Barcelona Corruption

Introduction

Spain has a long history of being world famous for widespread corruption; along with other countries like Italy and many developing or poor countries.
The corruption in Barcelona is so solidly based in the system of management of the city and of Catalunya that there is a regular newspaper in English that concentrates on the subject, "Barcelona Business".
There are also a number of books that highlight the possible control of the City Council and the Government of Catalunya by the important business people; ref. "L'oasi Catala. Un recorregut per les bones familias de Barcelone" by Andreu Farràs & Pere Cullell. ("The Catalan Oasis. A trip through the good families of Barcelona"). There are other books along similar lines.

Various official bodies have complained about the unfair systems in Catalunya and/or Spain; of contracts for friends.

Various official bodies have complained about the unfair system in Catalunya and/or Spain, such as the American Embassy which claimed that there was strong discrimination against firms from USA, the Association of Catalunya of Contractors for Public Works complained that public contract competitions were run but that a preferred company often already existed and that the competition was only a smoke screen to comply with the regulations. They gave the example of a contract competion to build 30 new schools where companies were only given an impossible time in which to create and submit their proposal, meeting all the requirements of the contract competition and visiting all of the sites/locations in question; and that they believed that at least 1 company knew in advance and had more time to visit sites and prepare their offer. The response from the Catalan system was that everything was done within the regulations and no changes would be made to the system (re-inforces the impression of misuse of power by the authorities).

The Barcelona City Council organises events during the city festival which are by private invitation only.

The Barcelona City Council with Jordi Hereu as the Mayor organises events which are by invitation only, for friends of the City Council and people in power, which many citizens see as intentional misuse of public money. Proof :- the City Council of Jordi Hereu normally has a special event on the first night of the anual city festival that costs 500,000 €, again by invitation only and paid for by using taxpayers money. In the city festival of 2008 there were events during the festival that were by invitation only, normaly citizens could not attend, but paid for using public money; for many people that is fraudulent use of public money for the benefit of the people in power and their friends. And for sure the council has other similar events during the year. It is a good way to ensure that people want to be friends of the City Council; if you oppose or criticise the council then you can forget any favours or contracts from the Council and no more invitations to the invitation-only functions.

During the last few years while the City Council of Jordi Hereu has run publicity campaigns (for free using the newspapers El Periodico and La Vanguardia; in return for the mountain of money that the council spends with useless never ending promotions with these papers) trying to portray the Council as socialist and doing social deeds whereas the fact is that the Mayor has spent much of his time attending dinners with the business sector and giving awards to the business sector. And the business sector and the politicians patting each other on the back saying how good a job they are doing, this as a result of the 2 sides doing well in the last few years with the never ending increase in the number of tourists and hence of the profits of the business sector. The 2 sides have been working intimately together and the citizens have been ignored since they do not make payments to the political party PSC or to the Foundations of the PSC party.

Many of the politicians or their families have business interests making them interested in the business sector (for personal/family benefit) and less in the needs of the citizens, noting that many citizens complain about the negative effects for citizens of so many tourists. There were criticisms in past years of contracts between the Catalan Government and companies which involved the son of the President Snr Jordi Pujol. And one of his sons was found to be using an illegal inmigrant worker to renovate a house in the French Pyrenees.
During his 23 years as the President of Catalunya apparently not even 1 apartment for social housing was built (ref. opposition party claims) which shows how much interest some parties have in the citizens !.

Barcelona City Council and the Government of Catalunya buy Plane Operator !!

In 2009 the economic crisis is in full swing, with unemployment around 18% and many unemployed struggling with very little unemployment benefits in Spain (according to press and TV , 1million homes have no income or support of any type, amazing!!!) and the public administration system has insufficient money to do many of the existing projects/plans and are borrowing to stay afloat. In response to this difficult situation the Barcelona City Council and the Government of Catalunya have recently invested tens of millions of Euros in buying a plane travel company, Spanair !!; (the same firm whose plane crashed with approx. 150 deaths in Madrid in August 2008, for trying to take off without deploying the flaps on the wings to get more lift). This is at the same time as saying that they have no money for many of the existing projects or laws that they have put in place; such as the law giving financial help to people/families that look after a disabled or dependant person, and many schools are in temporary buildings, the number of nursery schools is still way short of the demand and only changing slowly due to lack of spending.

The City Council and Government of Catalunya intentionally break laws that they have already agreed.

The City Council and Government of Catalunya intentionally break laws that they have already agreed. An example is the European Charter of Human Rights for Citizens. This was signed by the City Council in 2002 (by the terrible City Mayor of the Catalan Socialist Party PSC was Joan Clos, widely criticised by the citizens for ignoring their needs while spending billions on conference centres (in no way a socialist) now quietly moved out of the way to Turkey as the Spanish Ambassador) and clearly states that it is of higher status than the other laws of the city and all the laws of the city must be altered if needed to comply with the articles of the charter. The reality is that the Barcelona City Council repeatedly and intentionally breaks many of the articles of the said charter of human rights. Example, discrimination for reasons of age in housing subsidies. In reality the City Council, Government of Catalunya and of Government Spain repeatedly break this human rights rule prohibiting age discrimination.
The money available to people under 30 years (or 34?) of age to help them pay their rent. Over the age limit and you can not apply. The same applies for the apartments available for rent or purchase at controlled prices; the maximum age for that is 34 years of age and old people and it is common that there are rules that limit the applications to only people with X years living in that area (which opposes the Brussels rule for free movement of people between countries without discrimination compared to the local people).

Payments from the Construction Sector to the Political Sector

Many people think that the property sector is intentionally supported by the Barcelona City Council (Jordi Hereu as city Mayor) and Government of Catalunya to financially benefit the property builders and promotors and that any effects of Government changes on the lives of the citizens is just a secondary effect. The various changes in regulations can be analysed to come to this conclusion.
One example is that the Catalan responsible for Dwellings and property (Snr Baltasar) announced a new law with a lot trumpet blowing ....the new law requires that X%, (50% ?) of new apartment buildings would have to be made available at low controlled prices for the people that qualify (under 35s on low wages and old people only !). But the reality is that the rule only applies if the total floor area of the development will be bigger than 5000m2 !. This means that almost all developments are excluded and do not have to comply with the regulation !!
(especially true inside the city of Barcelona where there is no land available and the new buildings are normally just a single building to replace an old building. (for larger developments outside of the city the constructor can probably avoid the rule by building each phase with a limit just below 5000m2, or making an agreement with the council such as building a square as part of the development (a donation to a Foundation linked to the political party in power would probably also help ! see details of the case "Palau de la Musica") (and because one of the major associations involved in the apartment sector had different views to those of Snr Baltasar ....that Association was not invited to the meetings to prepare the new regulations !!, ref. statement on TV Catalunya). The normal principles of democracy and administration do not apply in the Government of Catalunya or in the Barcelona City Council !!.

Many people think that the reality is that the rich class of Barcelona (ref. the book mentioned above and others) have large investments in the buildings and ground of Barcelona and as a result that they control the politicians to make sure that the prices in Barcelona are kept high and if possible to be increased !.

Ways to increase the prices of buildings and land are :-
- careful use of regulations for building control and also
- by increasing the population and population density of the city
(to increase demand, increase clients per shop and hence increase sales, profits at the shops and hence increase shop prices). Increasing the density of the people per km2 to again increase the demand for an apartment to live in and to increase the turnover and profits at the shops.
The city council has authorised new sky scrapers with underground car parks to be built in a city that already breaks the European Law for air pollution and is one of the most densely populated cities in Europe/world..
Examples:- the new hotel ´Vela' on the beach at Barceloneta with its car park for 600 cars, the Torre Agbar (with underground car park), Torre Gas, Telecom Tower in construction with underground car park, ). If you break the European air pollution law then you must take steps to bring the pollution level to be withing the legal limits; but the Barcelona City Council builds or authorises more skyscrapers and massive new underground car parks in the city centre to increase car traffic !....to increase the pollution levels and break the European Law by an even bigger amount. Amazing !!

European Parlament apparently can not do anything to stop this since it can only act against Spain and not against individual cities. An example that democracy and laws do not work in Europe, that everything is false and that the rich and powerful can do what they want (with the co-operation of City Mayors like Snr Jordi Hereu !) and ignore the laws.
The forementioned hotel Vela is also considered by many citizens to be illegal since it is built at a beach and the Spanish Laws prohibit that, since the beaches are public property and all buildings must be more than X metres away. The City Jordi Hereu co-operated intimately with the hotel developers and has allowed the hotel, by ensuring that the hotel is officially within the boundary of the port. But it is clear to the citizens that the sandy beach is a public beach and is not a port ! But to take the City Mayor to court is a very difficult and expensive task and noting that the Government of Catalunya (and of Spain ) is the same political party as the City Mayor and the ruling body of the judges is elected by the politicians any legal case would be expected to be won by the Mayor.

The traffic levels have been increased in the Raval, 08001 Barcelona, for example, by a large amount as the City Council has altered the roads to increase the road traffic; the traffic in the street Sant Antoni Abat (08001 Barcelona) has perhaps doubled over 7 years. It is now common to have queues due to the traffic lights at the end of the road or a van unloading and the cars waiting do not hestitate to hoot their horns (very negative increase in noise and pollution for the people living in that narrow street, but the city council does not care and takes no action).
Interesting to note that the Hotel Vela has FCC as one of the 4 owners. The biggest shareholder of FCC is a Señora Koplowitz. They also co-operated closely with the Socialist party for the Filesa scandal in approx 1990, illegal funding of the socialist party. They have also given money to the CIU political party via its Foundation Trias Fargas (4 companies gave 60k each to that foundation , at around the same time as receiving contracts to build metro tunnels/lines).

Barcelona City Council is intentionally Breaking European Charters they have signed

The European Charter (law in Barcelona) requires that the management and development of a city must be done with the citizens as part of the process, ie. participation and involvement of the citizens in the decisions made. The City Council has spent millions of Euros on advertising and promotion to claim that it is doing this but the truth is completely different. (just 1 campaign for participation in approx. 2006 managed by Imma Mayol cost 2M € !!). (Is this intentional (illegal) misuse of public money ?). But the City Council of Jordi Hereu (and his abrasive/tactless/overbearing assistant Carlos Marti) do not allow participation of the citizens in most of the decisions. The council has in fact normally gone against public protest marches organised to protest against the plans announced made by the council. The building on land at Barcelona Football Club is one example; where the local people will probably submit a legal case to try to stop the building authorised by the City Council. The local people have organised protest marches against the planned development agreed by the Football Club with the Council but opposed by the local people !!. The development of a hotel beside the Palau de la Musica generated 3500 of local people opposed to the plan and the council said 'we take no notice and will continue'. The plan included for the demolition of a protected building !!, which lucklily the Government of Catalunya pointed out was not permitted.
There are many other examples of the City Council of Jordi Hereu intentionally going against what the normal citizens want. And breaking the European laws that require that citizen views are taken into account in decision making. In the historic street Calle Carabassa (or Calabassa) in the historic centre of Barcelona the City Council wanted to allow a company to develop the street and build a new hotel (hotels are normally always part of any development, the real reason for changes, money and profit for the hotel owner, so there is someone willing to pay bribes in order to get permission, and willing to pay to get a City Council to go against its own citizens).

In the area 'Forat de la Vergonya' some local people had planted plants in an area of land.....and the Council sent in the police in riot gear to destroy it all !! The riot police were then present at the area for months after to keep the citizens under control. And in Catalunya the police have the right to give you a serious kicking/beating and nothing will happen to them, there are many cases, including cases that have been recorded on video. There have been letters of protest from various organisations such as the Journalists of Catalunya, but nothing changes, the politicians want absolute power and do not want any complaints from the citizens. The police of Catalunya are one of the few in Europe that do not have identification numbers or names visible to the public, to allow them to beat people up and make it impossible to identify which policeman it was. In 2009 there is talk of changing this, hopefully one day it will change. Police has also be found to be carrying weapons which are not authorised. There seems to be no effort to control the police, as the politicians are happy for the police to do what they want as long as they are at the call of the politicians when they need them. There have been torture/beating cases at the Police station at Les Corts and many other accusations of police brutality in all of Catalunya. (the head of the City police was actually shot by a rubber bullet while on duty in plain clothes by the Police of Catalunya....and 2 people lost eyes to rubber bullets on the same night..(football celebrations when Spain won the European Cup) ..and nothing has happened as a result).

Returning to the subject of property development the reality is that the City Council operates a company for the development of the large historic area of the city ("Foment de Cuitat Vella", with offices at 17 Pintor Fortuny, 08001 Barcelona) and this office is controlled 50% by the City Council and 50% by the business class....with 0% from the Citizen groups !; no representative from the largest citizen group "FAVB", Barcelona Federacion of Associations of Neighbours).

Why does the City Council of Jordi Hereu and Carlos Marti say one thing (transparent Government, citizen participation) (and use lots of public money to broadcast that view or information !) but in reality behave completely differently ?

Many people would assume that it is due to corruption; a policy of favours or payments with the rich people of the city.

The main party in the City Council and the Government of Catalunya is the socialist party of Catalunya(PSC); but the laws that they introduce and where they spend the bulk of the money is in capitalist measures (like buying a company that operates airplanes !, or building yet another conference centre with public money, metro from the city centre to the new conference centre etc ) and the socialist measures are funded with smaller amounts of money and often highly publicised but in reality often the projects end after a few weeks since the money has run out !

(Proof. Projects for assistance with the cost to renovate buildings or apartments or with the purchase of efficient electrical units always run out of money and applications are rejected; but the politicians can promote how 'socialist' they are (including to Brussels one assumes) by massive publicity of the start of such projects but the reality is that the projects are intentional smoke screens to hide the reality of what the politicians are spending the big money on, billions on new terminal and new runway at the airport, new conference centres, new metro to the conference centre, billions for new conference centre "Forum" by the beach. Many or most of citizens do not know what the reality or truth is since they only see the pubicity campaigns intentionally run by the politicians which appear designed to intentionally mislead or lie to the citizens this looks like intentional and illegal misuse of public money).

(Proof. The city council spent a lot of money to make it look to the citizens that the council was dedicated to making it easier and cheaper to do sport in Barcelona; but the reality is that to play tennis at the biggest Municipal tennis facility (Val Hebron, and courts in bad condition, little maintenance) the cost is 23€ /hour during the day for an outside clay court for 2 people or to use the sports facility in the Raval (Canricart) it costs 12.65€ as the minimum charge (just to use swimming pool would cost 12.65€) and for 95% of the Barcelona citizens this is too expensive. So the city council of Jordi Hereu intentional spends hundreds of thousands of euros to advertise information to the citizens which they know is not true; ie. Jordi Hereu is intentionally using public money to mislead/lie to the citizens ! Amazing !

Many people think that the beneficiaries of the spending of these billions of Euros are the hotel owners (like the secretive Catalan Joan Alonso Castro who owns/benefits from approx. 20,000 hotel rooms mostly in Spain (he is the main owner of Hesperia Hotels and 30% of NH Hotels). The facts indicate strong connections between the City Council and Hesperia Hotels, examples, permission to build new hotel in the Raval when local people are against more tourists and more hotels, contract to provide catering at the Grec festival (resulting in public complaints of excessive prices, 4€ for a 1/3 ltr beer (in a bar 1.5-1.8€ would be a typical price), prices that the theoretically 'socialist' city council had agreed to by giving Hesperia the contract).

The socialist party in the City Council was found guilty in a legal process of not having complied with the laws that control elections, case brought by the CIU party; another example that the City Council has little respect for the regulations but concentrates on doing what it wants to do. Some examples of corruption/fraud in Barcelona include police involvement with assisting prostitution in return for money, (large legal case for this in process in Castelldefels at the moment, with connections to some rich people in Barcelona)(some police apparently would warn the brothel manager before any police raid to arrest any of the girls with no permission to be in Spain, in return for cash). In the licenses case at least one council worker is in prision.

The large container Port of Barcelona had criminals charging for permission to use the port, (had to pay their 'license' in return for a metal plaque on the truck, with burning of trucks that did not pay the quota....went on for years apparently before finally the police investigated and stopped it. The Barcelona City Council appearred to turn a blind eye to it for years.

Business or Bar/shop Licenses
(this appears to be quite common in Spain including in Barcelona). Some officials have been charged with fraud, for asking for cash in return for licenses for business functions. At least 1 is in prison as a result.
Other officials have been charged for protecting a noisy bar from action against it. In some legal cases the judge has included a condemnation of the City Council of Jordi Hereu for not following the law/regulations for noisy bars/businesses and for intentionally taking no action in response to many complaints from local people; and after a few years the City Council now appears to have become more interested in acting against noisy bars probably since it knows that legally it is on thin ice since there are previous judges declarations against the City Council for not acting and demanding a change.

Big Legal Case. Tax Office Fraud
At present some of the big business leaders in Catalunya are being tried in a major legal case; charged with actions like bribing tax inspectors so that they can pay less tax. This includes the name Nuñez, who was the President of the Barcelona Football Club. Another ex-president of FC Barcelona was Snr Gaspart who is now head of HUSA Hotels (with 120 hotels, founded by his grandfather; refer to earlier quote 'same 400 families have all the power, as always'), Vicepresident of the Association of Barcelona Hotels and also of Consorci Turisme de Barcelona). The Consorci Turisme de Barcelona was created in 1993 by the City Council and was responsible for the council plan for development of Tourism in Barcelona, sadly there is almost definitely no citizen presence in that organisation or involved in writing the plans for the city; so you can see why the city is developed (with fully City Council and City Mayor (Jordi Hereu) agreement) just the benefit of the hotel owners with no consideration of the citizens; breaking the Europea Charter for Rights of Citizens which requires that the development is for benefit of all citizens and not just for rich business owners. The people in power and the politicians are very closely connected !!.

Palau de La Musica Fraud of Approx 20 Million Euros

The Palace of Music is a famous modernist venue for live music events (and other events such as political meetings) (it is a stunningly beautiful building). It is viewed as a symbol of Catalunya. Of Catalan tradition. Of Catalan culture. Of Catalan history. As an example of the capacity of the Catalans of the past to design and build beautiful buildings. (its building cost was funded by public subscription)
The President of the Palace, Felix Millet Tusell, had a high position in the upper classes of Barcelona with positions on many committees, family connections with the Catalan movements for Independance, connections with the Football Club Barcelona and had been awarded various awards from the Barcelona City Council such as the key to the city and various other prestigous awards. The Palace receives at least a million or 2 Euros each year of public money so there are representatives on the committees of the Palace to make sure that everything is managed correctly and to see that the public money is correctly used. The citizens now discover in 2009 that the Palau de la Musica has been a scene for the theft of millions of Euros by the President and his assistants and negligance or involvement of the public representatives on the management committees.

Of the interesting facts of the case are :- President paid himself 66k € / month when it appears that the public would have expected perhaps 5k€ / month, his 2nd in command ( paid himself an annual bonus of 1M€/ year, the annual meeting takes place in Fornells on Menorca !! (sounds like missuse of public money, supported by the public representatives), there was 200k€ in cash in a safe when the police did their collection of documents in July 2009 and that money has now vanished, President bought an adjacent building for 3M€ for the Palau (without seeking permission from any management committee) from a company that he part owned with the Vice -President ) when they had paid 1.5M€ (that sale then fell through since the next day the whole fraud situation became known.

Snr Millet was funding/directing his own building development outside of Barcelona where the streets and lights have been installed (one assumes to try to hide/use the large amounts of money he was obtaining). The Palau de la Musica was also involved in a hotel scheme. To build a hotel in a protected building opposite the Palace. This new hotel project with other 1 or 2 buildings was suddenly announced as approved by the Barcelona City Council without any prior warning. The result was much local opposition and action groups were formed and 3500 signatures collected against the project.. One reason being that the building was a protected building and the City Council planned to just demolish it !! Due to the complaints the Council then said that it would be willing to discuss with the local people the changes in that area but it stated clearly that "the hotel project was not negiotable" !. This is against European Law and indicates illegal co-operation between the City Council of Jordi Hereu and the Hotel Project (now being processed legally....and the Council involvement is also being investigated, part of the legal case Palau de la Musica; but the papers keep this very quiet, as intimate friends of the Council, they receive a mountain of council money for advertising. The Council spend on advertising is ridiculous, many people think illegal/immoral).

Some people argued that it was not allowed to give a license to any new hotel in that area, that the city plan prohibited it. The council replied that the hotel had received a license 1 week before the new regulations were introduced !.(ref. the press) That looks like intentional cohecho, co-operation to break the law.

The President of the Palau had many connections with rich and powerful people in Catalunya such as Snr Nuñez the ex-President of FC Barcelona and the main owner of the large Nuñez y Navarro property company, currently being tried with many other leading Barcelona/Catalunya business leaders (Ibusa boss also being tried, big company).

Was the President of the Palau involved in the hotel project ?
Or was his plan to personally benefit from it the purchase of an adjacent building that would have a higher value after the hotel was built with (noting that said building is I believe empty at the moment....the normal Barcelona trick/method when you are applying for a license for a new hotel). For many people these things created an immediate impression of 'cohecho' (illegal co-operating for favours or benefits) between the city Council and the hotel project. Now that this fraud has been revealed the involvement of the corrupt President and assistants of the Palace with the hotel project also makes many people think that the City Council should also be included in the police investigation to see if any laws have been broken. But the main party under public suspicion is also the main party of the Government of Catalunya which controls to a large extent the judges and the police in Catalunya (in Catalunya and Spain the legal system is not independant from the political system, eg. the judges on the ruling committee are chosen by the political parties).

Will the police and legal system for 'Spain' be willing to investigate the activities of the Barcelona City Council and Government of Catalunya in this investigation of fraud at the Palace ? Perhaps not, since the political party for Spain is the socialist party (PSOE) and they need the votes of the Catalan socialist politicians in order to continue as the Government of Spain. The Spanish Government is also in a good political position at the moment since the main opposition party is suffering from numerous revelations of illegal activity (such as public contracts for a % to party bosses, receiving presents for public contracts etc) but if the socialist party of Catalunya was to be investigated as well then the Spanish Government would lose its good position. With the bad economic situation in Spain (without unemployment at 18% and rising) the Government of Spain can not afford for changes in subjects that are very helpful to them like corruption in the opposition party.; so would/will the socialist party in Catalunya be investigated ?

The company that obtained the hotel license then a few months later sold the project to make a quick profit without any risk. SO the City Council is operating as a close and loyal friend to business people that are speculating with buying/selling property to make quick profits. This creates a perfect situation for money to cahnge hands in return for the close and loyal co-operation of the City Council (in the face of strong opposition from the local people that the council is actually paid to represent).

The Finance Director of the Palau Gemma Montull was the daughter of the Vice-President !!. Amazing for such a building with large turnover and receiving millions of € in public money; it is not a private business were the owner gives a job to his daughter. Clearly the representatives of the City Council and the Government of Catalunya that act on the committees of the Palace must have agreed to this appointment. So the Council and Government look to be part of the overall fraud but proving any personal or political party benefit may be impossible to prove but many people would say that gross negligence in agreeing to the management and the accounts of the Palau is already proved which would infer that they should be sacked.

The lawyer/secretary (Raimon Bergos) of the Palace gave written advice to the Vice-President for how to mislead the tax office inspectors so it appears that he knew that the accounts being presented were not true and hence that he knew about the existance of fraud. To what level we wait to see. That lawyer Snr Bergos has also resigned his position as head of legal services at the Authority that controls television and radio in Catalunya.
The President Snr Millet has said in the past about the power in Barcelona that "we are 400 and always it is the same people".

Other family links; the President of the Palau during the transition phase of Spain (1976-1990) after the death of the dictator Franco was Joan Anton Maragall the uncle of Pascall Maragall who was the mayor of the city council around the times of the olympics in 1982 and then President of the Government of Catalunya until approx. 2007. Jordi Pujol, the Pres. of Catalunya for 23 years until approx. 2003 helped Snr Millet to take the place of J.Maragall as President of the Palace. In a clean democratic systgem it would be surprising to have appointed Snr Millet as President of the Palau de la Musica since he had been found guilty of fraud in the Renta Catalana scandal in 1983 which affected Millet and also some politicians of the CIU party. As an ex-banker it would appear that Snr Millet had no experience in the entertainment industry and for someone to manage a business with large cash flows in and out then surely someone with a guilty record for fraud is a strange choice !.

Other hotel projects were the City Council has acted in dubious manner. The Hotel Barceló in Rambla Raval was built without consulation with the local people but was suddenly announced in the press by surprise as a fully signed off agreement. The hotel has been built were previously there was a building of apartments for local people. The buildings in all of the historic centre have a permitted height of 5 floors but the new hotel has been built with 10 floors. So the city council is co-operating with developers to replace local people with tourist hotel rooms (against the written objections of the citizens of Barcelona) because it makes money for these companies. The main citizens association FAVB, and Assoc. of Cuitat Vella have repeatedly written that they oppose the building of new hotels in the historic centre of Barcelona. The City Council intentionally chooses to ignore the desires of the citizens. Since the citizens are opposed to any new hotels this creates the obvious question 'is the agreement of the City Council being bought' ?

Many citizens do not want more hotels nor more tourists since the city centre is already saturated or over saturated with tourits making it impossible to do simple things like walk down the Rambla. Too many tourists results in the closing of shops for local people and the new shops being for tourists with high prices. So the local people can end up living in an area that is not for them but is for visitors from other countries. One bar in Rambla Raval charges 4.5€ for a 1/3ltr beer on the terrace. This is way more expensive that most local people can pay. If the local people can not use the local bars then that it shows too much exploitation of the area for the benefit of business class against the local people.

Other strange behavour from the city council and the city mayor Jordi Hereu is the response and attitude to complaints from citizen groups and citizens in general. In September 2009 there has been a lot of negative publicity for the tourist city of Barcelona, such as global and national TV (main national news !) and press coverage of photos showing prostitutes sucking the penis of tourists only 50m from the main tourist street Ramblas, national TV shows videos showing pick pocketing in Barcelona, revelation of theft of millions of € from the main cultural symbol of Catalunya by the directors and the lawyer.

When questioned on the national TV programme "59 seconds" on approx. 14th sept 2009 about these problems the response of the City Mayor (Jordi Hereu ) was "the citizens are very demanding". Amazing !!

Some people think that the problems of Barcelona and the failure of the authorities to make any impact on these problems are a result from the authorities being concentrated on their own agendas, perhaps agendas given to them by the business class of Barcelona and Catalunya. In Barcelona many people would think that the agenda of the City Council is to cater to the tourist/hotel industry and to repeatedly ignore or suppress the desires/complaints from the citizens and to specifically exclude the citizens associations from the decision making for the city. This leads to the basic question as to why ? It creates the suspicion as to if the political parties receiving some incentives to make them sidestep the citizens (noting that this has been the history in Spain) ?

Returning to the subject of the fraud of the Palau de la Musica and the involvement of the City Council. It appears that part of the project is to take some m2 from a school to be used in the project. Many people would say that the Council should be protecting schools and their m2 and not agreeing to their sale and use for hotels for tourists. The council has also made some decisions of dubious legality. For the hotel on Montjuic hill a technician report ruled against adding an extra floor to the building. Despite this the extra floor was added; the left wing city council became a shareholder, with 10-15%; apparently the council spent millions on road changes and taking a cable car to the hotel. (the hotel had been a TV centre/station in the past for public TV). In Sept 2009 the council sold their share for 1 € !!. 1€ for 10-15% of a 4 or 5 star hotel in an amazing location on Montjuic hill overlooking the city and the beach area. Surelty by law the council must look to see if can sell the shares to other hotel groups ? Impression is that that did not happen. If so then would have been very easy for some benefit to be given in return by the hotel to the political parties involved.

On the Parallel Avenue in Barcelona there were some property deals involving the City Council which created some public doubts about legality and favouritism. The Molin Rouge and also the ex-brothel (press said it was a brothel) on the other side of the avenue were involved. The brothel was in use.....and I think that they applied to expand it....and result of City Council was I think to close it down and to buy the building ! Some people think that the building was then offloaded into a project with a friend of the socialist party as its leader. A similar case I think for the Molin Rouge which created widespread complaints from the section of entertainment workers.

The newspaper El Periodico said that the father of Snr Millet was the founder of the Foundation "Omnium", an organisation which works to obtain independance for Catalunya and to make Catalan the sole language in Catalunya (to oppose the use of Castellano/Spanish). This organisation has strong links with the political powers in Barcelona/Catalunya, demonstrated by giving them the contract to organise Catalan events in Paseo de Arc de Truinfo on the national day of Catalunya and giving them public money for various things. The press said that Omnium bought and distributed whistles to be used during the playing of the Spanish National hymn at the final of the Spanish Cup (copa del Rei/Kings' cup). And yet the City Council and the Government of Catalunya have sworn allegiance to the King (officially is the head of Spain, above the Government), so using public taxpapers money to give to a group to act against the King (assuming that the press was correct) appears to be illegal.

The fraud of the Catalan symbol the Palau generates the question, is fraud also taking place at other symbolic Catalan entities such as Onmium, MACBA, Ramon Llul ? Very difficult to ask to investigate these 'Catalan' entities since it is like being a traitor to Catalunya, not being loyal to the flag. But perhaps that is the perfect cover or smoke screen if you want to do some fraud ! (as seen with the Palau de la Musica fraud of 20M).
The new small politial party Cuitadans has argued things like this in the past; clearly they were proved right when the Palau de la Musica fraud was discovered !.

It is also worth noting that official doubts were raised in approx. 2002 about the honesty of the finances at the Palau. Clearly the powers that be decided not to investigate. Even the intial investigation by the tax office was sidestepped by the directors at the Palau apart from paying a 48k € fine to the tax office. Creates the question as to whether there was any attempt to bribe the early inspector not to continue with their line of investigation and whether the system intentionally decided not to investigate the reported discrepancies (were the decision makers of the 'system' was benefitting ? so chose to do nothing ?). The 48K € fine from tax office was very small amount compared to total amount being stolen, and that fine was probably charged to the account of the Palau and not paid personally by the directors. And on payment of that fine it is strange that the committe members from the city council and Government of Catalunya did not insist on a detailed analysis/review of the accounts (which should have discovered the frauds at that time). The accounts submitted to the system did not comply with the regulations (in one year 1.6M€ (50% of the total for the year) was declared as an expense but with no information at all !!) and no one that reviewed/inspected the accounts said anything. The complicity or negligence seems to be at every level; and of many different bodies of the 'system'. So much negligence that many people would think that it looks like co-operation.

The payments to groups were apparently made in cash, ref. claim from Snr Millet. which creates the question as to what the committe members were doing ? It appears that there was absolutely no control from the management committee.

Note ; giving jobs or benefits or contracts to family members is very common in Barcelona/Catalunya. The current Vice Presid. of Catalunya (Snr Josep Carod Rovira) appointed his brother as the Catalan 'Embassador' to Paris without any application process for the job and without any prior experience as an Embassador !.
(the official embassy is of course for 'Spain' and not for Catalunya but Catalunya is also opening Embassy offices because of the Nationalistic/independistic views of 2 small parties that hold the balance of power in the coalition Catalan Government, ERC and ICV). The appointment created widespread ridicule in the press and inclusion in the critical humour programme "Polonia".
And note that his brother, the Vice President of Catalunya is famous for being brusque, verbally agressive, undiplomatic and for creating problems on some of his trips to other countries. If these characteristics run in the family then his brother appears not to be well suited to selection as an ambassador !.

Use of City Plans to Make Personal Profits

Many people think that the City Council of Jordi Hereu uses City Development Plans to allow certain people make personal financial gains. There are plans for different areas of the city, or even streets of the city which allow or disallow the issuing of commericial licenses. If you own a business with a specific area and the plan then prohibits the issuing of new licenses in that area then your business can increase a lot in value if the Council then announces a development in that area. But if you are friend of the people in power then perhaps you can buy a property with a license for another activity (say estate agent and cheap since property sector is bad at the moment) if you know in secret that the next plan for that area will allow you to change the license to cater/sell products to tourists.
In some areas it has been prohibited to open new shops/bars offering certain services but it seems to many citizens that new shops open offerring exactly that type of service even though new licenses are prohibited. An investigation could perhaps make some interesting revelations. And note that at least 1 council worker is in prison for corruption with shop/business licenses.
The apparently socialist city council of Jordi Hereu has also been buying shops !. Yes, a strange actiivity for a city council, via the Company Foment Cuitat Vella which it has 50% of. Gives many options for fraud or favours for friends. If a development, or change to roads or new tourist attraction is announced then a shop can immediately double in value, ideal for a bit of fraud or favours for friends. Ideally sell the shop to a friend (could be one of the companies involved in Foment Cuitat Vella, 50% owned by commerical sector)(or perhaps someone that has made a donation to the political party of the council) a few months before the development is made public to try to avoid any suscpicion. A city development company that is 50:50 council and commerce sector with no citizen participation, clearly breaks the European laws.

Past fraud cases with politicians.

The ERC party sent letters to the top civil servants in the political departments that they controlled in the Govt. of Catalunya demanding that those people paid a % of their salaries each month to the ERC party funds !!; and that if not that their jobs/positions would be in jeopordy. There were investigations and much TV and press coverage but in the end nothing happened !! To many people such letters or demands are extorsion and very illegal.

One Dept. of the Govt. of Catalunya has also paid 27k € to have a study done which looks at every journalist to record details about them and to see if they are in favour or against the Govt. !!This looks to be proof that the Govt. is trying to unfairly influence and control the journalists; in oppisition to the fundamentals of democracy and freedom of speech.

Also worth noting that the Govt. paid approx. 25k € to the secretary/lawyer of the Palau (Raimon Bergos) to do a study about good control or similar in management of entities like the Palau. Ironic that later on it turns out that that person is very close to the fraud of the Palau of perhaps 20M€.

The Barcelona City Council and Tourist Apartments

The City Council (Mayor is Jordi Hereu) issued an order in 2005/2006 to close all the tourist apartments that were rented to tourists but only in the centre of Barcelona. When at that time the law in place (1996, still in place in 2009) from the Government of Catalunya strongly encouraged the renting of apartments to tourists !.

Many people think that the City Council order resulted directly from pressure from hotel owners.

Some hotel groups/owners had agreed with the City Council to build 25 new hotels in the city centre area. Clearly it would be to the benefit of those hotel owners if they could close all the tourist apartments to have no competition and also to in an instant have a large increase in customers and hence profits. It also gives the chance to increase their hotel room prices since a lot of cheaper competition would be gone; a 10% nightly price increase can result in a 20% profit increase since most of the fixed costs like the cost of the loan for the hotel are unchanged if 10% more clients. A 10% occupancy increase can give a 20% profit increase. If the 2 things happen at the same time then you can see that a large increase in profits is possible. So there are/were very strong financial/profit reasons that the hotel sector would want the apartments to be closed.
(during the council debates the politicians seem to be almost orgasmic when they talk about the tourists arriving at the airport....and the businesses making profits...with no interest in the non-profit making interests or demands from the citizens, like security, street lighting, opening the libraries (which are closed a lot of the time !! (yet education is supposed to be the path to the future for Catalunya), while the museums for tourists are open all day with no lunch break and till 24:00 or later on Thursay night !).

The system is corrupt with no interest in democracy or in the citizens.

The Barcelona city council of Jordi Hereu has intentionally used the press to mount a biased campaign of half truths against the sector of tourist apartments to try to gain public opinion to support the Council's totalitarian behaviour in favour of the hotel sector. To do it they have used public money to spend a fortune at the newpapers to buy the effective control/favours of the newspapers.
It also creates the question as to whether any of the hotels receiving licenses for new hotels in the centre are making any payments or other 'benefits' to the political parties in return for the City Council order to close the tourist apartments.

The apartments with Catalan Government licences to operate as "immediately available apartments" created an association and fought to stay in business. (an immediately available apartment has to comply with the 1996 law so that they compete with hotel rooms or apartmenthotels on equal terms, so the room sizes etc must meet the rules for hotels/apartmenthotels).
The 1996 Generalitat law and the City Council order of 2005 is clear that they only apply to apartments available immediately.

The argument to close tourist apartments is that they make noise and create problems. Yet there are already laws to close any apartment that causes noise problems and the police have the power to remove any hi-fi or similar item if it is causing a noise problem.
The City Council is closing apartments that do not cause any noise problems; this is proof that the council just wants to close apartments, despite there being no reason to do it, unless the Council is receiving money from those that benefit by closing the apartments. (at the same time the same council is giving out licenses for apartments on the other side of the street since they are in a different district. The claims of the Barcelona City Council are clearly untrue so there must be reasons behind the scenes as to why they lie and present false information to the citizens (it is kept secret that they are issuing licenses in other areas of the city or that the Catalan Government is issuing apartment licenses in other towns without any problem or guilt for hipocrasy/lies). Many people think that the reason is the payment of cash to the Political parties or some other favours. Note that the Consorci wrote the Tourism Development plan for the city council, with Joan Gaspart of Hotusa Hotels as its President; so the tight ties between the Mayor Jordi Hereu and the hotel owners is very clear to see, and that there is no input to the development process of the city from the citizens, which is illegal according to the European Charter of Citizen Rights which was signed by the Council in 2002.

The City Council has apparently found it difficult to legally close many of the tourist apartments. As a result it then got the Government of Catalunya (based 80 metres from the city council HQ) to introduce a new law for controlling homes ......which appears to many people to be a corrupt law controlled again by the hotel sector and propery/construction sectors (in exchange for anything ?!). It says that tourist apartments must close but it takes no action to close apartments used as brothels, dentists offices, travel agents, press offices etc etc (and that is the tradition in Barcelona; shops are also used as dwellings (iilegally, no habitacion license is possible for a shop) and no-one says or does anything). In any case the new law is clear in that it only applies when there are no apartments available and at the moment the market is swamped with an excess of apartments for sale or to rent.

The law is very careful to take no action against the second homes of the politicians or other well off people !. That action would release thousands and thousands of homes on to the market !! (Spain has one of the highest levels in Europe of second homes per family).

There are thousands and thousands of second homes. If the politicians really wanted to make homes available (as their new law states) then they should take action against second homes. But the second homes are not a problem for the hotel sector and hence they have not asked for them to be closed.
One man who has benefited a large amount from the council closing many tourist apartments (perhaps 1000) and stopping the opening of any new ones is Joan Alonso Castro, who owns the Hesperia Hotel chain and also 30% of NH Hotels, in total he owns approx. 20,000 hotel rooms. If he makes 10€/day profit per hotel room then that is 200k€/day profit. If he has a SICAV investment fund then it appears that he pays only 1% tax (this is a scheme to try to get rich people to stay in Spain and not leave because of tax. Apparently 500k people (or 50k ?) have these funds in Spain. In London there is a similar scheme I think). So if he can increase his income by just a few % then it is many thousands of euros per day. For a person who owns 20k hotel rooms there is a strong profit motive to try to get politicians to introduce laws or take action that benefit you. The Ordenanza of the City Council against tourist apartments and then the Catalan Government law to close only tourist apartments are very beneficial for Snr Joan Antonio Castro and other Hotel owners.

It appears that the centre of Barcelona is probably the only part of Spain (Europe ?) that prohibits apartments in private buildings being used for tourists. For the rest of Spain there is no law that controls this subject.

Have their been any benefits going back in the direction of the political parties ?

Who knows and difficult to prove.
The new law about 'the right to a dwelling' seems to be a blatantly false or corrupt law since it talks about the important need to build apartments for people to live in and that that aim is paramount above other needs or aims; and then allows for residential buildings to be replaced by hotels for tourists !! (And note that the City Council and Government of Catalunya and of Spain then spend hundreds of millions of public money to attraction foreign tourists for those hotels !). The City Council now does not allow for hotels to replace apartment buildings but it has issued licenses for 25 hotels, many of them in such situations, and the council and the City Mayor seem perfectly happy to do it !! Many people would say that it looks like intentional and planned co-operation between the politicians and the hotel builders. There is clear co-operation between the City Council and the hotel builder in the case of the Palau de la Musica being processed now by the legal system and the police. The newspaper El Periodico said that the license for the hotel by the Palau de la Musica obtained its license 1 week before the new regulation which would have prohibited it in a building that had been dwellings in the past. A coincidence or an organised co-ordinated effort with the hotel developer and the city Council working together to get past the new regulation ?

The legal case may tell us more at some time in the future. The subject of the hotel is being included in the investigations; specifically request sent to the investigating judge by an Association of Citizens in that area and agreed. The chance of any politician ever being found guilty is almost nill though, since the politicians seem to control everything including a lot of power over the legal system and of course all of the Catalan police who are under their control. Comparing with the Gurtel fraud case in Valencia, the legal system has found the President of Valencia innocent of accepting 'presents' from business owners he repeatedly gave contracts to. But because the Spanish court is one level higher the case is being re-opened and the President will probably be found guilty. (one of the judges in Valencia that voted to file/end the case will probably also be punished since as a close friend of the President being tried he is not legal allowed to be involved or vote on the case). Catalunya is in a similar situation regards Spain but in this case the political party for Spain is the same as for Catalunya and it needs the votes of the Catalan socialist politicians to maintain its small hold on power ....so it may not be very keen that the system takes as strong action or investigation in any cases involving socialist politicians in Barcelona or Catalunya; have to wait to see what happens. (the most famous investigating judge in Spain, a Snr Garzon is also apparently a strong socialist; but in any case he seems to be exceptionally highly regarded, except by those that he has to process !)

The action of the city council of Jordi Hereu to just close tourist apartments in the city centre is a bit like banning the use of BMW cars on certain roads because some BMW cars have been caught breaking the speed limit; and that the real people behind the prohibition are in fact the competitor, Mercedes !

Hotels only pay 7% VAT !

Billions is spent on public works to benefit the hotel sector, all the airports are paid for with public money, subsidies are given to companies like Ryanair to bring tourists, the Barcelona Conference Centres are paid for with mostly public money, train system is paid for with public money, advertising campaigns abroad paid for with public money and yet when the tourists get to Spain they only pay 7% VAT ! so there appears to be very little pay back towards the vast expense of public money to get the tourists to the hotel. So the main beneficiaries of the spending of billions of public money appear to just be the few families that own the big hotel chains, like the Gaspart family for Hotusa hotels, Castro for Hesperia Hotels and 30% of NH Hotels.....and Sol Melia hotels probably has some large family investors of its founders (based in Catalan speaking Majorca).
In Barcelona in 2009 the number of tourists has increased by 5% !! (it is very busy) while in the rest of Spain it has fallen due to the global economic crisis. The council has apparently spent 30M€ on advertising abroad. The hotel owners must be very pleased with the council !!
The 7% VAT level is probably the lowest VAT level in Europe for a hotel. In many countries the VAT would be between 20% and 30% and with a city tax of perhaps 2 or 3% for popular tourist cities. A 3% hotel tax was discussed 2 or 3 years ago but did not happen. With so much fraud and corruption being revealed in the press every day in Spain and city or town mayors going to prison while an investigation is done....many people ask themselves if there are any favours or payments being made to avoid a city hotel tax being introduced.

The illegal funding of political parties in Spain has a long history

The illegal funding of political parties in Spain has a long history and by now the parties are skillful in avoiding any evidence that could convict them, but many politicians in Spain are still proven guilty of corruption (normally local politicians in return for favours for building licenses, hotel licenses (yes !), but often many months of careful secret police monitoring is required to try to obtain evidence. So there is probably a lot more corruption taking place but which can not be proved beyond reasonable doubt in a court.

In the case Balena Blanco in Marbella hotels were involved, being used as holes to lose the money from any illegal/corrupt activity. (if you receive say 1M € from a dodgy deal then you cant pay it in to your own bank account or it acts as proof against you and the bank may report it directly to the police, but if you manage to buy a % of a hotel , perhaps in the name of a company to avoid using your own name directly, then if you pay in cash then you have off-loaded the money and much harder to find the details if there is an investigation). Hotels have also been involved in a large number of cases of fraud in Spain involving councils.
The press and TV from other countries have highlighted the fraud in Spain, such as The Times, The Telegraph.
The largest fine imposed by The European Union was imposed on Spain. For the case of subsidies for thousands of hectares of olive fields which did not in fact even exist ! (but all the paperwork had been signed by the Spanish Authorities as correct. (one assumes that it was local councils that approved and stamped the subsidy applications)

The director (Agusti Colomines) of the political Foundation Trias Fargas that received >= 630k € threatens to reveal what he knows.

The political Foundation Trias Fargas appears to be controlled by the political party Convergencia Demcratica de Catalunya (leader is Artur Mas); this party is united with another party to stand in elections etc as CIU, Convergencia y Unio (Unio being the other part of the union) with Artur Mas as the leader of CIU). It is the party with the most politicians in the Parlament of Catalunya but it is not the Government of Catalunya since 3 parties form a coalition which is bigger.
On 16th Oct 2009 the director Agusti Colomines hints of irregularities of payments to other political parties not just to the Foundation Trias Fargas and threatens to reveal details.

In an interview on COM radio director (Agusti Colomines) of the political Foundation Trias Fargas is reported as having said that "If they are pressuring one then in the end one says " if they pressure me , then we will explain everything, we will extend in a general way the suspicion of everything and we will put the system in crisis and that is Italy"" (apprimately a literal translation, to avoid changing what he is quoted as having said). And mentioned that tired of the country (Catalunya). Giving the impression that he knows of generalised corruption or dubious or immoral payments and/or favours for friends.

Agusti Colomines also spoke about acts organised by the Barcelona Centre for International Studies (Cidob) (President Narcis Serra) are financed by the Caixa de Catalunya (a bank/building society). Looks like Narcis Serra is also President of that bank/building society and was Vice President of the Government. The name Narcis Serra pops up in many other organisations or actitivies. The name Narcis Serra rings a bell with some other property activity done in unison with the socialist Barcelona City Council (city mayor Señor Jordi Hereu). Either the Molina theatre and/or the large club/brothel on Avenue Parallel and/or the disused church at Plaza dels Angels (changes are planned for it, to be demolished and then new buildings ?).

In Barcelona one gets the impression that the people in power in Barcelona and Catalunya are busy carving up the cake to suit themselves and taking no notice at all of the citizens. If a new party comes into power .....many think that nothing much changes....only that different people are cutting up the cake !!

The Government of Catalunya announces Campaign for 100B€ of Infrastructure work.

The Government of Catalunya has just announced the signing of an agreement to campaign for 100B€ in infrastructure work in Catalunya. An agreement between the politicians (except the opposition parties) and the business community. This in the middle of the economic crisis with people looking for food in the supermarket throw out bins and other social effects; and the Government seems only interested in getting big contracts for the construction sector. OK, as a consequence there will be work and monthly wage packets.....but the impression is that the Government is interested in needs of the owners of the construction companies and little else. In the past years of this left wing/socialist Government the main interest has also been to spend money on building new conference Centres, High Speed train lines, Metro lines to conference centres, buying plane operating company etc. All appears very capitalist and for the benefit of the hotel and tourist sector business owners and with no interest in benefitting the people who continue to suffer abusive labour laws like repeated temporary contracts and low wages and low or no social protection. (Officially after 2 years of unemployment it appears that most people have no right to any money at all from the system, not for food, nor for accomodation). And the theoretically 'socialist' Government of Catalunya and of the Barcelona City Council have shown no interest in making any changes to that status. (the Spanish Government is trying to make changes and has in reality increased the payments and protection for the unemployed and to pensioners but they have an uphill struggle since the business owners do not want to pay more tax to help the unemployed or pensioners).

Ministry of Economía takes control of insurer/property company Agrupació Mútua to make it sound.

El Periodico reports on 17th October 2009 that the Ministry of Economy has taken control of the Insurance and Property Company Agrupació Mútua which had the same President as the Palau de la Musica, Snr Millet. The articles says that the Ministry of Economy mentions irregularities in the control of the company. The auditor BDO advised of a debt of 60 millones de euros because of property investments made by the subsidiary Amci Habitat (of which Snr Millet was I think also a director or the President), and AM owns 69,74% of it. (looks like AH was probably investing in property when the property bubble was close to its peak and hence probably the value of the assetts are lower now that what they paid so it is harder for them to pay the interest payments on the loans and difficult to sell property in the current bad market). It is of course possible that there were incorrect dealings my Snr Millet in the operation of AM and/or Amci Habitat; have to wait for the investigations to be done.

But the general picture is clear; that the depth and size of the corruption and/or dubious deals gets bigger and bigger as the investigating is done. The people involved and the political parties close to it will probably do their best to cover it up as best they can and minimize any effect on them; and the system is likely to continue into the future without change. But what Catalunya probably needs is to take advantage of this public and daily revealing of these frauds and the old-boy system to introduce new laws and new procedures and inspections to prevent future repeats of the never ending cases of fraud in Spain and Catalunya over the past decades.

Foundations

Foundations and the honesty of their operation is being cast into doubt by the revelations from the investigation of the fraud of the Foundation Palau de la Musica and the words from the President of the political foundation Trias Fargas ( "general suspicion" "like Italy" ie. corrupt and throwing doubt on the operation of a socialist Foundation). Perhaps there will be more interesting revelations about Foundations as the investigations and court case progress.

Interesting to note that it seems sometimes that all the key political people have their own Foundation !! . The ex-President of Spain Snr Aznar, the Ex-President of Catalunya Joan Maragall (a powerful name in Catalunya with power in the past I think), the friend of the City Mayor Jordi Hereu the Snr Narcis Serra...they all have at least one Foundation !!
And Foundations receive public money. Some times awarded by their companions who are still in office. All very cosy. Numerous allegations of payments being used by Political Parties for political purposes, which would appear to be illegal use of public money....so there may be more to come with this subject (ie. legal cases).

Politicians do nothing for Years about Street Thefts

Been in the press and media for years. The Barcelona City Council Mayor Snr Jordi Hereu should accept a lot of the blame for the failure of the Catalan system to do anything about the crime problem since he was the security responsible of the council for the years before becoming the Mayor. So he has had the power for a number of years now. And the socialists have been in power at City , Regional and National level now for approx. 5-6 years, so they have had time to take action. Instead of doing anything Snr Hereu seems to concentrate on giving welcoming speeches to Conferences and making sure that his photo appears in the newspapers every day.
The City Mayor Jordi Hereu is returning from a visit to Fez in Marrueco to apparently export the knowledge and expertise of the City Council. (there have been similar trips to other cities).
One asks oneself if the skills of Barcelona should be exported !!; recent examples include national and international press and media coverage of video of blowjobs in public space only 50m from the main tourist street of Barcelona, capital of Europe for street thefts and admitted that the legal system for thefts completely does not work, city council goes against the citizen protests in the Les Corts area development, city council goes against local opposition and 3500 signatures in demolishing protected building to build a hotel. The City Mayor Jordi Hereu should be hiding in shame, not making false claims in the press of trying to expert City Council expertise !!. Typical of the lies from the Barcelona City Council.

The newspaper El Periodico on 24th October reports the chief public prosecutor revealing amazing crime statistics and admitting that the legal system for dealing with street thefts is.. well... a joke !.

Top street thieves of Barcelona for 2009
Patryk Romanowicz. Polish. Detained 93 times, 66 times in 2009 till end Oct.
Daniel Torrens. Spanish. Detained 80 times. 59 times in 2009 till end Oct.
José Gutierrz. Spanish. Detained 64 times. 58 times in 2009 till end Oct.
Nicolae Andrei. Romanian. Detained 69 times. 43 times in 2009 till end Oct.
Mohamed Darraoui. Iraqui. Detained 54 times. 38 times in 2009 till end Oct.
Karim Bini. Iraqui. Detained 43 times. 29 times in 2009 till end Oct
Gabriel Ordan. Rumanian. Detained 78 times. 26 times in 2009 till end Oct

The list goes on, with the remaining countries being especially Marruecos and Argelia, and also Ecuador and Lebonan.
Barcelona has many people from Argelia and Marruecos that are illegal, with no papers to work and no family in Barcelona to support them, so some of them steal to survive.

One point to note from the comments made by the Chief Crown Prosecutor of Catalunya Teresa Compte (reported by El Periodoco on 24th Oct 2009) is that the court prosecution process does not work since the tourists do not come back from abroad to attend the court hearing and so the case is closed. And that if a fine is actually imposed (since can not impose prison) the thief then goes out to steal to pay the fine !. If the judge could see that the person had 4 cases in a year then a prison sentence could be imposed but there is no quick working system that tells the judge how many past cases the person has. It is all a farse. And every year it has been the same and no action from the people in power that makes any change. Some people think that the politicians , lead by the city Mayor Jordi Hereu are too busy taking advantage of their power and enjoying spending the public money on cars, dinners and special events (like the 500.000 Euros for the annual event for politicians and friends at the start of the Barcelona city festival) and the sky high crime numers stay....sky high !!...with global press and TV coverage of the street thefts in Barcelona.

L'Amettla des Valles. Possible Corruption

Papers found at the Palau de la Musica seem to show that the ex- Vice President, Jordi Montull, shared out, or planned to, commissions/bribes/payments of 550.000 Euros to the Mayor of L'Amettla, the political party Convergencia i Union and other people. One name is of Snr Carlso Diaz, the partner of Snr Tusquets in architect firm, the architect of the Hotel project opposite the Palau. The name of Tusquets pops up frequently in City Council projects so it appears that he is on good terms with the leaders of the Council such as Jordi Hereu, noting it was the Government of the Barcelona City Council under the mayor of Jordi Hereu that agreed to the hotel project (and demolition of a protected building) in the face of 3500 signatures against it !.
It will be interesting to see if the police investigation lays any charges against the City Mayor or the city council, although if there is anything illegal then it will probably be a lower level person that takes the blame and the powerful people of the city council (same party as the main party of the coalition Government of Catalunya, who issues the laws of Catalunya !) will work hard if needed to make sure that they take no blame. The people in power are normally careful not to sign anything they should not ! and not to stick their own neck out, even if in reality they may be the person making the decisions.

The Corruption and Actions against Local People by Hotel Owners is Global, not just in Barcelona.

Hotel owners of course want to build new hotels in the best locations, right beside beautiful beaches, in scenic spots with great views, in unspoilt natural spots, in locations good to build a golf course. There are many examples in Spain and the world where the hotel chain owners have been able to build where it is prohibited by the use of bribes and/or favours with local politicians. The hotel at Cabo de Gato has been built too close to the beach and Greenpeace has mounted a major compaign to get it demolished. The Government of Spain has said that it agrees with Greenpeace but no action has been taken and a common Spanish technique may be used. that technique is to wait some years, everyone will get bored of the subject and take no interest and then quietly the hotel will be allowed to open some rooms, perhaps for free for poor families, perhaps with a party for local people !.....and then bit by bit it will be used as a normal hotel !! Viva España !!

(to overcome the massive opposition to the Forum conference centre the City Mayor Joan Clos mounted a big public street party with musicians from Brasil, with 200.000 people. the tradition seems to go back to Roman times, of festivals or parties to stop the citizens from complaining). The Forum cost billions and the people that make profit from it are the owners of the new hotels built next to it (one has to ask if those hotels made any payments to political parties).

Hotels often give little benefit to Local People

The City Mayor Jordi Hereu often replies to public complaints about tourists that the tourists generate a lot of wealth and the citizens benefit. This appears to be an intentional lie, in return for payments or favours to the political parties; or because the families of the politicians have businesses in the tourist sector. A study has been published by the big charity Oxfam that shows that hotels give little benefit to local people.
In Barcelona many of the workers for the tourist sector are not local people but are people from Ecuador, Bulgaria, Argentina etc because these people are willing to work for less money than the local people. The public administration has even done the job of finding the workers abroad for the hotels and processing the work permissions so saving the the hotels the cost of doing it ! And these foreign workers are willing to work the unsociable hours required for many tourist sector jobs.
The tourist sector also often gives temporary contracts so the workers receive little job security and less benefits if they lose the job. And can not obtain a mortgage to buy a home using a temporary contract. Many hotel workers receive such low wages that they qualify for Government money to help them rent somewhere to live and other benefits. So the workers are in fact an additional cost to the Government rather than generating wealth.
In Barcelona you can see many people looking in bins for anything of value; this is proof that the massive tourist industry is not creating benefit or wealth for the local people.
The prices in the central area of the city have also increased because of the large number of tourists, such as 4.5 Euros for a 330ml beer in Rambla Raval, prices that local people can not afford. The business class are of course exstatic, the beer costs them approx. 0.5 Euros so they are making a massive % profit. And the political parties and their Foundations receive donations/cash from the business sector so the political parties are also happy. But the citizens, no. It is a clear simple example that the idea of democracy and the European Laws for Human Rights are being trampled underfoot by the City Council of Jordi Hereu in Barcelona.

There are so many tourists in Barcelona that the council has announced plans to charge for entry to one of the popular parks of the city, Parc Guell, since it can not cope with the number of visitors, 4 Million /year. The citizens have replied angrily that they will not accept to pay to get into public parks. It looks like an intentional ploy of Jordi Hereu to defend against any criticism that there are too many tourists in Parc Guell, 'we can solve by charging entry fee', 'if you do not accept our idea of an entry fee to the park then the problem of too many tourists is not out fault'. While the reality is that the flooding of the city with too many tourists against the wishes of the citizens is the result of years of the policy of the City Council (which is controlled by the business class) and the spending of millions of Euros by the City Council on events for tourists and on advertising campaigns abroad to attract tourists.

Hotels Often have Little or No Involvement with the Local People

The hotels often use foreign workers to build them (proof, the 10 floor hotel Barcelo in Rambla Raval used black workers to do all the low skill work) and many hotels use foreign workers to clean the rooms, do the cooking etc and charge prices above what local people can pay (Hotel Barceló or Hotel Camper or Hotel 1998, all new hotels within last 5 years). So the hotel is like an island in the zone where it is, foreign guests, foreign workers....almost no VAT paid (only 7 %) and little tax, Sol Melia Hotels paid 2% tax in 2008 and 6% in 2007. And there are high costs to the sistem for police/security staff to protect the tourists on the metro and in the streets since Barcelona has many crime problems. And millions of Euros paid to museums to make sure that they provide interesting attractions for the tourists (while most of the citizens on a work day are either at work or at school), and that the museums stay open all day with no lunch break (while everything else closes) and till 24:00 on Thursday night. And millions paid for with publc money on big attractions for the tourists that can be advertised abroad using public money !! to attract tourists, like the Redbull Acrobatic Planes, start of Paris Dakar rally, a stage of Tour de France, subsidies to Sonar music Festival, Primavera Music festival, Global Sports Forum Conference, Fashion Parades, Running Events that attract foreign visitors (that repeatedly close/block up the city roads).
Some conferences are run at facilities built using public money (eg. Forum Conf. Centre, 2 billion Euros, biggest hall in Europe with no columns/supports) and the Conference Hall is provided for free !! (proof, details from the investigation of the assasination of the Director of the centre). So the hotels and hotel owners benefit greatly but the 'pubic sistem' gets no pay back on its investment of billions in building the conference centre. To many people it looks like intentional fraud. Some people may ask if any payment is made by the hotel owners as a thank to any political parties or to any Foundation operated by a political party. The facts of the Palau de la Musica legal case would seem to inferr that it probably takes place.

it is worth noting that many politicians have stepped down between 2006-2009 from their jobs as the responsible for the Tourism Department in different parts of Spain as they have been charged with fraud. Normally it is for taking payments from companies that get contracts for the Tourism Department. If this happened in Barcelona then the amount of money could be massive since the Tourism Depart of the City Council spends so much money (public money).

Corruption Cases in Spain

Here are the names of some corruption cases in Spain involving politicians.
"Malaya", hundreds of millions of Euros, Marbella area, links to Madrid.
"Ballena Blanca" (white whale), Marbella I think. Note that the investigating judge in operation Malaya was arrested and found guilty of taking money (80k Euros) from the people he was investigating ! , so that he would hide or overlook certain facts.
"Hacienda" case in Barcelona, being around since 1990 !!
Corrupt judge in Barcelona, offerred to guilty people that he would give them a soft penalty if they paid him (via a middleman).
3% to the CIU party from public contracts, many rumours and been discussed in the Catalan Parlament but no charges made.
CIU Party. 4 payments of 60k Euros to a Foundation of the CIU political party from companies that received contracts for metro work from CIU at the same time. ERC Letters to department bosses in the Administration of Catalunya Government demanding that a % of their monthly salary be paid to the political party ERC that politically controlled that department.
Licenses in Barcelona, at least 1 council worker now in prison (the council I think campaigned for the case to be dropped). Police bosses working with brothel owners to sidestep police raids, owners are apparently based in Barcelona.
Police steal drugs. Big cocaine haul in Barcelona docks and millions of Euros of the drugs were there stolen with the co-operation of some of the police drugs squad. Quite common in Spain that some of the drugs found are then stolen from the police evidence store !.
Police at one Spanish airport illegally charged Chinese tourists 50 Euros as part of the entry process.
The "Gürtel" case involving the Partido Popular, with cut backs from public contracts in Madrid, Galicia, Castilla y Leon and Valencia. Many important politicians have stepped down including the treasurer of the Partido Popular !, the Secretary General in Valencia, the Tourism boss in Madrid Regional Government....etc.
Andratx case in Majorca. Illegal developments, with payments to town and regional politicians to obtain building licenses.
Palma Arena Case in Majorca. Construction Budget was 50M Euros but cost 100M Euros and believed that the President at the time took some of it. Legal process is underway. (the arena also does not meet the cycling body specification so can not be used for official competitions !. 100M for a cycling race arena on an island with a low population and low number of users for such an arena) He gave up his political job after poor results in last election. The next new leader of that political party has now been charged with property development fraud !! Amazing !

Fraud of the Council of St.Coloma de Gramanet (near Barcelona)
Arrests made on 28th October under the instructions of the judge Baltasar Garzon National Court in Spain including of the town/city Mayor, some building company bosses and other. For the days afterwards the Catalan politicians are repeatedly saying "presumption of innocence. On 31st Oct. it is announced that 5 of the 8 people arrested are being kept in prison and the current view on the value of the corruption is 40M€ !!

Note that the President Snr Montilla of the PSC party has called on the people of Catalunya to have confidence and trust in the politicians and public institutions of Catalunya; but at same time the Vice President was the person that appointed his brother to be the ambassador for Catalunya in Paris, with no experience for the job and without any interviews !! The political class are blatent liars and the journalists and citizens all know it, but there is nothing they can do, if they vote for a new party then the new party will do exactly the same and no party introduces new laws to stop the 'old-boys' and favours and corruption system and bring real democracy to Catalunya.
Another example, the week after the news of multi-repeat thieves in Barcelona the 'minister' in the Catalan Government Snr Saura (has own police force and is responsible for security of the citizens) is on the TV and saying how good a job the police and the justice system is doing ! It is all a farce. No one believes or listens. (his wife is the boss of the ICV party in the ruling coalition in the Barcelona City Council, all in the family in Catalunya !)

The list goes on and on. And it seems that no changes are made to the processes to try to stop these things happening in the future.

Further Information.

1) www.elpais.com (newspaper) or .es (seem to have inside contacts in the Gürtel corruption case and excellent info on the Palau de la Musica case)

2) www.telecinco.es (the main non-state TV channel and keen in showing stories/news items which reveal injustices for the 'citizens')

3) Jueces para Democracia. (an organisation which I think campaigns for a better and more just Spain and an end to the old system of fraud and contracts for friends)

4) Barcelona Business (a paper about business in Barcelona and highlights the links between politicians and business people and corruption), if still being published, in Wareham Dorset, UK !!) The main newspapers could also highlight these links and any dodgy deals but choose not to, since they are the friends of the politicians and rich people.

5) www.elperiodico.com (the most read daily newspaper in Catalunya; but some people think it is controlled by the ruling parties in Barcelona and Catalunya by them spending a fortune each year at the newspaper with advertising, special pages etc. There has been much criticism of the amount spent on 'advertising' and self promotion by the 3 party coalition Government of Catalunya and the 2 party Government of the Barcelona City Council. But if the ruling parties change after the next elections then most people think that the spending on self promotion of the new Government will continue in exactly the same way; even though the new party has repeatedly criticised the spending of the current Government. Hypocrisy from politicians is very common in Spain and goes almost unnoticed, people are so used to it and do not trust the politicians (so many are arrested for corruption or fraud) !.