Episode 148
SPAIN: Living Costs & more – 18th Jan 2024
Making ends meet, Galician elections, military aid to Ukraine, teenagers and porn, La Renta updates, and much more.
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Transcript
Buenos días from Gracia! This is the Rorshok Spain Update from the 18th of January twenty twenty-four A quick summary of what's going down in Spain.
Kicking off this week’s episode, El Pais and Cadena Sur Barometer January polls reveal that one in three Spanish households struggle to make it to the end of the month.
Around 30% of respondents said they struggle to make ends meet, and around 20% said their mental health has deteriorated because of cost of living concerns.
But in some good news: The government coalition passed decrees last week to help residents with living costs. The electric VAT will continue to be reduced. Until June, there won’t be any changes to the VAT on certain food items. For instance, there won’t be a VAT on basic items like bread, milk, eggs, and vegetables. Regarding transport, tickets will still be 50% cheaper for residents; as the government pledges to subsidize 30% of the costs, autonomous regions will pay the 20% difference.
Speaking of the autonomous regions, Galicia is gearing up for its twenty twenty-four regional elections on Sunday, the 18th of February, where all seventy-five seats are up for grabs.
However, the region also faces an environmental battle because hundreds of small white plastic nurdles appeared on the regional beaches in December after falling off a cargo ship, affecting local ecosystems and disrupting the party electoral campaign in Galicia.
Alfonso Rueda, the Partido Popular's candidate for the Galician government or Xunta de Galicia, has been using his pre-campaign to address the pellets on Galician beaches by openly attacking Pedro Sánchez's government at a recent rally in A Coruña— criticizing the central government for not addressing the microplastics turning up on Galician beaches or getting involved.
Meanwhile, the central government is focusing its energy on making Spain a global leader in protecting children from porn.
In an El Pais interview published on Sunday, the 14th of January, Sanchez revealed that the data on adult content is "Devastating," showing that porn is affecting teen development. A Save the Children twenty twenty study revealed that as many as 70% of thirteen to seventeen-year-olds watched porn in Spain, while around 50% surveyed said they were exposed to it before they turned twelve.
To bolster online safety, Spain plans to implement a comprehensive age verification system, including a dedicated app and greater parental controls addressing gaps in the twenty twenty-two audiovisual communication law, which only applies to EU companies operating in Spain. Companies like PornHub are Canadian, so it doesn't apply to them.
A task force of fifty experts will guide measures to enhance online safety and limit adolescent phone use. The initiative aligns with broader European efforts, including stricter rules for certain porn websites.
Moving on to Cádiz, the annual Official Cádiz Carnival Group Competition, or COAC, finishes on the 20th of January, but since it started on Saturday the 13th, the twenty twenty-four edition has made waves on social media.
The carnival showcases social criticism through humor and music by groups of compar-sas. These are groups of singers who sing chiri-gotas or Spanish choral folk songs. On Saturday the 13th, Children from Neptune, or La hijas de Neptuno, a children's group, stood out by singing in Catalan, Galician, and Basque, celebrating different languages in Spain, saying having these different languages on the Peninsula is a "Treasure." Their performance, which portrays characters from Neptune, went viral on social media and earned praise for promoting linguistic diversity and freedom of expression.
However, reactions weren't all positive. Some users, the knuckle dragging morons, have criticized the children's parents for pushing "political agendas."
While the South has power struggles, Sumar, the executive coalition partner led by Yolanda Díaz, is increasing pressure on PSOE this week.
On Monday the 15th, Sumar submitted questions to the Congress of Deputies, inquiring if the government intends to support South Africa's lawsuit against Israel for the accusation of genocide. These questions focus on the government's stance towards the lawsuit and whether they will support it before the United Nations International Court of Justice. They have also asked if Spain will provide legal assistance to South Africa if they need it and how they plan to promote peaceful solutions alongside UN resolutions. Since the 7th of October, Sumar has consistently condemned war crimes by both parties and criticized Israel's military action.
Speaking of aid, a report by the Kiel Institute, a research organization based in Germany, has revealed how much military aid has been publicly given to Ukraine since February twenty twenty-two and from where. Germany was the second-highest donor last year, with around seventeen billion euros, while the USA was the first with forty-three billion. On the flip side, Spain gave the least out of its neighbors with 340 million euros. One of its neighbors, France, contributed around 540 million billion euros, while Italy contributed 690 million euros.
Another year, another tax campaign or La Renta: the bane of many people's lives in Spain. (We aren't kidding)
The Tax Agency has started preparing for the twenty twenty-four income campaign, and surprise, surprise, there are a few changes. One of the biggest is the deadline, as taxpayers will have eight more days to complete the income tax return. Residents can submit their tax returns from the 3rd of April until the 1st of July. The minimum declaration has also changed, as it won't be mandatory for taxpayers earning less than 15,000 euros to declare, unlike previous years when the minimum was 14,000.
The minimum declaration clause won't apply to self-employed people though, who will still have to complete their declaration forms even if they don't meet the minimum income threshold. However, deductible expenses could reduce bills by almost 7%, although these are historically difficult to justify.
In a historic moment, Mar Galcerán, the PP candidate, became Spain’s first Member of Parliament with Down's syndrome in September. Down España, a federation movement for the rights of Spaniards with Down syndrome, says that Galcerán may be the first person with Down syndrome to serve on an EU regional parliament. As a member of Valencia's regional assembly, Galcerán's leap to the EU regional parliament marks a significant milestone, challenging prejudices and advocating for a broader understanding of her identity beyond her disability.
Next up, in a groundbreaking development, a Barcelona court recently ruled in favor of a former content moderator for CCC Barcelona Digital Services, a subcontracted entity under Telus International that moderates meta's content. The court acknowledged the employee's claim that they suffered severe anxiety and continuous illness due to daily exposure to sensitive and disturbing content while reviewing Meta's products for eight hours a day. This case is the first acknowledgment of its kind in Spanish history, officially classifying it as a work-related accident. Importantly, the court rejected the company's claim that the employee had pre-existing mental health issues. It highlights the mental health challenges that content moderators face and emphasizes the responsibility of moderation companies to address the psychological consequences of their work.
Other former and current employees are also filing lawsuits against the two companies for similar reasons.
And to close this edition, for film enthusiasts, scenes from Netflix's latest blockbuster, Society of the Snow, directed by Spanish film director J.A. Bayona, was shot in the Sierra Nevada mountains in Andalucia, a substitute for the Andes mountain range in South America.
The film is an accurate retelling of the historical nineteen seventy-two Andes flight crash, where sixteen out of forty passengers survived under very harsh conditions. Despite narrowly missing out at the twenty twenty-four Golden Globes for Best Foreign Language Film, Society of the Snow is proving very popular, reaching over fifty-one million views according to the streaming service.
Want to know more about the Sierra Nevada mountain region? Link in show notes.
Aaaaand that’s it for this week!
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¡Hasta la próxima!