🛂 This Week in Spain: Golden Age No More

Also: End of an era as TV's Sálvame is canceled—and a very hot April.

May 11, 2023

By @IanMount and @AdrianBono | May 11, 2023 | Madrid | Issue #13

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🥜 This Week in a Nutshell: Local media reported that the national government is considering making changes to the golden visa scheme that so many use to get residence in Spain. As if that weren’t tragic enough, our favorite trash TV show is leaving our screens for good.

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First Portugal, Now Us

🏠 Golden, Golden…Gone?

The jig may be up. (Photo by Spencer Davis on Unsplash)

Spain’s “Golden Visa” program may be coming to an end soon, just 10 years after its birth. El País broke the story Monday that the Ministry of Inclusion, Social Security, and Migration, led by José Luis Escrivá, was studying plans to tighten or eliminate the parts of the Ley de Emprendedores, the 2013 law that allowed foreigners to essentially buy Spanish (and thereby EU) residency by investing in real estate.

The ostensible motivation behind the law was to attract entrepreneurs who would invest in businesses, as its name suggests. But really, the idea was to bring in money, and to help float Spain’s battered real estate market, which had plunged into a tailspin after the 2007/8 financial crisis.

The law set a series of investment minimums to acquire a “Golden Visa”—€2m in Spanish treasury bonds, €1m in shares in a Spanish company or investment fund, and, the most accessible, €500,000 in Spanish real estate.

You guessed it! Most people went for the cheapie. The scheme—which allows the investor to bring in a spouse or partner, children, and older relatives they are caring for—had delivered residency visas to 31,000 people, 94% of whom came through the real estate option, El País reports.

Things have changed since the law was passed, however. The housing market has come roaring back. Nationwide, prices are only 7.2% below their all-time high reached in 2007, according to Idealista, and in some autonomous communities (you know who you are—the Balearic and Canary Islands and Madrid) prices have set new records.

The problem now is housing accessibility, or the lack thereof, which explains all the schemes PM Pedro Sánchez has recently announced to increase social housing and help young people buy. And while €500,000 may have seemed like all sorts of lujo in 2013, now it's just a middle class home in many cities, meaning foreigners with cash are blocking out younger Spaniards.
That’s why the left has been very critical of the law, passed when PM Mariano Rajoy of the center-right PP was in power. Former Pablo Iglesias bestie and current Más País leader Íñigo Errejón proposed an initiative in February to eliminate the visas, arguing that they encouraged real estate speculation and prices that kicked people out of their own neighborhoods. Errejón said the visas offer millionaires a "backdoor privilege" and turn Spain into a "sort of colony, often attracting dark money". The initiative did not prosper then, but…

Errejón was not alone. Back in March 2022, shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the European Commission urged member states to “immediately repeal any existing investor citizenship schemes and to ensure strong checks are in place” to stop money launderers and other undesirable folks—like, say, Putin-supporting Russian baddies—from using them.

A string of countries have modified or canceled their Golden Visa schemes since then. Portugal? They decided to end theirs in February. Same with Ireland. And Greece doubled its own minimum to €500,000 on May 1. So Spain is feeling the 🔥.

So what will Spain do? The two options on the table, according to gov folks speaking to the media, are either raising the minimum for buying a home to the same level as that of investing in a business—the argument, beyond driving up middle-class home prices, is that the lower threshold disincentivizes investments in more productive things, like, say, a business with employees—or just eliminating it altogether.

While many are predicting a raising of the minimum to €1m, eliminating it would give Sánchez a double bonus—it would get Brussels off his back, and it would help Errejón-pal Yolanda Díaz, with whose new party, Sumar, Sánchez wants to form a coalition with after elections later this year—and in the process maybe kill off the irritating-and-often-embarrassing Podemos he has in his government now. Two 🐥, one stone!

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💬 Five things to discuss at dinner parties this week:

1. RIP Sálvame, TV’s King of Trash

Last Friday is a day that will live in infamy after news broke that, following 14 years on the air, media company Mediaset was canceling afternoon trash TV show Sálvame, a hot mess of a program that involved a host and an endless parade of panelists and commentators who regularly engaged in live bickering, gossiping about sex scandals, storming off the set and lots and lots (and LOTS) of crying.

It is hard to explain how relevant Sálvame is to the post-2008 financial crisis pop culture. Not only did it help launch the infamous careers of many people who are famous for being famous, it also became every grandmother’s must-see TV. (And on top of that, Spain’s largest meme factory.)

In its heyday, the show was on for up to five hours everyday. It was also the show that gave us Belén Esteban. “Who is Belén?” you ask. Well, known as "La princesa del pueblo" (The people's princess), she rose to fame after ending her relationship with popular torero Jesulín de Ubrique and remains famous for making up memes like “Hasta luego, Mari Carmen” (look it up), busting on Joselin, having plastic surgery, and in general for being famous.

The decision to ax the show is not only based on its recent ratings drop, but also on the company’s plan to rebrand the Telecinco network.

New Mediaset CEO Alessandro Salem wants Telecinco to change its reputation and go from home of trash TV to credible source of information and respectable journalism. The decision to move away from entertainment and focus more on political influence can be chalked up to a hope to better compete with other influential networks, like Antena 3.
Former Mediaset CEO Paolo Vasile is credited with creating this kind of television, but Salem is apparently not a friend of trash TV and is more into “elegant and family-friendly” content.
The news was not entirely unexpected. Back in February, and under new management, Mediaset unveiled a new ethics code that seemed to target Sálvame specifically: it banned political discussions on entertainment shows; guests from storming off the set; and attacking other shows airing on the same network.
The last episode of Sálvame will air on June 16 and will be replaced by morning show host and journalist Ana Rosa Quintana, who already leads the network’s mornings with El Programa de Ana Rosa. While the format of her new show is unclear, she’s said that she will keep her job in the morning show (with a morning and afternoon presence, she will become the undisputed queen of Telecinco).

For years, Sálvame was the show no one watched yet somehow everyone knew what was happening in it. And yes, while it focused mostly on gossip, scandals and Hello! magazine stories, it was also political.

El País reports that the national government and progressive leaders are worried about the effects this change in programming could have, especially in an election year. Sálvame host Jorge Javier Vázquez was known for its progressive views (he once said on the show that Sálvame was made of people who were “red and queer") and Quintana, who will now be replacing him, is critical of the current administration and represents “the toughest media opposition” out there.
Everyone was commenting on the cancelation, from Esquerra Republicana MP Gabriel Rufián, who this week defended the show during a press conference in Parliament for its “messages against fascism, racism and homophobia”, to Shakira’s former husband Gerard Piqué, who called it “indecent…it’s all lies.”

To bid adieu to this daily dose of guilty pleasure in style, let us just share with you what we believe is peak Sálvame: their one-of-a-kind, Valentine’s Day flashmob from 2017 featuring its main cast singing “Can’t take my eyes off you” in the backlot of Mediaset. It’s just like watching one of those carefully choreographed scenes from La La Land, except for the fact that it’s nothing like that. Enjoy.

2.🔥 Hot enough for you (Part 2)?

Had the sneaking suspicion it’s been warmer than normal? Like, just a tad? You are now officially correct—in a BIG way. Last month was officially Spain’s (and Portugal’s—though according to weather maps on Spanish TV, Portugal doesn’t exist) hottest April EVER. Like, since the earth was born. Okay, that’s not true. The hottest April since Spain started collecting data in 1961, which is sort of when history started to get hot. Fine. (The previous April hot leader? 2011.) Oh, and it was the DRIEST too.

Temperatures generally rose north of 30°C—and hit 38.8°C in Córdoba on April 27. Which is normal for a Spanish August. But, crazy-hot for April, right?
Spain’s national weather agency AEMET reported that max temperatures were 4.7° HIGHER than average in the 1991-2020 period.
Andalucía’s interior, the east of Extremadura, and the southwest of Castilla-La Mancha were the worst-hit, with abnormal rises of 5°C in some areas.

April was also incredibly dry. Average rainfall was—wait for it—14.2 mm, which is 78% below normal for the 1991-2020 period.
Farmers are resorting to extreme (read: illegal) measures in the face of the long, dry heat. This week, Spain’s Guardia Civil police arrested 26 people for allegedly digging illegal wells to irrigate mango and avocado plantations around Axarquía, in Málaga. People in Andalucía have being living under a declaration of a state of “exceptional drought” since June 2021.

So, why? Blame climate change, of course. But “The Boy” (aka “El Niño”) is also galloping in. The climate phenomenon is expected to influence temperatures on the upside later this year. So, sad to say, expect more fires (like in the massive fire year 2017) and much less available water. Spain’s reservoirs are at 48.9% capacity right now, according to Embalses.net (a weird data crush site of ours), compared to 50.7% last year and the 10-year average of 68.5%. Dry hot like 🌞!

3.🎾 Out!

The Madrid Open tennis tournament that ended last Sunday was a fantastic event (we know—one of your Tapa editors went), but some complain that the Madrid crowd often acts like it doesn’t exactly understand tennis decorum. Instead of shutting up and not distracting the players while they’re doing their job, the argument goes, people in Madrid’s Caja Mágica act like they are attending a fútbol match. “Madrid has a tennis fan problem,” José M. Amorós argued in an article on the sports site Relevo. “Madrid has a great tournament, but also the rudest crowd on the ATP circuit,” journo David Jiménez wrote on Twitter.

So what’s the problem? Basically, it’s the shouts.

The line judge generally silences the crowd with a simple “Gracias” as the player serving steps up to the base line. Because, you know, “Thank you” is the nice tennis way to say “Shut up”.
But in the moments between points comedy ensues. Inevitably, some fan will yell “Viva España!” (to which the crowd replies “Viva!”) or “Hala Madrid”, or, even better, “Vamos, Rafa” (i.e. Nadal) —even if no Spanish players are on the court—because, um, why not?
Tennis crowds are generally fairly well-off and this translates into, let’s say, right-leaning chants. “Viva Ayuso!” was a popular slogan cheering on Madrid’s regional PP governor, as was “Que venga Bolaños”, mocking the socialist minister’s inability to get on the official stage at Madrid’s Dos de Mayo celebrations. There there was the new classic "Sánchez, que te vote Txapote".
The shouts were sometimes aimed at distracting players (often those playing against Spaniards), which is no doubt annoying. Indeed, both Danish player Holger Rune (above) and Russian Daniil Medvedev complained loudly about the crowd.
The men’s final between Spain’s Carlos Alcaraz and German Jan-Lennard Struff brought the issue to a head. The Ayuso and Bolaños shouts went up while Struff was mid-serve, Amorós wrote. And then, a short time later, the coup de grâce: Someone in the crowd screamed "A por el luterano"—Let’s get the Lutheran—in reference to the German founder of protestantism. The crowd fell apart with laughter.

Annoying? For Struff, undoubtedly. But funny? Well, just a little bit 🤣.

4.🏃‍♀️ That ‘sexist’ gift at the women’s race

The Carrera de la Mujer de Madrid (Madrid’s Women Race) is a pretty big event. With 32,000 people participating on its 19th edition last Sunday, it has become Europe’s largest female sporting event as it seeks to raise awareness against breast cancer and gender violence. In fact, participants wore race bibs featuring the number 016, Spain’s hot line for victims of gender violence.

Madrid is the third stop in the race’s national circuit (previous stops this year where in Las Palmas and Valencia) with an official distance of 7.2km. The first woman to finish the race was Serbian runner Ivana Zagorac (24:07). Her sister Sladjana came in a close second (24:10). Oh, and the event also awards €75,000 to the Spanish Association Against Cancer, which is fantastic.

You’d think such a great event wouldn’t be mired in controversy, right?

Wrong.

Things turned sour pretty quickly on Sunday after news broke that the winner was getting a multi-purpose kitchen appliance known sometimes as a "thermomix” (it’s basically a food processor) as a gift—and that’s all it took for angry Twitter to do its thing. Secretary of State for Equality Ángela Rodríguez Pam led the charge, calling the gift—along with the decision to give zero-calorie products to other participants—“sexist”:

“If you win you’re a housewife, if you don’t, at least lose weight”.

Event’ organizers were quick to put out a statement (also on Twitter) aiming to clarify the situation.

They explained that the organization awards the winners with a trophy. Other gifts (such as the food processor) “was not a prize” and was selected by one of the event’s sponsors “just like many other gifts that sponsors hand out” to the winners.
“In the case of Madrid, one of the sponsor companies has gifted a high-priced food processor, which is aligned with our idea of promoting healthy values in women’s sporting and nutritional habits,” the statement read. “With this product, men and women can cook unprocessed food in less time and in a simpler way”.
The event’s organization also explained that for years, the race has a restrictive policy on brands that can sponsor the race, arguing that all those related to sex, politics, religion and addiction (gambling, tobacco and alcohol) are excluded.
And they added: “We understand from a biased perspective these can generate certain controversy and apologize if any woman was offended, but this is a product that we don’t consider sexist and is ideal for anyone who practices sports and wants to improve their nutritional habits. In any case, we accept the criticism, apologize if anyone was offended and are committed to taking measures in order to avoid this controversy in the future.”

The statement concluded that the organizers regretted to see that such a great event is involved “in a controversy we don’t agree with”.

5.📞 Someone’s getting fired over at Wallapop

Probably many Wallapop users this Sunday. (Photo by Christian Erfurt on Unsplash)

For those of you living under a rock, it was Mother’s Day in Spain this Sunday. It is a day of joy in which millions of people call their mom and, if they are lucky, get to give them a hug and tell them they love them.

At the same time, for many out there who have lost their mothers, it’s not a day of celebration and can sometimes trigger feelings of unhappiness and loneliness.

That’s not something that popular used goods online marketplace Wallapop seemed to take into consideration when they set in motion what their marketing team probably thought was a “cutesy”. On Sunday morning, the approximately 18 million of users on the platform woke up to find what looked like a missed call from “mom” on their cell phone screens:

“Mom 📞

Missed Call.

She’s calling you to sell what you’re not using”

It did not go well.

If you’re a normal human being living in 2023, chances are the first thing you do as soon as you open your eyes in the morning is grab grab your phone and check what you’ve missed. As people on Sunday started to wake up, the unexpected notification—which was sent to all users a few minutes after 7 a.m.—made a lot of people upset.
People immediately took to Twitter (where else) to describe the horrifying experience of waking up to a missed call from their dead mom on an already difficult day.
“Not f*cking funny” said one user. “I said ‘It will be a tough day but it will pass’. Then Wallapop as soon as I woke up…🤡”, said another.

The blowback was so hot that the company issued a statement on Monday afternoon offering its “most sincere apologies” for the pain it had cause in so many users.

“We did not take into account the many realities of our community of users and the notification reminded, in an involuntary way, situations that cause pain and sadness,” the company said in a tweet.
They concluded by saying they would make sure “it doesn’t happen again in the future”.

Well, that’s the story.

So next time you get a text message from your ex on Valentine’s Day, or a missed call from that guy who bullied you in high school on your birthday…before your heart skips a beat and you curl up in a fetal position, take a deep breath and check your notification carefully.

‘Cause you never can tell. You just might be a Wallapop user.

(Yes, we stole that from Gremlins. Points if you noticed.)

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