Show Us Your Face

I say burka, you say burqa. Burka, burqa, let’s take the whole thing off.

If you happen to be a Muslim woman and happen to habitually wear a burka (or burqa), then you might be well advised to give Sa Pobla a wide berth. Little Sa Pobla, a town fast seeking for itself the title of Mallorca’s most publicity-attracting municipality, is to ban the burka. Good for Sa Pobla. Not because it’s necessarily a good idea, but because it’s a means of deflecting attention from the town’s parlous financial state.

Banning the burka, however, could help to swell the town hall’s coffers. A 50 euros fine here, 200 euros fine there, three grand for a serial burka offender. “Alhamdulillah”; Sa Pobla is suddenly rich again.

Sa Pobla has a relatively high Muslim population. Most are from Morocco, some 2,000 people out of a total of around 13,000 inhabitants. According to one blog, other Muslims are from countries such as Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia, and the women can typically be seen, clad in the burka or niqab, at the gates of schools waiting for their children. I’ll take its word for it.

The town is to become the first in the Balearics to say no to the burka. It follows where towns and cities on the peninsula have led, especially in Catalonia (and the blog I refer to is a Catalan one). The Catalans have bigged up a burka ban. The town of Lleida was the first and then Barcelona said show us your face.

There is no ban as such on the burka in Spain. The national Senate voted in favour of a ban last year, only for the Congress to not vote in favour. The issue is meant to be up for debate, but seems to have been lost along with a general law on rellgious freedoms. Nevertheless, ban or no ban, the Islamic Human Rights Commission has complained that the Spanish Government permits local councils to regulate as they see fit.

When I first heard about Sa Pobla’s ban, my reaction was “how can they?”. I am not against them banning the burka – it is an absurdity; obscenity even – but on what basis can local authorities take such a measure? An order of good government, citizenship and co-existence would seem to allow them to do so. However, this is an issue on which the state should be arbitrating and legislating, not a small town in Mallorca.

The state should be legislating because ad-hoc bans are questionable in terms of the constitution, which explicitly makes provisions for religious freedoms and for safeguarding (for all people in Spain) their traditions, cultures and human rights.

It is this constitutional aspect that ties up with mooted reforms of laws on religious freedoms. The key word in all of this is “co-existence”, one seemingly invoked in the local law in Sa Pobla, and “harmonious co-existence” in particular. This, and its definition in law and under the constitution, is a potential minefield. What exactly would represent the parameters of “harmonious co-existence”?

For the mayor of Sa Pobla, it is pretty clear what it means. The town should not be subject to “elements which … distort the co-existence”. Moreover, there should be integration based on the “values of our society, which is Mallorcan”. It is the very mention of “Mallorcan”, however, that shows how complicated the debate is and therefore how complicated any legal or constitutional amendment would be.

Are law and the constitution meant to reflect the traditions of every individual part of Spain when it comes to co-existence and religious freedoms? Because this is what the mayor seems to be suggesting. In Andalusia, there are values, as there are in Galicia and in Catalonia.

And to raise the “values” word is a minefield of its own. What are the values of Mallorcan society in any event? Or indeed of Spanish society?

The values, for which read also traditions, will mean that in Sa Pobla a blanket ban on the face being covered will not be totally blanket. A son of Michael Jackson would probably be included, and the wearing of balaclavas will certainly be included, but exceptions will be made for the pointy-head hoodies of Easter processions, for demons and beasties and for the “big heads” of fiesta times.

The difference is that the burka is not something worn for a specific celebration. Its wearing is absurd. Sa Pobla is not wrong to seek its banning, but it is wrong in that it should be the state which is deciding and in that it, as with other local councils, should not be allowed to play fast and loose with the constitution.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Right People, Right Jobs: Tourism ministers

Some heavyweight names have been calling on the Spanish Government to establish a separate tourism ministry and minister, which would mean it taking a U-turn and admitting that a realignment of ministerial posts effected in July was a mistake.

These names include Mallorcan hotel and tourism companies, the former tourism secretary-of-state Joan Mesquida and the president of the Balearics Francesc Antich.

The Mallorcan companies (Globalia, Riu and Sol Melià) made their call during a high-level pow-wow with President Zapatero and his cabinet, designed to bring the great and good of the business world to the talking table and find solutions to Spain’s economic mess. Mesquida made his call some days before, and Antich added weight to the companies’ demand, reinforcing the view of all parties that, as tourism amounts to such a significant part of GDP (12%), a minister is needed.

The decision in July to in effect downgrade tourism by getting rid of the position of secretary-of-state and merging it with the portfolio for national commerce seemed at the time somewhat perverse, but it was all part of a governmental drive to cut costs. It was one that was mirrored in the Balearics where, in a similar cost-saving drive, the tourism ministry was merged with employment.

At national level, tourism has been and is a part of a super ministry that includes also industry and commerce. The position of secretary-of-state for tourism only, scrapped in July, was only some two years old. It was one formed, as one commentator has put it, in the “days of wine and roses”, alongside other new ministerial appointments. Its being dispensed with was far from the tourism snub that it was portrayed and is still being portrayed.

Nevertheless, given that tourism amounts to a sizable chunk of national GDP (and you can always find figures which suggest it is not as high), it might seem sensible to have a dedicated secretary-of-state, especially as tourism is an industry that, one might hope, would be central to economic recovery and also as Spain’s tourism faces the kinds of competitive threats that it does. Sensible. But would it be necessary? Mesquida is still part of the same super ministry, and the very fact that tourism is singled out as one element of the ministerial triad along with industry and commerce gives it the kudos it deserves.

The discussion as to the importance of the post has tended to overlook what has happened since Mesquida was made its first appointee. And to overlook Mesquida’s credentials for the post. Prior to it he was the director-general for the Guardia Civil and then the newly combined National Police and Guardia. Before this he was the Balearics’ treasury minister.

In his time as secretary-of-state, he oversaw the so-called “Q” quality campaign for restaurants and other establishments, one that cost half a million euros and one that has subsequently been allowed to fade away. He also oversaw the launch of the worldwide and bizarrely sloganed “I Need Spain” campaign earlier this year, at the same time defending his government’s decision to impose an increase in IVA on tourist business (his previous treasury experience coming to the fore no doubt).

His appointment in 2008 was loudly praised in Mallorca. As you might expect for someone who is a native of Felanitx. Antich said at the time that here was someone who knew well the needs of the Balearics and who would make the execution of certain projects, notably the regeneration of Playa de Palma, that much easier. So what happened with this, then?

If you track back further to Mesquida’s time at the treasury, it was he, together with the then tourism minister Celestí Alomar, who came up with the ill-fated eco-tax. Alomar bore the brunt of the tourism industry’s opprobrium, but the tax was, after all, a fiscal measure.

Mesquida was unlucky in that his appointment coincided with the crisis, but the point is that having the right person in the job, however it is titled and whatever portfolios it combines, matters as much as the position in the governmental hierarchy. And this brings us to what has occurred in the Balearics.

For President Antich to be pressing for a national tourism minister seems a bit rich when it was he who merged the local tourism minister’s responsibilities with employment. The economic importance of tourism is far greater in the Balearics (80% of GDP is what is normally quoted). And just as important is having the right minister. So what has happened? Under separate Antich administrations, there have been Alomar, vilified by the very industry he was supposed to represent, and since 2007 a series of Unió Mallorquina politicians who became tourism minister thanks to the UM having been divvied up responsibility for tourism under the spoils of coalition.

One after the other they came and went – Buils for exceeding his powers, Nadal and Flaquer for being implicated in scandal. And then came the short-lived Ferrer, appointed partly because it was Buggins’s turn and partly because he was the mayor of a town with a high level of tourism. One also, Alcúdia, that has been ravaged by all-inclusives, over which he as mayor and as tourism minister had not the slightest power to prevent.

What matters is the right person for the job and that politicians “get it” where tourism is concerned. With this in mind, let’s leave the last words to that gift which keeps on giving, the Partido Popular’s José Ramón Bauzá. The Balearics face tourism attack from, he says, Turkey, eastern Europe and … and the Baltics. The Baltics? Maybe he has indeed been influenced by his mate Delgado in Calvia. The stag and hen-do tourism of Tallinn is doing damage to that of Magalluf. Can’t think what else he can be talking about.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Men From The Ministry: Downgrading Spanish tourism

In an attempt to reduce costs, the Spanish Government has been cutting back on posts and ministries. In what might seem like a bizarre, almost perverse move, the tourism secretary of state has been, in effect, demoted, and the ministry itself merged.

There is particular anger at the move in Mallorca, whence came the secretary of state, Joan Mesquida. But setting aside any possible feelings of a Mallorcan politician having been slighted, the greater upset is reserved for the fact that tourism as a whole appears to have been downgraded in terms of importance. Now is not the time to be … you can fill in the rest, it all has to do with crisis, recession and competition from other destinations.

While the move does seem strange, to Mallorcan hoteliers and politicians, is it really that important? The percentage of GDP created by tourism in Spain as a whole amounts to around 5%, not that much higher than in the UK. Is there a tourism minister at cabinet in the British Government? Take a look at the list of cabinet members and their jobs, and nowhere does the word tourism appear. I may be wrong but I don’t think tourism has ever commanded a cabinet post, per se, in Britain.

Spain is different though. Take away a tourism secretary of state, and it’s as if national pride and the national psyche have been attacked; it was tourism, as much as anything else, that was the foundation of contemporary Spain and of the economic boom that propelled the country from its position as a basket case. Moreover, Spain is reckoned to have the second largest tourism economy in the world. It is a not insignificant industry.

Though the GDP percentage may appear relatively low in national terms, at local levels it is far, far higher. Some latitude may be applied as to how the figures are arrived at, but in Mallorca, tourism is said to amount to 80% of the island’s GDP, almost certainly an exaggeration, but maybe not when one takes into consideration related industries.

One of the arguments in favour of maintaining the more elevated role of tourism is that in competing countries tourism is at the very heart of government. Yet these competing countries have far greater levels of centralised government, Egypt for example. Spain was once highly centralised, and tourism was once the flagship industry, but no longer; the country is highly decentralised. It is decentralised not just in terms of regional government but also in terms of its tourism diversity. Selling “Spain” is as outmoded as Franco’s state-directed system of government. Do tourists treat Spain and Mallorca as being synonymous? I would very much doubt it. The regional governments, such as that in the Balearics, have their own tourism marketing and their own tourism ministries. The ministry in the Balearics may have become a laughing-stock, but the strategic significance of tourism is reflected in the importance attached to the ministry (one that I have argued should in fact have greater importance attached to it).

One suspects that anger in Mallorca is an expression of anxiety as to possible cuts in funding for tourism from Madrid. Given that the local tourism ministry has found innumerable ways to fritter away public money, not all of them legal (allegedly), one might have sympathy were the Zapatero administration to wish Mallorca a plague on its various tourism houses (and institutes and foundations).

Mallorca is in competition with other destinations, and included among the competition are other parts of Spain, the Canaries and the Costas. The island’s politicians want Madrid to be its benefactor and seemingly its tourism “leader” as part of a greater Spanish tourism industry, while at the same time doing whatever they can to nick tourists from other parts of the country. It doesn’t quite add up. The regional government has its own structure, its own tourism industry, its own ministry, its own ability to determine industries (well, one) of strategic importance; it should get on with what it’s meant to be doing and not fret about musical chairs in Madrid. They can’t have everything. Why should there be a tourism secretary of state? There isn’t one for construction or one for making donkeys with sombreros on their ears. They should just get over it.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Lie Back And Think Of … : Ban on sex advertising

So, the Spanish Government is planning to ban the advertising of sex for sale from newspapers. The government is almost certainly right to wish to do so, even if this sounds rather puritanical, a streak I am rarely inclined to display.

There is something of the bizarre about the pages of classifieds for call girls, “massage” and a smattering of rent boys that are to be found in mostly all newspapers locally. The two Spanish dailies in Mallorca have them, as do the nationals, including “El País”, which “The Guardian” points out is of a similar left-leaning nature to itself and thus, you would think, in the PC category, and also “ABC”, a paper with more than a hint of religious righteousness.

The government, though, is going to cause itself some problems. The newspaper proprietors are unlikely to take a ban lying down, either on their backs or in any other position you may care to imagine. “El País”, for example, is a natural ally of the Zapatero government, which can do with all the support it can muster at the moment. There is also a view that banning such advertising would be a curb on free speech, which may be a legitimate argument were it not for the censorious nature of the media when it comes to anything to do with the royal family; overstep the mark and it will land a journalist, or a cartoonist, in the dock before a beak. If the press was wishing to seek a free-speech battleground, this might well be it, and not sleazy ads for well-endowed females.

The sheer volume of these ads can be overwhelming. How much sex can actually be sold? Not enough where the papers are concerned, which already derive significant revenues from the advertising. The papers are also at pains to point out that if the government wants to stop the ads, it should make prostitution illegal. But this argument begins to move into rather murkier territory. Were it the case that the ads were just being placed by some local slapper, then there wouldn’t necessarily be much harm in it. However, though a punter calling an ad might indeed end up with the woman of his dreams as opposed to one who might once have appealed to Wayne Rooney, or worse still, looks like Rooney, between that punter and the bed sheets is usually a third-party; pimps of frequently overseas origin – Russian, Nigerian, South American. The anti-ad lobby argues that the ads represent a form of “slavery” for women caught up in the “industry” (and it might add, presumably, some men as well).

The government’s move to initiate a ban comes against a background of what seems like a growing willingness on the behalf of the police to move against some so-called “relax” or “alternative” clubs; prostitution may not be illegal, but exploitation and trafficking are. And there is a further dimension to this – the potential link to organised crime.

In one respect, the adverts reflect a rather reassuringly un-PC element in local society, but it is what lies behind the ads that the government (and police) are right to take an interest in. The papers may not like a ban, but they are probably going to have to learn to live without the income that prostitute advertising brings them.

* I acknowledge the source of some of the above from “The Guardian” – http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/16/spain-sex-adverts-newspapers

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Will The Circle Be Unbroken? – Unemployment in the Balearics

The psychological barrier has been breached, but the regional government would like to suggest that it has not been. The national statistics office would beg to differ. According to it, unemployment in the Balearics has not only crossed the 100,000 Rubicon, it has embarked on the invasion and is scaling the ramparts. Ok, this is an over-statement; it’s not as if a point of no return has been arrived at, but it sure as hell must feel like it to those in the dole queues. The statistics office maintains that the number out of work stands at 112,000, one in ten – approximately – of the islands’ population. Or to put it another way, at just under 20%, one in five of the registered working population, and that figure doesn’t take account of the self-employed who are also feeling the pinch.

The government reckons that unemployment has peaked. It may have, for the time being, though an improvement in figures is unlikely to show up for some while, until seasonal employment kicks in. Even that, however, disguises the true picture, and that is the lack of employment opportunities which summer work only helps to obscure. Recession has exacerbated the situation, clearly it has, but it has also exposed the fault lines of the local economy – ones that should have been obvious to anyone, even politicians, seduced by the boom times but apparently incapable of counteracting seasonality.

The national government, meanwhile, is flailing around, desperate to find any measure that might reduce its massive budget deficit and to assure the markets that the Spanish economy is not the same basket case as Greece’s; oh how the temporarily mighty have fallen. One ploy is to raise the pension age to 67. Fine, assuming there’s any work for the 65 year-olds to continue with. Another is to increase indirect taxation. For an island – Mallorca – and a nation for which tax avoidance is a past-time, this is insane. It might, questionably, mollify the markets, but it will do nothing for employment creation.

Mr. Bean is cutting an ever more awkward figure. When elected for his second term in 2008, Sr. Zapatero had promised full employment. There wasn’t a hope in hell’s chance of that, especially not as the crisis began to consume everything in its path. And even were there “full employment”, what would it look like? A few months work as a waiter and then back to the off-season dole queues, paid for by the burdensome levels of social security that are a brake on much employment creation. Were there to be an election now, chances are that the PSOE would be obliterated, bringing into office – by default – the singularly uninspiring figure of the PP’s climate-change-denying Mariano Rajoy. You might remember him; he’s the one with a relative who holds a position in a university who doesn’t reckon much to the climate-change argument, and so Mariano used that as the basis for his own argument. That’s about as good as it gets.

But also meanwhile, Sr. Zapatero can at least walk the European stage during Spain’s EU presidency term. The central government’s science and innovation minister has announced, as part of the programme for the presidency, that research and development and innovation should be at the heart of European recovery. Good for her. Ah yes, innovation, technology, research and development. Now, wasn’t there something about all that two or three years back? Not from Madrid, but from the regional government. Whatever happened, do you suppose? Could it be that funding just had to be diverted to bolstering the rust-bowl industries – construction and hotels during time of crisis? Industries that are at the heart of Mallorca’s seasonality. And so it goes around, and around, and around, the circle remaining unbroken.

Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.

Matters Of Life And Death

The anti-abortion rally that took place in Madrid on Saturday attracted, depending on whose figures you believe, anything between a quarter of a million and a million and a half demonstrators. The rally, as much as it was a pro-life proclamation, was also a direct attack against the liberal social policies of the Zapatero government. Since taking office, Sr. Zapatero’s socialist administration has sought to slacken the shackles of conservative Catholicism by, for example, legalising gay marriage and now seeking to introduce abortion on demand and, moreover, abortion for 16 and 17-year old girls without their having to gain parental consent. Until now, abortion has been sanctioned only in extenuating circumstances, but it has also not been unknown, under these circumstances, for termination to be performed as late as eight months. The most usual justification has been the psychological or physical risk to the mother. The government wishes to see abortion on demand up to 14 weeks and no later than 22 weeks in certain instances.

 

As ever, this is a tough issue. The conservatism of the Catholic right makes it an even tougher one in Spain. The Zapatero government has sought to take on this conservatism – it is, perhaps, the single most important socio-political question that the country faces. Yet the power of the church has waned. Less than 20 per cent of the population now attends church on a regular basis. There are those who will quite openly denounce the obstructiveness of the church, while there are also those with memories of the church’s role in the Franco era. 

 

Nevertheless, abortion is a subject that goes beyond either religion or politics. It is, or should be, a moral issue, divorced from religious doctrine or political dogma. Personally, I struggle with it. Like, I would imagine, most people, I abhor the notion of abortion, but the moral argument goes further than the rights of the unborn child. Also like many people, I have had experience of abortion, if not directly but through the experiences of friends, such as one who terminated her pregnancy because the baby would have been born with Down’s Syndrome. I also know people with Down’s children, but was she wrong to have terminated? I don’t believe she was. And one edges into the quality-of-life question. It is tough, and no-one can say that it isn’t.

 

If abortion is a morally tough call, there is less agonising when it comes to assisted suicide. Or, put it this way, I do not have a moral struggle with it. This is also something that the Spanish are toying with. But it has been nuanced as a political issue, quite inappropriately in my opinion. In September last year, the health minister stated that a decision to opt for assisted suicide was in line with socialist ideology. The argument is laughable. The avoidance of “unnecessary suffering”, the more humane justification that the ministry has proposed, is the key and not dogma.

 

I know someone who has a highly aggressive form of multiple sclerosis**. I will not name her, but there are many in Alcúdia and around who will know who she is. The disease has progressed rapidly; total incapacity and loss of control of functions are inevitable. There is no cure of course. Let me stress that I am not for one moment suggesting that assisted suicide is a solution that has been mentioned in her case. But it should surely be an option were she, or anyone else with such an awful condition to consider it, just as Debbie Purdy – also an MS sufferer – has fought for it to be in the UK. Any change to Spanish law to permit assisted suicide has yet to be agreed, but it is on the table. They should do it. 

 

Inevitably, as with abortion, the assisted suicide argument runs up against the same opposition – that of the Catholic right. However much one may find repugnant or support abortion and assisted suicide, the decisions do ultimately reside with secular politicians. And it is this that traditional Catholic conservatism cannot accept. Politicians may make the winning of the arguments more difficult by styling them in terms of a particular political philosophy, but it is they who are the moral arbiters and not the church. Both issues will continue to arouse the passions of the traditionalists but, rather like Margaret Thatcher embarked on a change in British culture through her confrontations with the unions, so Zapatero has made this traditionalism his battlefield in advancing the cause of a socially liberal Spain and neutering the conservatism that historically has been the state’s undoing. But there’s a difference: cultural change in Spain is a matter of life and death.

 

No-one said this was easy.

 

** Multiple sclerosis is relatively uncommon in Mallorca, which may support a view that lower doses of sunlight can be influential in its development. In the case above, the person concerned is not originally from Mallorca and also has a condition against prolonged exposure to sun.

Leader Of The Pack

And continuing what is likely to be theme of the month, the hotels and others have called upon President Antich to form an alliance with the heads of other regional governments across Spain, for which tourism is a vital part of their economies, in leading a lobby to get the central government to back track on the planned rise in IVA. In the report from the “Diario”, the head of the hoteliers’ federation in Mallorca is quoted as arguing that the IVA rise will be a worse move than the so-called eco-tax of some years ago, which was aborted almost as soon as it was introduced. 

 

The strength of the opposition should not be underestimated and the argument against a rise is valid. However, it is also a case of special pleading. What about everyone else who is set to be affected by a two per cent rise on the top rate? Take away the one per cent for the tourism sector, and what might happen? Three per cent on the top rate? 

 

The central government has to find money from somewhere. The alternative of course is cut public spending, but how? New funding is already in place for, for example, that investment finance for the hotels and additional assistance for those in need over the winter. A constant in the economic development of Spain during the boom years has been the role of public spending, especially for construction and civil engineering projects, and therefore for the construction industry, an industry neutered by the current lack of private finance from the banks. Without public spending in some parts of Spain, Mallorca for example, the economy would all but grind to a halt, save for tourism being bashed about by recession and now a possible tax increase. 

 

The crisis, more than anything, has emphasised the underlying weakness of the Mallorcan economy and the short-sightedness of a model based on two key industries without a diversity to act as a safety net. There is an inevitability that taxes will need to rise, despite my assertion that a lowering might actually lead to increased revenues, and if not in the tourism sector then in the wider economy, resulting in shackles placed on consumer spending and thus a further limit to the capacity to come out of recession. In economics, recessions are often referred to with the aid of letters – a U is a fall, bumping along the bottom for a while and then coming up, a V is a sharp fall and then a sharp rise. Then there is a third – a W, two V’s in other words. And that may indeed be the consequence of tax rises, a short-term recovery followed by another slump as consumers put their wallets away.

 

 

To other things, well, one other thing – the weather. The fortnight of storms that seemingly brought summer crashing to an end gave way, bang on 1 October, to a return to sun. It is extraordinary the number of times changes to the weather do seem to coincide with the first day of a new month. And the late summer weather has been remarkable. A temperature of 32 degrees has been registered in Sa Pobla, the weather station commonly used as the benchmark in the north, and meaning around 29 on the coast. Next week is forecast to see a drop to more normal temperatures of 22 to 23, and after that … ? Hold on to your hats when November arrives.

One More Time

Following on from yesterday … . The central government’s tourism ministry reckons that an increase in IVA (VAT) of one per cent (to 8%) for certain tourism-related activities (accommodation, transport and bars/restaurants) will have no effect on the number of tourists. It also reckons, as noted in “The Diario”, that the average price of a hotel stay (one night presumably) will rise by a mere 50 centimos as a consequence. The secretary of state for tourism believes that the fact that the rise will not be implemented until 1 July next year (as would be the case for all categories of IVA, including the general rate) will act as an incentive for bookings prior to this date. While true, it’s also a tad disingenuous, a case of looking for a benefit from something essentially negative. The government is possibly on firmer ground when it points out that the hotel sector has been the beneficiary of a vast amount of investment finance, though to what extent this is actually being exploited one doesn’t really know. 

 

The date for the rise in IVA is probably not coincidental. It will kick in at the start of the third financial quarter in Spain – IVA inputs and outputs are calculated each quarter and payments or credits issued accordingly. The third quarter covers, of course, the peak months of July and August. 

 

The wider point, though, is the drip-drip effect of a tax rise. With complaints about prices having been given a good old airing everywhere this summer, you can bet your life that once it becomes known that there is to be an increase, the forums and all the rest will be full of even more damning Mallorca’s so expensive propaganda. One per cent, in the scheme of things, does not amount to much, but it does add to a cumulative perceptual impression of price rises. The tourism ministry, not least the local one in Mallorca, should be paying heed to those complaints. Indeed, the president of the regional government has expressed his concern about the planned rise. 

 

The response by the central government to the criticisms of the tax rise from the boss of Thomas Cook suggests, at least in part, that it has been stung into making a statement, with its tourism ministry, headed by Joan Mesquida, himself a former director general of the Guardia Civil and National Police (interesting career progression, but there you go), to the fore in issuing this response. The suggestion that he, Mesquida, was actually seeking to keep the 7% rate – one that came from the Spanish tourism promotion organisation, Turespaña – has been rebutted. The party line, so to speak, is being held. But it speaks volumes that the intervention by the head of the second largest tour operator should provoke a response. The true power in the tourism market resides with the tour operators. The tourism ministry, as the frontline contact with the tour operators, should be seeking to distance itself from the argument and looking to keep the operators sweet, but of course it can’t and is so backed into a corner, even if officials might actually agree with Thomas Cook. It will be interesting to hear what TUI, as the leading operator, might have to say about all this.