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INSIDE SPAIN

Inside Spain: Canaries say no to mass tourism and do young Basques want independence?

In this week's Inside Spain, we look at the reasons behind Saturday's protests against mass tourism in the Canary Islands and why many young Basques will vote on Sunday for a party descended from terrorist group ETA.

Published: 20 April 2024 13:38 CEST
Inside Spain: Canaries say no to mass tourism and do young Basques want independence?
The urban development of the Canary Islands has been rampant over the past decades in a bid to welcome more and more tourists. (Photo by DESIREE MARTIN / AFP)

On Saturday April 20th, thousands of people across the eight islands that make up the Canary archipelago will take to the streets to protest a tourism model which many Canarios believe is now failing them and their beloved land. 

In fact, there will also be demonstrations in Madrid, Barcelona, Málaga, Granada and even Berlin, Amsterdam and London, under the same slogan: Canarias tiene un límite (The Canary Islands have a limit). 

It’s already made international headlines due to the alleged wave of ‘tourismphobia’ that’s sweeping across Spain’s holiday hotspots in recent weeks and months (mainly ‘tourists go home’ messages in the form of graffiti or stickers). 

But the protest organisers have been quick to stress that they are not against tourists per se, but rather the voracious mass tourism monster which is eating up their islands, demanding more hotels to cater for more tourists despite the limited land available.

So why now, when Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Lanzarote and Fuerteventura have offered the ‘sun, sea and sangría’ package holiday deal for decades?

Because as the slogan states, the Canaries have a limit. 

The islands are running out of space as around 40 percent of their territory is protected and their population keeps increasing (2.2 million in 2024), mainly due to the arrival of foreigners, meaning that the population density in Tenerife and Gran Canaria is off the charts.

Add 14 million yearly tourists to the mix and it really starts to put pressure on resources: water, electricity, sewage, roads, parking spaces and crucially housing.

Little space, few plans for social housing and holiday lets spreading like wildfire have led property prices and rents in the Canaries to increase more than in any other region in Spain in 2023, even though their wages are the second lowest in the country.

To cap it off, the record tourism numbers and revenue Canary authorities brag about do not reflect on people’s earnings or quality of life, quite the opposite, and there’s a sense that locals have become second-class citizens in their own land while tourists are given priority.

The challenge after Saturday’s protests will be to clearly define how exactly there can be a change of tourism model when the industry accounts for 35 percent of the islands’ GDP and 40 percent of jobs. 

Similar introspection may happen in the Basque Country this Sunday when up to 1.8 million people head to the polls to vote in their regional elections. 

The Catalan independence bid has stolen the limelight from Basque separatism in recent years, not least because many Basque nationalists were forced to reconcile with the fact that ETA was a terrorist group which killed 850 people over 42 years in the name of their cause.

Even though this has meant that separatist voices have fallen silent for the last two decades, EH Bildu, a party descended from ETA, leads in the polls, having garnered the attention of young Basques in particular. 

READ MORE: Why separatist Bildu spells hope for Basque youth as Spanish region votes

There’s a sense among commentators that this ‘amnesia’ exists not only because they didn’t live through the bloody years of car bombs and explosive packages, but that the history of ETA and its impact on Basque society isn’t being taught in local schools. 

What has struck a chord among young voters appears to be more closely related to EH Bildu’s left-wing policies rather than their refusal to call ETA a terrorist group. For the Basque Socialist Party, “they pretend to be left-wing but what they really want is independence”.

Whatever happens on Sunday, it’s unlikely to reflect a sudden change in stance regarding Basque independence. A recent survey found that support for Basque separatism has fallen by 30 percent over the last decade among voters of the region’s two most nationalist parties, the PNV and EH Bildu. 

It seems that being a nationalist in the Basque Country no longer equates to being a separatist.

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INSIDE SPAIN

Inside Spain: Where heat kills and anti-squatter vigilantes

In this week’s Inside Spain we look at how the Spanish government is upping its game to protect its citizens from extreme heat and why the country’s ‘okupa’ problem is increasingly being solved by tough-talking bodybuilders.

Published: 18 May 2024 13:23 CEST
Inside Spain: Where heat kills and anti-squatter vigilantes

That it gets hot in Spain in summer is nothing new, but often decimal points can mark the difference between life and death.

Spain is the second European country where most people die due to heat, with a record 11,300+ casualties in the summer of 2022. 

Every year, the Spanish Health Ministry launches its prevention plan to protect the most vulnerable from the dangerous effects of exposure to extreme heat, and this year they’re aiming to provide warnings that are more specific than ever. 

On June 3rd, authorities will launch a reference map that will alert of heat episodes in 182 territories within the country’s 52 provinces.

After all, temperatures can vary greatly within the same province or region- it can be sweltering down in Málaga city but cooler in Los Alcornocales Natural Park, or horrifically hot in the concrete jungle that is Madrid but fresher in nearby Cercedilla up in the sierra.

Each of the 182 territories will have maximum risk thresholds that register differences of more than ten degrees Celsius. These limits have been set by studying the exact temperature at which heat-related deaths and hospital admissions increased in previous years in set locations.

Heat tolerance is logically higher in some places of Spain than others, so whereas in southern Córdoba the heat alarm threshold is set at 40.4C, in northern Asturias it’s 23.9C.

Although the effects of meteorological phenomenon La Niña are yet to be confirmed, most meteorologists agree that this summer will probably be another scorcher in Spain.

READ MORE: Will this summer in Spain be as hot as the previous two?

If you haven’t started making plans to protect yourself from el calor (the heat), now is probably the right time to do it. 

Preparation is also what many Spanish homeowners need when it comes to preventing their homes from being occupied by squatters. 

The okupa (squatter) movement is very controversial in Spain, not least because Spanish law often sides with the squatter over the owner unless the latter acts quickly (48 hours usually), and okupas know exactly what to do to ensure their occupation is legally protected.

READ ALSO:

What’s emerged in recent years as a result of this powerlessness on the part of affected property owners are numerous anti-squatting companies popping up around the country. 

Staff members are usually made up of no-nonsense muscle-bound tough men who promise clients the swift exit of the okupas, for a fee of course. 

These desokupación firms often operate on the margins of the law, sometimes threatening squatters and using underhand tricks to get them out. In fact, some of these anti-squatter vigilantes have been charged with coercion, and they are often accused of having links to alt-right and fascist groups.  

“People know that Desokupa is faster than the justice system,” Daniel Esteve, head of the most famed anti-squatting firm in Spain (Desokupa), which has reportedly carried out 9,400 squatter evictions without any of his team or clients being prosecuted, told El Periódico de Ibiza. 

In fact, there is evidence that even Spanish banks now are hiring the services of these companies rather than relying on police to retrieve the properties they own, and that judges are accepting the normalisation of these anti-squatter companies rather than the issues being resolved in the courts. They even now offer customers the possibility of cleaning up and refurbishing their recovered homes, as many of them are left in a poor state when the squatters leave.

“We are professionals, lawyers, bodyguards and detectives, we are not thugs,” Esteve concludes.

“In Spain those who don’t pay are protected, we defend the owners from a great injustice.”

Thugs or not, the emergence of these companies specialising in the eviction of squatters are a prime example of people in Spain taking the law into their own hands when they feel justice isn’t being carried out.

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