Spain

The weird and wonderful ways Spain celebrates midsummer

No-one celebrates midsummer with quite the same flair and diversity as Spain where every region has ..

Published

5 years ago

June 22, 2018

No-one celebrates midsummer with quite the same flair and diversity as Spain where every region has its distinct traditions.

The feast of St John, known as San Juan in Spain, is a celebration that usually involves elements of fire and water, dancing, drinking and staying up into the early hours in order to cleanse sins and store up the suns energy for the year ahead.

Whether it be effigy burning, dousing each other water, or touching the belly of a prancing stallion, midsummer revelries take place from coast to coast and are some of the most popular fiestas in all of Spain.

In coastal areas, townsfolk head to the beach for a night of revelry around huge bonfires, with dancing, drinking and feasting often culminating in a midnight dip in the ocean.

In Alicante elaborate effigies are paraded through town before being thrown into the flames while the streets pulsate with music, dancing and firecrackers.

Politicans take centre stage in Alicante. Photo: AFP

Menorca has the strange tradition of horses brought among the crowds to dance and prance while onlookers attempt to touch the equine belly, a feat that ensures good luck for the year.

A horse rears in a crowd in the Menorcan town of Ciutadella. Photo: AFP

In Catalonia, where the Sant Joan parties are particularly popular and the day of June 24th is a public holiday, crowds will gather on beaches to dance around bonfires and watch spectacular firework displays.

Photo: AFP

Revellers in Lanjarón, in the Albujarras south of Granada, choose to celebrate midsummer with an almighty waterfight when residents use every receptacle to hand – hoses, buckets, water pistols – to douse their neighbours.

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In the Pyrenean town of Isil near Lleida, residents mark the summer solstice by zigzaging from mountain top to town square carrying burning branches. After a huge bonfire, townsfolk dance until dawn.

Las Falles in Isil involve a lot of burning log carrying. Photo: Andres Merizalde / Flickr

In A Coruña in the northwestern region of Galicia, after a public holiday of parades, dancing and bagpipes, hundreds of bonfires are lit on the beaches where people leap over the flames, dine on sardines and then take a purifying midnight swim.

Sardines are a must for San Juan night in A Coruña. Photo: Daniel Rubio / Flickr

In Puerto de la Cruz though, it is the goats that take a purifying dip at San Juan with the celebration of the Baño de las Cabras. Goat herders bring their flock to the beach and the bleating animals are (somewhat reluctantly) dunked into the waves.

The goats get cleansed in Puerto de la Cruz. Photo: AFP

In the Basque village of Bakio, evil spirits are banished by "Zanpanzar" who stomp to the rhythm of giant cowbells.

These unusual outfits are worn in Bakio. Photo: AFP

While in San Pedro Manrique in Soria province, the midsummer ritual involves men walking barefoot over hot coals without burning their feet… Oh, and with the added challenge (and weight) of carrying a woman on their back.

Photo: AFP

Wherever you are in Spain, Happy San Juan!

the local

Spain

Spain’s far-right Vox seek to make gains in 28 May local and regional elections

Published

1 day ago

May 28, 2023

Europe Disk

Spain’s third largest political group in the national parliament, the far-right Vox party, is looking to make gains in the local and regional elections due to be held across the country on 28 May.

Since it entered a regional government for the first time in Castilla y León last year, Vox has attacked the unions and pushed polarising positions on social issues, including abortion and transgender rights.

It is now poised to spread its influence beyond the sparsely populated region near Madrid, with the party hoping to make gains in the elections at the end of May.

Surveys suggest the main opposition, the right-wing People’s Party (PP), could need the support of Vox to govern in half of the 12 regions casting ballots, just as it did in Castilla y León last year.

Polls also indicate the PP is on track to win a year-end general election but would need Vox to form a working majority and oust socialist (PSOE) Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and his coalition government from office.

Vox leader Santiago Abascal [pictured at a recent rally in Chinchón, near Madrid] has called the PP-VOX coalition government in office in Castilla y León since March 2022 a ‘showroom’ and ‘an example of the alternative Spain needs’.

It is Spain’s first government to include a far-right party since the dictatorship of Francisco Franco.

In Castilla y León, Vox has slashed funding to unions, which the party has vowed to ‘put in their place’ if it comes to power nationally. Trade union UGT was forced to lay off 40% of its staff in Castilla y León last month and scale back programmes to promote workspace safety. Spain’s other main union, the CCOO, is reportedly preparing to follow suit.

Vox has also angered LGBTQ groups by refusing to allow the regional parliament to be lit up in the colours of the rainbow, the symbol of the gay rights movement, for Pride festivities as in past years when the PP governed alone.

In addition, the regional vice-president, Vox’s Juan García-Gallardo, has railed against a law passed by Spain’s leftist central government that extends transgender rights.

The 32-year-old lawyer warned earlier this month that women would now be ‘forced to share locker rooms with hairy men at municipal swimming pools’.

Vox’s most contested initiative was a proposal that doctors offer women seeking an abortion a 4D ultrasound scan to try to discourage them from going ahead with the procedure.

The idea was swiftly condemned by Spain’s leftist central government, and Castilla y León’s PP president Alfonso Fernández Mañueco stopped the measure from going ahead.

The issue highlighted the hazards for the PP of joining forces with Vox, which was launched in 2013 and is now the third-largest party in the national parliament.

Read from: https://www.spainenglish.com/2023/05/19/spain-far-right-vox-may-local-regional-elections/

Spain

Spain – Gas falls below 90 euros per MWh for the first time in almost two months

Published

5 months ago

January 8, 2023

Europe Disk

The price of TTF natural gas for delivery next month has fallen below 90 euros on Friday for the first time in almost two months and closes a week marked by the decision of the European Commission to cap gas with a drop of 29, 36%.
According to data from the Bloomberg platform, gas closed this Friday at 83 euros per megawatt-hour (MWh), 8.9% less than the day before and the first time it has lost 90 euros since last October 31.
After months of negotiations, the EU agreed on Monday to set a cap of 180 euros on contracts linked to the Amsterdam TTF index with a price difference of at least 35 euros above the average price of liquefied natural gas in the markets.

EU countries agree on a cap of 180 euros for gas with the support of Germany
In a report this week, the Swiss investment bank Julius Baer indicated that the chances of the mechanism being activated are low and pointed out that the chosen formula was not very effective in avoiding the multiplier effect that gas has on the price of electricity. However, he reiterated what was said in other previous reports: “Energy supply risks are minimal and prices should continue to decline in the future” due to the availability of raw materials from Asia to offset cuts from Russia.

Gas tends to fall during the hot months due to lower demand, but this summer it has reached historic heights as European countries were buying to face the winter with their tanks full and reduce their dependence on Russia. The price fell in September and October due to lower demand once the warehouses were full due to the high temperatures at the beginning of autumn, but in November it picked up again and 66% more expensive.

This article was originally published on Público

Spain

Spain – The retirement age rises to 66 years

Published

5 months ago

January 8, 2023

Europe Disk

Ordinary retirement at age 65 ends for those who have contributed less than 38 years. In fact, 2023 will be the last year in which this can be done since it will be necessary to have a contribution career of a minimum of 37 years and nine months to be able to retire with the reference age of the last century, since it was established in 1919, and once the year is over another quarter will be added to be able to do it without cuts in the benefit.
This requirement means that to access ordinary retirement at age 65 without loss of pay, it will be necessary to have been working, at least, since April 1985 for those who exercise this right in December 2023 and since May 1984 for those who intend to do it in January.

More than ten million contributory pensioners
In the last decade, and coinciding with the implementation of the delay program, the real retirement age of Spanish workers has increased by one year, from 63.9 in 2012 to 64.8 in mid-2022, according to data from the Financial Economic Report of the Social Security included in the General State Budget.

Contributory pensions will have a historic rise of 8.5% as of January as a result of the disproportionate increase in the CPI, while for non-contributory pensions the revision will be 15%. This review will place the average pension of the contributory system at 1,187 euros per pay, while the retirement pension will rise to 1,365, the disability pension will reach 1,122 and the widow’s pension will reach 847, as a result of applying the 8.5% increase.

The Social Security forecasts point to next year, and while waiting to find out the real effects that the rise may have on the payroll due to its “call effect” to bring forward retirement given the opportunity to alleviate with it the penalties for anticipating it, the number of pensioners will consolidate above ten million, with almost two-thirds of them (6.37) as retirees, to which will be added 2.3 million widows and almost one affected by work disabilities.

This record number of pensioners will place the cost of pensions at 209,165 million euros, the bulk of which (196,399, 93.8%) will be used to pay benefits, including non-contributory ones. Health care has a budget of 1,890 million euros and social services another 3,791, while the remaining 7,144 are dedicated to operating expenses.

On the revenue side, the largest contribution comes from the contribution chapter, which will amount to 152,075 million and will leave the gap with contributory benefits at 36,765.
The imbalance will be covered by a contribution of 38,904 from the Government, to which is added a chapter of others worth 18,116 and which includes everything from sanctions to asset disposals, among other concepts.

Read more of this from the source Público