June Meeting

We started today’s meeting by mentioning the new ‘senior’s amusement and exercise park’ at the Parque Comercial which has become a surprise hit. Angel also mentioned the new electric displays which list concerts and exhibitions. One at the Parque Comercial and the other – to be moved from the Plaza Nueva in the Pueblo and placed at the Fuente by the Centro de Usos Multiples (the Centro de Artesanía as it used to be called).
Owners of the inert cranes which dot our landscape are being traced and warned that they must have an official inspection on their cranes every six months and must hold insurance. The police are taking photos and fines as necessary. A list of all cranes in Mojácar will be available in two weeks time. Those cranes that can be ordered removed will be taken down at the owners’ cost.
The large and unfinished block of apartments at the beginning of C/ Vistamar is under an inquiry and some of the apartments may be demolished before the building can get a licence. The road surface of C/ Hilguero will be repaired in the next few days. The wild boar which have come down the mountain and are to be seen in the C/ Rumanía and surrounds will be ‘controlled’ by the Guardia Civil.
Our party puts residents first: that is, residence in front of tourism, said Angel Medina in his speech. Our goals are simple enough: Cleaning up, repairing and beautifying our municipality; keeping us safe (security cameras are going to be installed in the Pueblo soon); to open a new and more complete medical centre near the Petrol Station; to improve local public transport (and to inaugurate a regular bus service to/from the airport); to make Mojácar a good and comfortable place to live; to build a residence for the elderly (a site has been set aside for this) and to pedestrianise the Pueblo.
We need to think long-term and we will continue to hold regular meetings (unlike the other parties), said Angel.
It is not easy to be a junior partner in the government but, with more representation, we would have more ‘say’ over our town’s course. As the only party which represents the ‘European’ residents, we would hope for a higher turnout in the next elections from this group (only 13% of Mojácar’s ‘European’ Residents voted in 2005). To vote, you need to be on the padrón and to have asked for the right to vote, filling out a simple form. A copy of this can be downloaded here.
Angel explained the Coalition's reasoning behind the project to build a small underground car-park up near the church in the Pueblo – to be used solely by local pueblo residents to, in turn, encourage people to live – or to continue to live – in the village. This would improve the area, allowing the Plaza’s Arbollón and Frontón to return a ‘Moorish’ appearance; would finally bring back the Arco de Luciana (callously demolished several legislations ago); would reduce traffic there (currently around 350 cars per day pass the church); while the cost (paid out of ‘protected funds’) would be returned by local vehicle owners buying an eighty-year lease. Well, we'll see.
The meeting was covered by Jacqui from the Costa de Almería News – see next Friday’s edition.
Please feel free to write to us with ideas, comments and suggestions for next year’s program – Our mail address is:
ciudadanoseuropeosdemojacar (at) hotmail.com

Early Summer Meeting

There will be a meeting of Ciudadanos Europeos de Mojácar at the Hotel Continental on Saturday June 19th at 11.00am. The meeting will be chaired by Councillor Angel Medina and Lenox Napier.
Angel has placed two cultural information panels in Mojácar - in the Plaza Nueva and the Parque Comercial, and has ordered 'quitamiedos' metal barriers for the roads and streets of the Paratá which should be erected in late June. He will present a study of the builders' cranes (a request from an earlier meeting) and will order the removal of those which are not in use. He has ordered the removal of the large billboard outside the Mojácar pueblo square. He has other plans and accomplishments to relate and will, as always, be taking questions and suggestions.
All are welcome to attend.

Don't be Fooled

Mojácar is always different from anywhere else when it comes to politics. In the last elections, we had fourteen parties, one of which, Mojácar 2000, didn't end up competing. All this for about 3000 voters. Of the thirteen parties that did present candidatures, several of them were unable to obtain a seat in the council. You need in our town (an estimate) around 130 votes for one council seat. You may remember the potty bloke in a suit who lurked outside the post office, or the drunken barman who ran a 'far left' party...? These 'lost votes' essentially went to the most voted party.
In Spain, and let's contrast the British or American system, we have proportional representation. In other words, you vote for a list. There are usually - let's say - three parties to choose from: PP, PSOE and a third independent or smaller group (like Ciudadanos Europeos). This means that both your candidate and their candidate are going to get in and the question is more to do with the following names on the various lists. This is why the local parties like to put someone popular... or foreign... way down a list. They are there as cannon fodder - nothing more. They won't get into the town hall, but they will attempt to raise the attraction of the party proposal.
In our town, there are two or three powerful families who spend a lot on these local elections. They see this no doubt as an investment. They are, of course, in the minority and they are also in disaccord amongst themselves. However, since the 'Europeans' won't vote (just 13% did last time) and since they will be distracted by various 'no-hope' parties or having Mr Smith or Mr Jones as Nº 11 on some party list, the European vote, which could actually be a control on our town hall, is wasted.
So, how much choice will there be for the voters next time? We are already hearing of two new parties...
The next elections are just a year away.

Meeting: 30th January

The meeting of Ciudadanos Europeos de Mojácar was held at the Hotel Continental yesterday.
The meeting was opened by Carlos Blanco and Lenox Napier was the first speaker. Lenox reminded those present to get onto the padrón and the voting register. The message, he said, really goes to those Mojácar residents not present today, as there are a large number of people living here who are not registered. The government will be making registration compulsory later this year.
Lenox explained the lack of ‘ideologies from the thirteen local parties in the last elections’, pointing out that there were, for example, three different PP parties, with the PP, the PAL (whose leader, the mayor of El Ejido, remains in gaol after three months) and the GIAL. He remembered the Mojacar Nuevo party, whose leader managed to divide the foreign vote without achieving anything of much use, and has since disappeared. He also broached the subject of a new political lobby which wants all the foreigners to vote for the same group (possibly a group which their Spanish champion used to represent) and whose principal ‘idea’ is to promote tourism. Lenox argued that ‘residential tourism’ (as it’s called for some reason) needs to be the key investment here as Benidorm is an example of a well-served tourist destination and Mojácar clearly is not. ‘We settlers’, he argued, ‘put money into the community all year round, and spend a lot on a house, a car and so on – incomparably more than a tourist’. Lenox discussed the function of a mayor – to represent and speak for his/her community, which, he said, the mayoress of Mojácar has failed to do, noting her behaviour during the Mojácar fire last summer (a bit like George Bush and Katrina).
Angel Medina, the councillor for tourism and culture, after a brief introduction in English, switched to Spanish. He was translated by Virginia Heyman.
Angel said that Ciudadanos Europeos de Mojácar was the only local party that had meetings with the public during the four-year legislation and that the other parties only tuned in to the community just before elections. He said that this year’s budget was 8 million, down from last year’s 12 million which was, in turn, down from the year before’s 20 million euros. Of this, between wages and basic running costs, and assuming a 100% collection on local taxes (!) there would be around one million euros only this year for road repairs, culture, tourism and so on. Angel said that this year, he had spent 6,500 euros at the Fitur tourist fair in Madrid to promote Mojácar, against the 80,000 euros spent by the previous tourist councillor at Fitur two years before. Angel’s talk was about the small local things that the party, with only one councillor, was able to do. Helping the British library, supporting several local British clubs, including the British Legion, the Dames in Spain, the Club de Toros de Mojácar and the Anglican Church etc. Cleaning and repaving streets, organising concerts and exhibitions, installing three electric information panels in Spanish and English (at the pueblo, the fuente and the Parque Comercial), and so on.
Angel has been working on a regular bus route from Almería airport to Mojácar, and a new multi-use public energy-efficient building with a conference room, an artists’ residence, an archaeological studio, offices for cultural uses etc to be built at the medical centre on the beach. A new medical centre will be built near the petrol station. A bus station would also be built there.
To illustrate the weakness of one councillor in a government, he told the Spanish joke of a councillor from Cuenca caught and fined in Madrid for speeding. The man from Cuenca tells the policeman ‘I’m a councillor from Cuenca’ and the policeman replies ‘here in Madrid, a councillor from Cuenca ain’t worth a shit’. The man sadly answers ‘he ain’t worth a shit in Cuenca either’.
But with two or three councillors…
The panel took questions on various topics.
Albert Schröter (a councillor in the town hall) and Bill Campbell (spokesperson for La Paratá urbanisation) were in the audience of around eighty people.
Our thanks to Alan Sykes for providing the microphones and sound equipment and to Gaspár from the Hotel Continental.

Meeting in January

Don't lose hope! We shall be announcing a meeting of Ciudadanos Europeos de Mojácar shortly and we shall of course send out details to all those on our mailing list. Our meetings are a chance to get to know more about the workings of the Mojácar town hall, about specific and timely concerns and projects... and the chance to ask questions.
Mojácar needs to be fully integrated as a town, and must have the support and respect of the different 'colectivos' living here to succeed.
In the coming months you will see the first stirrings of bonhomerie coming from our political friends. What can they possibly be after?

For local politics and commentary, read The Entertainer Online.

The Meeting has now been booked for The Hotel Continental, Mojácar Playa on Saturday 30th January at 11.00am. All welcome!

The European Elections

As you may know, Ciudadanos Europeos de Mojácar has decided not to present a candidature for the European Elections (despite an enthusiastic suggestion to the contrary the other evening in the Masko). Since several members have asked us to suggest an alternative in these important elections, and as the only two parties mooted by the Spanish television and newspapers, the PP and the PSOE, the PSOE and the PP have both shown that they will NOT stand up against urban corruption (see the Auken Report, where the two main Spanish parties were adamantly against resolving the problems of ‘illegal homes’, ‘illegal urbanisations’, “endemic’ town hall corruption’ and the ‘land grab’ – the leader of the Spanish PP in Europe actually begging the Conservatives not to support the Auken Report as ‘it diminished Spain’), we have decided to support another group.
By one of those coincidences in life, the Liberals in Europe have started a party in Spain, the CDL or Centro Democrático Liberal, which has as its head-of-list a Northern European with an Irish passport and a Spanish residence card (well, actually, a passport and A4 residence certificate), called Sean O’Curneen. Sean has an Irish father and a Spanish mother and was bought up in Madrid. His wife is English and his children, he says, are European. He now works as Secretary General of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe in the EU Committee of the Regions in Brussels.
Sean is familiar with the problems of Northern Europeans resident in Spain, and has pledged to help us from Brussels. See his webpage here (click at the top right for 'International Version').
On Sunday June 7th, those of you who can vote may wish to consider Sean O’Curneen Cañas and the CDL.
Ming has spoken.

The British Consulate To Visit Mojácar

The British Consulate in Malaga and the UK Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) are holding an open event for British residents in Mojácar on Tuesday 26th May, presenting advice services on some of the issues that matter most to residents, beginning at 10.00am.
The Department for Work and Pensions will provide essential information on UK pensions, benefits and healthcare entitlements in Spain and the services that their team can offer.
Angel Medina, Deputy Mayor of Mojácar will make an introduction.
The British Vice-Consul will open the session and explain the role of the Consulate, and the services it offers.

Mojácar - 26 May - Centro de Usos Mútiples (Artesan Centre) - La Fuente

There will be presentations covering a wide range of issues including Consular services and pension, benefit and healthcare rights of UK citizens living in Spain.
There will also be an opportunity for members of the audience to put general questions to the panel and to sign-up for the one-on-one sessions that will take place immediately afterwards.
The presentation in Mojácar will also feature a presentation by Donna Wilson, from the Royal British Legion.

You can book a place by completing a registration form below. Please note that bookings are limited to two tickets per person. If you are having problems using the online booking form, please call 91 524 9729 to reserve your place.

To book your places: here

www.ukinspain.fco.gov.uk