affront to principles of human rights and judicial independence."

A dozen relatives of Franco's victims are to give evidence during the trial, which is expected to last for weeks and has drawn observers from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

Protests continued outside the courthouse on Tuesday, as victims, relatives and pro-Garzón campaigners complained he had become the victim of a concerted campaign of persecution.

Giles Tremlett

Pressure grows on EU leaders to relax strict austerity

Phillip Inman — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:49:15 GMT

Spain on course for another recession after GDP contracted 0.3% at the end of last year, while the cost of insuring Portuguese debt has hit a new record

Pressure on EU leaders to relax their insistence on strict austerity measures intensified on Monday after Spain revealed that its economy contracted in the last three months of 2011 and the cost of insuring Portugal's debt soared to a record high.

Spain's output dropped by 0.3% during the fourth quarter of 2011 compared with the previous three months, according to official data, confirming the view of the prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, that the economy is sliding into recession.

The figures followed unemployment data last week that shocked EU politicians after it revealed a 350,000 rise in the total out of work, taking the jobless rate to 22.8% and above 5 million.

Madrid said it wanted officials in Brussels to discuss how countries such as Spain can grow before any agreements are reached on further austerity measures.

The economy is expected to slide further in the first quarter of this year, placing Spain in its second recession in less than three years. A technical recession is defined as two consecutive quarters of contraction.

The figure announced by the Spanish statistical office, INE, broke a run of seven quarters without economic contraction.

Compared with a year earlier, gross domestic product rose 0.3%, the INE said. For all of 2011, it increased 0.7%.

Portugal's slide towards a Greek-style second bailout accelerated after its principal private lenders indicated that they were growing weary of assurances from Lisbon that it could get on top of the country's debts.

Business and consumer confidence also hit record lows, following a string of pay cuts and across-the-board tax hikes that were part of Portugal's painful austerity programme.

Banks and others offering insurance against default to holders of Portuguese sovereign debt have begun demanding huge payments upfront rather than allowing costs to be spread over the term of the contract. This means that it costs €3.95m (£3.3m) to insure €10m in bonds over five years, payable now.

Analysts said that this made Portugal the second most costly sovereign debt to insure in the world, after Greece, and implied a huge lack of confidence in market circles about Lisbon's future.

Portuguese bonds have come under particularly intense pressure from investors after Standard & Poor's downgraded 15 eurozone countries earlier this month, putting Portugal in the "junk" category.

Portugal's 10-year bond yields surged on Monday to just under 16%, more than twice the level that is generally considered unsustainable.

John Higgins and Ben May, economists at Capital Economics, said Portugal would be forced out of the single currency, probably next year. Capital Economics has already predicted Greece will leave in 2012.

"The surge in yields in Portugal, which has taken place since the country's credit rating was lowered to sub-investment grade earlier this month by Standard & Poor's ratings agency, reflects growing scepticism that private-sector involvement in eurozone sovereign debt restructurings will only be applied in the case of Greece," they said in a report.

Business and consumer confidence nudged higher on average across the EU despite the fall in Portugal, though analysts were hard-pressed to explain why sentiment had improved this month against a backdrop of huge anxiety while negotiations continued in Athens over the fate of Greece and talks over closer fiscal unity were undermined by Britain's use of its opt-out.

UK consumer confidence rose, according to the Mmarket research firm GfK NOP, though it remains "seriously depressed".

Nick Moon, managing director of GfK NOP Social Research, said falls in inflation and energy prices were behind the rise. He said the feel-good factor may return with added strength with the arrival of the Olympics and the Queen's diamond jubilee, which could improve expectations for the economy and people's own finances.

Phillip Inman

Spain divided over corruption charge against judge who arrested Pinochet

Giles Tremlett — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 19:44:14 GMT

Protest march in support of human rights advocate Baltasar Garzón, who is also on trial over Franco-era prosecutions

He has put dictators, torturers, terrorists and drug barons in the dock. Now, he himself faces an extraordinary battery of criminal charges.

The already astonishing drama surrounding Spain's crusading "superjudge", Baltasar Garzón, hit a new peak as corruption was added to the charges against him and thousands of his supporters blocked streets around the supreme court in Madrid.

The continuing trials faced by Garzón over his controversial investigations into mass killings by the Francoist dictatorship and corruption in the ruling People's party (PP) have already seen his case compared to France's infamous Dreyfus affair. "This is deplorable and intolerable," said the Workers' Commissions trade union leader, Ignacio Fernández Toxo, at the demonstration.

But a fresh charge of taking bribes from Santander bank while on sabbatical at New York University, which has been angrily denied by Garzón and all those involved, has fuelled worries that the world's most famous human rights investigator is being subjected to a concerted campaign of persecution. "I am facing the firing squad, but I've asked them to take off the blindfold," the man who had Chile's General Augusto Pinochet arrested said in an aside during one of three trials he currently faces for alleged abuse of his powers.

On Tuesday, for the third week running, he returns to the supreme court, where he usually sits stern-faced in his black magistrate's robe with embroidered cuffs under a painted ceiling featuring child-throttlers and knife-wielding assassins.

He is accused of perverting the course of justice by opening an investigation into the fate of 114,000 people killed by Francisco Franco's regime. Garzón believes he will win his case on appeal, but has long been convinced supreme court judges are determined to declare him guilty and expel him from their ranks. "I hope justice will prevail, but it seems to me the prejudice is already there and that in any of the cases against me the verdict will be guilty," he told film-maker Justin Webster while waiting for the court to fix trial dates.

The zeal with which the supreme court has pursued the cases was highlighted this weekend when newspapers leaked the recommendation that corruption charges be brought. Supreme court judge Manuel Marchena alleged Garzón had abused his powers to extract sponsorship for courses, receiving money indirectly.

"I did not solicit, administer or receive, either personally or through third parties, directly or indirectly, money or gifts from the entities and corporations that sponsored the courses and seminars where I was academic director," Garzón replied. He is backed by the university.

Friends say that, beneath his cool facade, Garzón is going through private hell. "I do ask myself why I am here," he admitted during his first trial, accused of illegally wiretapping remand prisoners and their defence lawyers in the PP's "Gürtel" corruption scandal.

Global human rights activists ask the same question. "Garzón has made many enemies because he is a judge who causes problems," said Reed Brody, of Human Rights Watch. "But we need judges who cause problems, not ones who are subservient to power."

No Spanish investigating magistrate, who prepare cases rather than try them, has ever faced three such separate but simultaneous trials. Many see a conspiracy by jealous colleagues. "If it had been anyone other than Garzón, they would never have put him on trial," said a prosecutor who has worked closely with him.

Garzón got to this point, first and foremost, by poking a finger into one of Spain's most sensitive, gaping wounds. In October 2008 he opened an investigation into Francoist crimes. His decision swept aside a 1977 amnesty law and challenged a tacit accord that Spaniards should not argue over their bloody civil war or the 40-year dictatorship that ended only with Franco's death in 1975.

Garzón named Franco as one of 34 suspects. The superjudge was deliberately chasing ghosts, as all were dead. The move enraged conservatives, some of whom see Franco as little more than a benign authoritarian. "It [the Franco regime] was a period of extraordinary calm," claimed Jaime Mayor Oreja, a former PP interior minister. Garzón might as well put Napoleon on trial, declared Manuel Fraga, the party's founding president and a former Franco minister. "It is an outrage," he said. "There were amnesty laws."

But circumventing amnesty laws is just one speciality of a judge who shot to global fame in 1998 when he had Pinochet arrested so he could be extradited to Spain for the killing of 3,000 Chileans.

While many doubted that Garzón's unprecedented use of international human rights law, two law lords' rulings allowed for the extradition – effectively agreeing that Chile's amnesty laws allowed other countries to claim jurisdiction. The then Labour home secretary, Jack Straw, stopped the extradition by sending Pinochet home on what were widely seen to be politically convenient health grounds.

But a precedent was set. Some, indeed, see it as the most important human rights case since the Nuremberg trials, leaving practitioners of genocide and torture with nowhere to hide.

Garzón then had an Argentinian navy captain, Adolfo Scilingo, tried and jailed in Spain for crimes committed thousands of miles away – further extending the reach of international human rights law.

Judges in Chile and Argentina were emboldened by his actions and eventually struck out their amnesty laws. But historical memory campaigners, who seek out and dig up Franco's mass graves, say the case against Garzón means Spanish judges are now too scared to take the same path.

"Will Franco's victims have fewer rights than Pinochet's victims?" asked Brody. "Garzón is being tried for applying exactly the same principals he successfully defended in international law."

Even before the Pinochet case Garzón was a controversial, crusading figure in Spain. He took on state-sponsored terrorism in a dirty war against violent Basque separatists, falling out with a Socialist party that had briefly – and controversially – added him to its list of parliamentary deputies. Garzón also won massive public support for his pursuit of Galician drug clans and the armed Basque separatist group Eta, even shutting down newspapers and suspending political parties deemed to back terrorism.

The legend of the "superjudge" was born, though Garzón claims to dislike it. "It is not the judge who is the star," he said. "It is the case."

The left-leaning son of a petrol attendant from the poor, olive-growing southern town of Torres, he has always been an outsider. Garzón's father had insisted that, to get on, "you have to see the sun rise". By the time he was 32, he had become the youngest ever magistrate at the powerful national court.

But he has few friends in his courthouse. Only half a dozen judges and prosecutors walk the short distance from the national court to the supreme court to offer moral support before each of his trials.

When a tiny trade union called Clean Hands, which has links to the far right, presented a writ against him for opening the Francoism case, the disregard of many colleagues soon became clear.

"This writ opened the field against Garzón," said Clean Hands leader Miguel Bernad, formerly of the pro-Francoist National Front. "Because of his huge ego, he thought that after going against Chile and Argentina, he would apply universal justice here in Spain. But he is not impartial. He is only interested in rightwing regimes. All he wants is stardom and headlines."

Then a complaint was lodged by the lawyers wiretapped during the Gürtel investigation. The allegation that Garzón knowingly dictated a measure that was against the law, rather than simply interpreting the law in a way others might disagree with, is tough to prove.

Even those who think Garzón is a high-handed judge with a bloated ego agree that, were it not for the Franco investigation, he might have escaped prosecution in the other cases. "The real reason he is on trial is because of historical memory, not Gürtel or New York," said Italian author and economist Loretta Napoleoni, who has written a book about Garzón. "But the Gürtel case is quite shocking, because you just don't listen in to conversations in jail between lawyers and defendants."

Napoleoni believes the wild applause that greeted Garzón's pursuit of terrorism and organised crime went to his head and led him astray. "He is the fallen star. He has been sacrificed," she said.

Garzón has vowed to fight his cases as far as the European court of human rights. "If fear or cowardice take root in a judge, then society is lost," he said.

Giles Tremlett

Europe's lost generation: how it feels to be young and struggling in the EU

Viola Caon, Helena Smith — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 20:00:00 GMT

Viola Caon left her Italian home to find work. Now she returns to see how her former classmates are faring… and in the week that shocking figures showed how badly Europe's youth is being hit by the unemployment crisis, we also talk to hard-hit twentysomethings in Athens and Madrid

Maybe being young is never easy. But being a twentysomething young European has rarely been more stressful.

More than a quarter (28%) of Italians between 16 and 24 are unemployed. Others are struggling to get by on unpaid internships or poorly paid jobs with little security.

Italy's new prime minister, Mario Monti, has vowed to help the younger generation, promising among other things to help them start businesses, but as austerity bites deep the future is uncertain, even terrifying, for many.

It's not just Italy, of course. Eurozone unemployment is at a record. According to Eurostat, the EU's statistical office, 16.3 million people are out of work in the 17 countries that joined the euro. The story of a lost generation is becoming the scandal of a continent. In Spain, 51.4% of those aged 16-24 are jobless. In Greece, the figure is 43%.

As the eurozone crisis worsened, I went back to my hometown of Civita Castellana, 65 kilometres north of Rome, to meet my classmates from the Giuseppe Colasanti high school. Michela, Maria, Elena, Elisa, Michele, Martina and I were in the class of 2005.

When Monti announced his €30bn austerity package, he said: "Sacrifice will be required." In Civita, those sacrifices are being made. It is one of the largest industrial centres in the region. Since the end of the second world war, about 90% of people been employed making bathroom fittings and crockery, for which Civita is renowned. What everyone now calls "the crisis" arrived here earlier than elsewhere, as the town suffered the consequences of globalisation and competition with China, where similar products were being made more cheaply. Many factories have closed; thousands are out of work.

The debt crisis that began in 2008 means redundancy hangs over many of those who have kept jobs. Then there are the young. Getting a foot on the ladder has never been simple in Italy, where who you know is often key. But with the country facing austerity for the foreseeable future, and eurozone GDP as a whole predicted to shrink by 0.5% in 2012, the outlook is bleak.

So meeting my schoolmates again was quite an experience. My decision six months ago to live and work in London was partly to do with the economy. But how had my schoolmates been getting on?

Martina Rossitto, 26, MA student, human biology

"I am doing a traineeship at the laboratory for cystic fibrosis of Bambino Gesù hospital in Rome. I was lucky, as they do serious research there. I got the place because I know one of the doctors in the lab. I am not getting paid, not even expenses. However, I consider myself to be privileged, as most of my university mates are working 12 hours a day and don't even have access to basic research tools. In Italy, choosing to work as a researcher is suicide. The government keeps cutting the funds."

Maria Francesca Zozi, 26, MA student, arts

"I am usually told I will be a useless graduate. I find it unbelievable: governments keep investing in other sectors and they cut on arts and education. It is simply ridiculous. The problem is that the public sector – which includes most of our arts heritage – is corrupt and inefficient. I have a lot of projects in mind, I would like to attend a course at Brera Academy of Arts in Milan, but I really cannot afford it. I would leave the country if it weren't for my boyfriend, who says we have to stay and fight for a better future."

Elisa Di Pietro Paolo, 25, unemployed shop assistant

"I looked for a job as soon as I left high school six years ago. I found one as a shop assistant in Rome, on a short-term contract. My employers used to renew every year, until one day they didn't. They fired a girl who had worked for them for five years because she took sick leave for pneumonia. Since last January I have been unemployed and doing occasional jobs: for a holiday camp, leafleting, and now for a non-profit thing. The problem is that, having worked as a trainee, employers must hire me on a proper contract, and it's not convenient to them."

Michele Stentella, 26, DJ and student in political science

"I have been DJing for years. Besides doing some nights in a major club in Rome, I have also started to work as a producer. If things go well, I might also sign with an important label. But the crisis has struck in my area, too. More and more clubs are closing. People cannot afford to spend much money and we all feel the pinch at the end of the month. I have a registered logo, and four guys who work with me. I really hope I can keep doing this job. Meanwhile, I study and maybe a BA degree will turn out to be useful some day."

Michela Moretti, 25, trainee lawyer

"I have just graduated in law and I started a traineeship in a law firm near my hometown, Viterbo. Of course, they are not even paying me expenses. The only people I know who are getting paid during their traineeship are lawyers' children. They go to their parents' law firm and they get paid. With Monti's talk about liberalising the professions, everything is still more unclear for us. They're even talking about getting rid of the traineeship. It's going to be very confusing."

Elena Cirioni, 25, trainee radio journalist

"I did a two-year internship for a local FM radio which never even paid me the expenses. Fortunately, I got another opportunity with a private web radio station which is paying me the expenses and is helping me obtain a journalist's licence. I work 15 to 20 hours a week and I get paid €200 a month. My dream was to become a theatre actress and I am still hoping to fulfill this Athensambition at some point. The problem is that the culture industry is eternally in crisis in Italy, and there isn't the money for new actors."

GREECE

The greatest victims of Greece's economic crisis have been its youth, men and women who never knew the boom times but must now bear the brunt of one of Europe's harshest austerity programmes.

With unemployment at a record as the debt-choked country endures a fifth consecutive year of recession, nearly 44% of the 907,953 out of work are between 15 and 24. For the first time since the 1960s, the jobless rate has nudged 18.5%, according to data released by the national statistics office in November. Four out of 10 without work are young people, although three months later, with ever more businesses closing, the figures are undoubtedly worse.

Lack of job prospects and the absence of vocational training to redirect the newly unemployed, fears of impending economic collapse and warnings that it may take 10 years before the service-oriented economy even begins to recover have spurred many of the brightest and best to look abroad. The exodus has sparked a brain drain that could have a devastating effect on the country's future growth. Tens of thousands of young Greeks are believed to have moved overseas in the last two years. Almost always from part of the educated elite, they have gone to other European countries and as far as Australia.

An 800-seat Australian "skills expo" in Athens in October attracted 13,000 applicants. Community leaders in Melbourne, focus of a similar Greek migration in the 1950s and 1960s, have been flooded by requests from Greek graduates.

Christos Xeraxoudis, 24, unemployed chef

"I'm a trained chef and have been looking for work for months. I've sent my CV to hotels and restaurants all over Greece, but out of the 50 or applications that I've made I only got an answer once. Lately I've looked for jobs in the UK, Germany and Switzerland, where I happen to have relatives, but I've had no response. But I am optimistic. Greece needed to change. It needs to be rebuilt from the beginning. It has so much going for it but somehow had lost its way. After all, we had got to the point where we were importing lemons from Argentina."

Evangelia Hadzichristofi, 26, unemployed interior designer

"I've been out of work for the last year. It's hard. I'm an interior designer and our industry has been very badly hit. I had an internship at the Benaki Museum [in Athens], but then they let me go and it's been impossible to find a job since. I've looked for work as a secretary, receptionist, shop assistant and the answer has always been 'no'. It's got to the point where I am counting every cent and have to rely on my father, who is in difficulty himself with his own business. I've just applied for jobs in England and Amsterdam because at least there is always overseas."

Giorgos Dimas, 25, working as a chef

"I was unemployed for three years until last week when I finally found a job as a chef. I went back to school to train as a cook, and I've been learning English but it's been really difficult. At the back of my mind there is always the thought that the restaurant I'm about to work in might go bust, given that no one has any money any more. But although it might take a few years for my generation to find work I actually think the crisis has been a good thing. Greece was all about jobs for civil servants and nothing else. It had to change."

Report by Helena Smith Athens

SPAIN

Now is not the time to be a twentysomething in Spain. According to figures last week, 51.4% of 16-24 year-olds are now without work, as the total unemployment count passed the 5 million barrier.

This has often been called the best-educated generation in Spain. It is also the one which has the direst prospects. Even if they are lucky enough to get a job, most of them – around 60% – have to live on low salaries with little job security. The usual best options are internships or temporary contracts that allow the employer to fire them without difficulty. The situation is now critical, as indicated by prime minister Mariano Rajoy's plea last week to Brussels. He demanded greater "realism" from Brussels over Spain's attempts to cut its deficit. Austerity is sending Spain back into recession and the danger is that a generation is to be sacrificed as a result.

About a decade ago, a new term was coined to describe young people who earned €1,000 a month – the mileuristas. Now things are so bad that this disparaging term describes an unattainable aspiration for most.

Eduardo Caña, 23, student

"I am studying journalism and economics and I've done all sort of low-paid jobs: serving beers in Valencia beach bars, working in construction in Galicia, unloading fruit trucks and filling customers' bags in Ikea. I've never been paid more than €7 an hour. I also worked as an intern for a newspaper, almost for free. This friend of mine was working on a paper for less than €400 a month. Her temporary contract expired and they called to offer me the same job but as an unpaid intern. I found that so offensive. I am finishing school next June and if nothing comes up I am thinking about moving abroad."

Marita Blázquez, 25, student

"I've found it impossible to get a job in my own field. In my hometown of Granada, I worked as a monitor in a shopping mall kids' play area and that's the closest I've got to working with kids, which has been my goal since I started studying. I came to Madrid but all I could get were two part-time jobs, first at a department store and then in a clothes shop, where they hired me as a clerk with an illegal contract making €3 an hour. When I asked for better conditions my boss fired me. I started studying again to become a teacher. But only a few posts are open every year so I have no idea what I am doing next."

Adriano Justicia, 27, unemployed photographer

"I am a photographer and also hold a film studies degree, but never could find a job in any of those areas. I've worked as a telemarketer, in credit card sales and also a Red Cross charity recruiter for not much money at all. I just went back to study for a degree in TV production, which includes unpaid training. If I don't get a job after that, I think I will be forced to move back to Berlin, where I spent a couple of months as an intern for a photographic studio. Given the circumstances, that looks like the best option, although it is always difficult to leave your country."

María Lázaro, 25, jobless tour and advertisement agent

"I came to Madrid to work as a manager for Real Madrid's museum. I worked at Santiago Bernabéu stadium museum for two years until I was fired six months ago. Since then I've been working in temporary jobs, three or five days as a hostess in business conventions and fairs, most of them without any kind of contract. My partner works as a graphic designer and he has just been offered a job in Zaragoza, so we are probably moving there. I just got admitted back into school, where I am hoping to do a masters degree, to see if that helps me finally to get a job."

Report by Diego Salazar Madrid

Viola Caon

Helena Smith

Thousands of passengers stranded as Spanair ceases operations

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 19:10:42 GMT

Spain's government takes legal action against airline over its sudden closure and cancellation of flights

Spain's government has launched legal action against Spanair after it ceased operations, resulting in cancellation of 220 flights and affecting thousands of passengers.

The airline's sudden shutdown violates the country's aviation regulations, a minister said on Saturday. An estimated 22,000 passengers who had booked seats on Spanair flights now have to make alternative arrangements and seek reimbursements. Spanair, owned by a consortium based in the northeastern region of Catalonia, shut down late on Friday because of a lack of funding.

The legal proceedings begun by Spain's government could lead to Spanair being fined €9m (£7.5m) for two "serious infringements" of aviation security legislation, development minister Ana Pastor said. The alleged infractions relates to obligations linked to continued service and passenger protection.

Chairman Ferran Soriano said the airline had failed to attract investment and consequently the regional government of northeastern Catalonia took the decision to stop providing funds. Spanair, whose hub was Barcelona airport, employed around 2,000 people and used the services of about 1,200 ground staff.

Spanair's financial woes were exacerbated by a 2008 crash that killed 154 people; 18 survived the disaster, the worst in 25 years. The airline, which also ran a commuter service between Madrid and Barcelona, was in financial trouble even before the crash.

In 2010 it reported an operating loss of €115m (£96m).

The Catalan government cited the "current economic climate" and "European legislation concerning competition" as the major factors influencing its decision.

In Brussels, the European Low Fares Airline Association said those of its members flying overlapping routes with Spanair would offer specially discounted fares to help stranded passengers return home. Offers are subject to seat availability, said the association of budget airlines – which includes Ryanair and EasyJet.

Spain demands new 'realism' from EU over austerity

Giles Tremlett, Ian Traynor — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 18:52:21 GMT

• Fears cuts will bring more instability as unemployment hits 5m
• Brussels must readjust growth estimates, says budget minister

As Spanish unemployment breaks through the 5 million barrier, the new government of Mariano Rajoy has begun to put pressure on the European Union to ease Spain's deficit targets, which are sending the country hurtling back into recession.

Rajoy's government is demanding greater "realism" from Brussels as it struggles to rein in a deficit that ended more than two percentage points, or €20bn, above its EU-set 6% target last year.

EU officials are unlikely to greet his message with enthusiasm after continued wrangling in Athens over a deal with private creditors and a torrid day on the bond markets that pushed Portugal closer to needing a Greek-style rescue. Brussels indicated that talks in Greece would take at least another 48 hours.

And on Friday, ratings agency Fitch downgraded five countries – Spain, Italy, Belgium, Cyprus and Slovenia – with Spain pushed down by two notches. The move came two weeks after Standard & Poor's downgraded nine eurozone countries, including France, which lost its coveted AAA status.

Rajoy's attempt to strike a more relaxed deal on debt echoes that of Italy's new technocrat prime minister, Mario Monti, who has been telling German policymakers that austerity alone may not be the answer to the eurozone's problems.

EU leaders will meet in Brussels on Monday: the agenda will include tweaking policies to promote jobs and growth. A draft of the summit statement obtained by the Guardian says: "Growth and employment will only resume if we pursue a consistent and broad-based approach, combining fiscal consolidation, sound macroeconomic policies as well as an active employment strategy. We will stay the course and emerge from this crisis stronger."

José Manuel Barroso, the European commission's president, said: "We cannot resort to fiscal stimulus to boost growth."

Spain, which already boasted Europe's worst unemployment rate, recorded a further 350,000 job losses in the last quarter of 2011.

That rate now stands at 22.8% of the population and is set to worsen as Rajoy's conservative People's party government pursues a €40bn (£33bn) budget adjustment, most of it in spending cuts, to meet the EU's deficit target of 4.4% this year.

Pressure for Brussels to review Spain's deficit came as bond investors began to abandon neighbouring Portugal, with 10-year bond yields soaring to 15%. Bonds expert Gary Jenkins of Swordfish said: "They may have crossed the Rubicon in the eyes of the market". He believes the talks between the Greek government and its bondholders might "become a template for Portugal in how to deal with their debt, which would not be good news for investors." S&P already rates Portugal's bonds as "junk", along with Greece's.

With a record 5.3m unemployed, Spain is facing a spiral of decline. The IMF, led by a former euro-area finance minister, Christine Lagarde (pictured below), has already predicted that the economy will shrink by 1.7% this year, with a further decline in 2013.

Further evidence that public austerity programmes were damaging the wider Spanish economy came from figures on company closures. Around 35,000 companies folded in the second half of the year – a third of all those to have shut since Spain's economy ran into trouble at the end of 2008.

While Rajoy, who met Germany's chancellor, Angel Merkel, in Berlin on Thursday, publicly maintains his target of reducing the deficit to 4.4% from more than 8% last year, his ministers are now letting it be known that they want substantial adjustments to Brussels's programme.

Budget minister Cristóbal Montoro was explicit about the need for the EU to adjust its predictions – and, logically, its targets. "I am sure that no one, in Europe or anywhere else, is interested in including growth estimates that are not going to be met," he said, adding he was convinced change would come. That, he said, would help the government to be "realistic" about its options.

The socialist opposition, meanwhile, is already complaining that Rajoy has not persuaded Brussels to relax the pressure. "The rope is tightening around our neck," said Carme Chacón, one of two candidates to succeed former prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero as party leader.

Rajoy's government has already announced a combination of income tax rises and spending cuts that will bring a €15bn adjustment, but that is less than half of what is needed.

Giles Tremlett

Ian Traynor

Spain unemployment tops 5.3m and set to get worse

Giles Tremlett — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 13:50:20 GMT

The conservative government of Mariano Rajoy has started to quietly beg the EU to ease up on deficit targets which require savage spending cuts

Spanish unemployment broke through the 5-million barrier on Friday as the new government of Mariano Rajoy began to quietly beg the European Union to ease up on deficit targets that are sending the country hurtling back into recession.

Spain, which already boasted Europe's worst unemployment rate, recorded 350,000 people losing their jobs in the last quarter of 2011.

With a record 5.3 million unemployed, Spain faces a spiral of decline. The IMF has already predicted that the economy will shrink by 1.7% this year, with a further decline in 2013.

While Rajoy, who met German chancellor Angel Merkel in Berlin on Thursday, publicly maintains his target of reducing the deficit to 4.4% from more than 8% last year, his ministers are letting it be known that they want the EU to ease up on deficit targets which require severe adjustments.

Rajoy himself has pointed out that the EU's target for 2011 supposed not only that last year's deficit would be 6%, but also that growth this year would reach 2.3%.

"We need growth predictions from Brussels and that is when we will start negotiating with them on Spain's stability programme," the finance minister, Luis de Guindos said.

Almost 1.5m Spanish households now have no wage earner, with 3.5 million people joining the dole queue over the past four-and-a-half years. Southern Andalucia has a 31% unemployment rate, while 35% of immigrants and 39% of under-25s are jobless.

"Harsh adjustment policies not only fail to solve the problem, they can make it worse," warned Cándido Méndez of the General Workers' Union.

Further evidence that public austerity programmes were damaging the wider economy came from figures on company closures.

Around 35,000 companies folded in the second half of the year – a third of all those to have shut since Spain's economy ran into trouble at the end of 2008.

Much of the spending cuts have to come from regional governments, who provide basic services such as health, education and social services.

Spain's pharmaceutical companies said regional governments were now taking 525 days to pay bills for medicines provided to hospitals, with €6.3bn outstanding.

Meanwhile, the chairman of the Caixa savings bank, Isidre Fainé, predicted further gloom in the housing market, in which up to 700,000 new-build homes remain unsold after a housing bubble burst several years ago.

He predicted that house prices, which have dropped around 30% since their peak, could fall to 50% or 60% of their top value before recovering.

Giles Tremlett