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LIFE IN SPAIN

Why this Spanish village celebrates New Year’s Eve in August

The Andalusian village of Bérchules will not be celebrating the end of 2023 at the same time as everyone else, instead they will have their countdown and grape-eating in early August. Here's the fascinating reason why.

Bérchules New Year's in August
Bérchules held its first estival New Year's party on August 6th 1994. Stock photo: Mabel Flores/Flickr

As the rest of Spain and most of the world make their final preparations for New Year’s plans, there is one village in rural Andalucia that won’t be.

And they never do, in fact. Not in December, anyway.

Why not? Because they celebrate the New Year in August instead.

Hidden away high in the Alpujarras region of Andalusia in Granada province, Bérchules has, for the last 28 years, celebrated New Year’s in August.

The story goes back to New Year’s Eve 1993, when party preparations were well underway and the town awaited ‘94.

But sometime that evening, just a few hours before midnight, bad weather caused a power cut that left the village in the dark as locals prepared for the new year countdown.

READ ALSO: The New Year’s Eve events taking place in Spain’s main cities 

Bérchules eventually held its New Year’s party on August 6th 1994, hoping to recover not only the festive spirit but some of the lost hospitality earnings, and the move has become a tradition since.

In recent years, the strange custom has attracted visitors: it is estimated as many as 10,000 now attend the August New Year’s bash, in a pueblo of around 700.

Much of the year is spent planning for the summer celebration: preparations for the party begin as early as January, and as August is historically a month full of fiestas in Spain, in a town so small hosting a party so big with just one road in and one road out, it’s important they get everything right. 

Despite taking place in August, during the notoriously hot Andalusian summer, the people of Bérchules still have all the typical Christmas traditions of the holiday season.

Polverones, turrones, and mantecados are all enjoyed, as there are 3,000kg of them to supply the high summer demand in Bérchules.

READ ALSO – Polvorones: How the driest shortbread ever became a Christmas special in Spain

They even have the Three Wise Men on horseback, and grapes are sold a dozen a piece for those wishing to stick with Spain’s New Year tradition, while a small shop sells Santa hats and reindeer horns. 

Bérchules’ August New Year celebrations are so popular, and such a draw for outsiders, that the Andalusian government has recognised the tradition as an official Festival of Tourism Interest.

Article by Conor Faulkner, who coincidently was born on the exact same day as Bérchules experienced the power cut that led to its festival New Year’s tradition. 

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TERRORISM

Spain sees heightened terror risk amid global conflicts

Amid rising tensions and conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza and elsewhere around the world, a meeting by Spain's National Security Council has identified several threats to national security, some pre-existing and some new.

Spain sees heightened terror risk amid global conflicts

Global conflict and instability has raised the terror and security risk in Spain. This is what Spain’s National Security Council (CSN) has concluded following a meeting with government ministers on Tuesday to approve security reports and outline new anti-terror strategies. A 61-page document was compiled to replace the previous one approved in 2019 and will be valid for five years.

Among the topics discussed, which are outlined here on the National Security Council website, were the ongoing conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine and the heightened security threats they pose to Spain.

The war in Gaza, the Council states, presents “a real and direct risk” of an increase in “the terrorist threat, violent extremism and the emergence of new movements that promote a radical and violent ideology.”

READ ALSO: Spain could enforce conscription of ordinary citizens if there is war

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the document stresses, is also “a potential catalyst for terrorism”, as it “has led to an increase in the circulation of arms and explosives [in Europe], as well as the participation in the war of volunteer fighters of other nationalities”.

These uncertain global conditions could be exploited by groups or individuals “to undermine public security”, the document adds, and suggests that “state actors could carry out terrorist actions,” in what appears to be an allusion to the assassination of a Russian soldier in Alicante earlier in the year.

READ ALSO: Mystery surrounds death of Russian helicopter deserter in Spain

The meeting and report also outlined broader “risks and threats to national security” grouped into 16 categories, some older and long-established, some much more modern. They range from terrorism and violent radicalisation to the effects of climate change, space vulnerability, cyberspace, organised crime, migratory flows, foreign espionage and interference from abroad.

The CSN detects growing dangers to Spanish airspace, namely “events of commercial satellite launches from aerial platforms crossing controlled airspace, events of re-entry into the Earth’s atmosphere of satellite launcher debris, uncontrolled hot air balloon overflights and an increase in drone overflights over military bases,” things that have all been noted in Spain in recent years.

In terms of terrorism, despite the conflicts in Gaza and Ukraine Islamic terrorism remains the greatest threat to Spanish security. “The repeated dismantling of the leaderships of Daesh and Al Qaeda has not succeeded in eliminating these groups, which act in a more decentralised manner than in previous years,” the report states.

During the period covered by the previous security strategy (2019-2023) “more than 110 [security] operations related to terrorism activities have been carried out,” more than 90 of which were linked to jihadist terrorism, the document details. Just 5 percent were linked to domestic terrorism.

Foreign spies operating in Spain were also highlighted as a threat. The CSN report stated that the decision to expel 27 Russian diplomats from Spain at the beginning of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was useful in this regard. “These expulsions significantly reduced their ability to operate on European territory, which led to a notable decrease in the rate of activity of foreign intelligence services in Spain,” the report states.

READ ALSO: Judge in Spain extends probe into Catalan separatist’s ‘Russia ties’

However, the potential threat from the Kremlin is again mentioned as the driving force behind the barrage of hoaxes and disinformation campaigns. In the case of Spain, Moscow reportedly “focuses on trying to spread a distorted image of migration in the Mediterranean and the situation in Ceuta and Melilla”.

But it’s not just the Russians attempting to misinform the public in Spain. The report also points to “official Chinese media and their propagandists on social networks in Spanish have amplified many pro-Russian narratives”, with messages “based on expressing a rejection of the US and the current international order”.

The report lists 83 Russian disinformation incidents and 12 Chinese in the last year alone. Among these, several were aimed at “creating mistrust” in Spain’s electoral processes.

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