January

Spain officially enters recession after a fall in the GDP for two consecutive quarters

January was the month when Barajas Airport was closed by bad weather for the first time in its history, when heavy snowfall on the 9th of the month brought traffic chaos and long delays to the Spanish capital. The airport was closed for more than 5 hours by the snow falling in central and north eastern Spain, with hundreds of passengers having to spend the night in Barajas and thousands affected by the long delays. The Civil Guard had to be brought in to persuade passengers on three grounded aircraft to disembark when they refused to leave the planes.

Low temperatures gave way to high winds in much of the country on 24th January, killing four children in Barcelona when the roof of a sports centre was torn off by the wind, bringing down the building’s walls and trapping 13 people beneath the rubble. The bad weather killed another six people in Spain that week, and in Alicante province, 14,000 people were evacuated when the strong winds fanned the flames of a wildfire broke out in La Nucia. It destroyed 1,000 hectares.

An extraordinary meeting of Congress approved deploying 395 Spanish military to the EU naval mission against piracy in Somali waters. The first Spanish contingent left for the area on 22nd January on board the frigate ‘Victoria.

ETA claimed responsibility this month for the shooting of a Basque businessman, Ignacio Uria, in Azpeitia, Guipúzcoa, on 3rd December. The terrorist organisation celebrated 50 years of existence in January 2009.

An investigation was launched into the disappearance of 17 year old Marta del Castillo, who was last seen when she left her home in the city to visit friends on 24th January. The teenager has yet to be found, but five people face charges for her killing and disappearance. One is Marta’s self-confessed murderer, her ex boyfriend, Miguel Carcaño, the only one of the suspects who currently remains in prison on remand.

Wednesday, 28th January, and Spain officially enters recession, with a fall in the GDP for two consecutive quarters of 2008. The Bank of Spain gave the quarter on quarter rate as a drop of 1.1% in Spain’s economy. The inter-annual rate saw a reduction of 0.8% between September and December 2008.

February

Miguel Carcaño confesses to the murder of Marta del Castillo and Penélope Cruz gets an Oscar for Vicky Cristina Barcelona

February was the month when the Gürtel case broke, when National Court judge Baltasar Garzón ordered the arrest of five suspects in a corruption scandal allegedly linked to the Partido Popular. The case is investigating backhanders allegedly paid to PP administrations in Valencia and Madrid by a network led by the businessman, Francisco Correa, and eventually led to the resignation of the party’s No. 2 in Valencia, Ricardo Costa, and of the PP Senator, Luis Bárcenas, as the party’s treasurer.

The Supreme Court moved this month to ban two Basque nationalist parties, Askatasuna and D3M, from fielding candidates in the Basque Country’s regional elections, just weeks ahead of the poll due on 1st March, over links to the ETA terrorist organisation. A car bomb attack near the offices of the Ferrovial company in Madrid the following morning was believed to have been ETA’s response to that decision. No-one was injured in the blast.

As the investigation continued into the disappearance of 17 year old Marta del Castillo from Sevilla, her ex boyfriend, Miguel Carcaño, was arrested and confessed under police questioning to her murder. He told detectives he had dumped her body in the Guadalquivir River, but Marta’s remains have yet to be found.

The actress Penélope Cruz started off the month with a Goya award, the Spanish equivalent of the Oscars, as Best Supporting Actress for her role in ‘Vicky Cristina Barcelona’. She went on to receive an Oscar for the same role later in the month.

A scandal erupted over the news that Mariano Fernández Bermejo, the then-Justice Minister, had been on a hunting trip at which the National Court judge, Baltasar Garzón, was one of the other guests, just shortly after Garzón had started his investigation in the Gürtel case into corruption allegations linked to the Partido Popular. Bermejo resigned from the job on 23rd February and was succeeded by Francisco Caamaño.

March

Political change in the Basque Country and Spain announces withdrawal from Kosovo

Regional elections were held in Galicia and the Basque Country on 1st March, bringing a change to government in both regions. Power returned to the Partido Popular in Galicia, which recovered the majority it had lost four years previously, and Alberto Feijóo became the new President of the Region.

In the Basque Country, the result gave a victory to the governing PNV Basque Nationalists, but a pact agreed between the two main opposition parties, the Socialists and the Partido Popular, brought historic change to the region with its first non-Nationalist President in the region’s 30 years of democracy: the Socialist, Patxi López.

A genetically selected baby saved the life of his sick brother with stem cells from his umbilical cord blood, the first such procedure to be performed in Spain. It meant the elder brother could now overcome his severe congenital anaemia and live a normal life.

On 19th March, the Defence Minister, Carme Chacón, makes her first and what would be her only visit to Spanish troops serving in Kosovo, announcing that their mission there was completed and that Spain would be withdrawing from the region. The announcement was criticised by NATO and the United States, who considered Spain had made a unilateral decision. Spain’s last troops would return home later in the year.

As the month drew to a close, the Bank of Spain announced that it was to intervene in the Caja Castilla-La Mancha to save the savings bank from bankruptcy. It was the first large intervention by the central bank since it took over management of Banesto in 1993.

April

Five Ministers lose their jobs in a Cabinet reshuffle announced by the Prime Minister

Spain’s Prime Minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, had his first meeting with the U.S. President, Barack Obama, on April 5th, in the first formal meeting with U.S. and Spanish leaders since Spain withdrew from Iraq in 2004 and an end to five years of frosty relations between the two governments. The two met in Prague at the end of the U.S./European Summit.

That same day, there was leaked news in the press of a Cabinet reshuffle, with the news confirmed by the Prime Minister two days later. Five Ministers lost their jobs and five new faces joined the Cabinet. The changes were: Elena Salgado moving over from Public Administration to replace Pedro Solbes at Economy; Magdalena Álvarez out in Development, where she was replaced by José Blanco; Mercedes Cabrera out and Ángel Gabilondo in at Education; Ángeles González-Sinde replacing César Antonio Molina as Minister for Culture; and Bernat Soria gone from Health, to be replaced by Trinidad Jiménez. Another big change was the creation of a new Ministry for Territorial Policy, headed by Manuel Chaves, who left the government in Junta de Andalucía after almost 19 years as the region’s president. He also became central government’s third Deputy Prime Minister. Elena Salgado, the new Economy Minister, became Zapatero’s second Deputy.

On 12th April, the Day of the Basque Fatherland, ETA issue their first statement since the 1st March election which saw the PNV Basque Nationalists ousted from power. The statement published in the Basque newspaper ‘Gara’ makes a direct threat against the region’s new government as a ‘priority objective’ for the terrorist organisation. A number of ETA arrests take place that same day.

On the 22nd of the month, José Antonio Griñán becomes the fourth regional president of Andalucía, as successor to Manuel Chaves, now in Madrid as third Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Territorial Policy.

Nicolas Sarkozy arrived in Spain on 27th April on his first state visit to the country.

May

The National Court hands down its first ever sentence on a Spanish Army General in the Yak-42 case

On 5th May, Patxi López is invested as the first ever Socialist president of the Basque Country and the region’s only non-Nationalist president in its 30 years of democracy. The PNV now pass over to the opposition, and their leader, López’s predecessor as Lehendakari, announces that same evening that he is leaving politics.

The Prime Minister announces in the State of the Nation debate in Congress on 12th May, a series of economic measures to boost the economy. One of the measures approved is the Plan 2000E, with 2,000 € of direct aid to people who buy a new car.

On Tuesday, 12th April, the singer, Antonio Vega, died in a Madrid hospital after a long illness from lung cancer. He was seen by many as the inventor of Spanish pop music.

The Yak-42 case finally came to a close this month, when, on 19th May, the National Court found an Army general guilty of falsifying official documents in identifying 30 of the 62 soldiers who died six years earlier when a military transport plane carrying Spanish troops returning from Afghanistan crashed in Turkey. The three year sentence handed down to General Vicente Navarro was the first ever sentence imposed on a Spanish Army general in the history of the National Court. He was responsible for drawing up the list of the 62 dead, and was ordered to pay 10,000 € compensation to the families of each of the soldiers who were wrongly identified. Two Army medics who worked with the General on the identifications each got 18 months in prison.

The Partido Popular President of the Valencia region, Francisco Camps, appeared in court on 20th May to answer questions in the Gürtel corruption case investigating allegations of backhanders received by high-ranking members of the PP administrations in Madrid and Valencia in exchange for public contracts. Camps was accused of receiving gifts of suits worth more than 12,000 €. The Valencia High Court also called in as suspects the PP’s then-General Secretary in Valencia, Ricardo Costa, the regional government’s former Vice-President, Víctor Campos, and Rafael Betoret, from the Diputación provincial government of Valencia.

The month closed with questions on the Civil War grave in Granada province where the remains of Spain’s much-loved poet, Federico García Lorca, are believed to lie. The decision on ordering the exhumation of Spain’s mass graves had been passed on to the local courts in Spain, but a judge in Granada considered that the decision was not hers to make and asked the Supreme Court to decide who should have responsibility.

June

A fatal ETA car bomb attack and Spain’s first death from the H1N1 virus

Elections to the European Parliament were held across Europe in early June 2009, with the result making the Partido Popular the largest Spanish grouping in the EU’s parliament. They won 23 seats over the Socialists’ 21.

The Catalan basketball player, Pau Gasol, became the first Spanish champion of the NBA, when his team, the Los Angeles Lakers, beat the Orlando Magic 99-86 in the fifth game of the championship final. Gasol had 14 points in the game and 15 rebounds.

The new terminal officially opened at Barcelona’s El Prat Airport on 16th June, and saw its first flight the following morning. With capacity for 30 million passengers a year, it’s the biggest infrastructure built in Cataluña for two decades.

Exactly twenty two years after ETA’s worst ever terrorist attack – 21 killed and 45 injured after a bomb went off in an Hipercor store in Barcelona on 19th June 1987 – the terrorist organisation killed a National Police Chief Inspector with a limpet bomb planted beneath his car parked in Arrigoiaga, Vizcaya. Eduardo Puelles García from Barakaldo was 49 years old and had been in the National Police since 1982. He had been promoted to Chief Police Inspector in 2002. It was ETA’s first fatal terrorist attack since Patxi López was invested as the Basque Country’s first Socialist and first non-Nationalist Lehendakari on 5th May.

There was Cabinet approval on 26th June for a new fund, the Banking Ordered Restructuring Fund, known as FROB, for a 9 billion € bank rescue fund to reinforce solvency and facilitate mergers, with a view to improving efficiency and guaranteeing future viability. Economy Minister, Elena Salgado, said when announcing the new fund that none of the Spanish banks were experiencing any problems, but said there could be problems for some in the coming months.

The last day of June saw the first death in Spain from the Swine Flu virus, Dalilah Mimuni, a 20 year old woman from Morocco who died in the Gregorio Marañón Hospital in Madrid. Her baby boy, Rayan, was born at seven months old by emergency Caesarean section just hours before his mother’s death. Dalilah’s death on 30th June 2009 was the fourth from the H1N1 virus in Europe.

July

ETA kill two Civil Guard and the Foreign Minister makes history when he visits Gibraltar

With thermometers in southern Spain reaching up to 40 degrees at the start of the month and much of the eastern part of the country on alert for high temperatures, the Basque capital, Vitoria, was hit by a freak hailstorm accompanied by a sudden 20 degree drop in temperature. Hundreds of vehicles were damaged, with flooding in the streets as traffic came to a standstill.

Spain’s first test tube baby celebrated her 25th birthday this month. Victoria Ana Sánchez was born on 12th June 1984 and was given her second Christian name in honour of one of the doctors who made her birth possible, biologist Anna Veiga.

La Opinión de Málaga published this month the official count of buildings built illegally in Marbella – just over 38,000. Almost 24,500 of the illegal buildings are homes.

Official figures from the Health Ministry showed there to be 1,034 confirmed cases of the H1N1 cases in Spain as of Friday 10th July and two fatalities. The baby born by emergency Caesarean as Spain’s first victim lay dying at the end of June died in hospital from a ‘dreadful medical error’ on 13th June at the Gregorio Marañón in Madrid. A nurse with little experience in the neonatal ICU mistakenly administered baby formula into a vein instead of through a tube to baby Rayan’s stomach.

21st July 2009 was greeted as a historic day across the Spanish media when the Foreign Minister,
Miguel Ángel Moratinos with Peter Caruana on Gibraltar – Público TV

Miguel Ángel Moratinos, became the first Spanish Minister to set foot on Gibraltar in more than three centuries. It came as part of the three-way talks between Spain, Britain and Gibraltar, but with last minute doubts on whether it would go ahead following a row over territorial waters and an EU environmental zone created in the area.

Alberto Contador, the cyclist from Pinto, in Madrid, won his second Tour de France on 26th July, although may have been a bit taken aback when the race authorities marked his win by mistakenly playing the Danish national anthem initially when he crossed the finishing line.

The Partido Popular Senator, Luis Bárcenas, resigned as the party’s National Treasurer on 28th July over his implication in the Gürtel corruption affair. He announced it as a temporary move until his innocence could be proved before the courts.

On 22nd July, sentencing was announced in the case of the British couple on trial for the death of a young moped rider in Alfaz del Pi, Alicante province, in March 2008, who was dragged beneath their car for 2 kms. The court considered that David Walter Cook continued driving knowing that 17 year old José Antonio Caro Buendía was trapped beneath the vehicle, then drove off after managing to free the body, and sentenced him to 13 years in prison. His partner, Angela Green, received 18 months for failing to help the teenager.

Two separate wildfires in the Mojácar area, in the Sierra Cabrera, Almería province, this month destroyed 7,000 hectares of land, forcing hundreds from their homes as fire fighters fought to bring the blaze under control. Wildfires affecting Spain in July claimed the lives of 9 people.

The last days of July saw bomb attacks by the ETA terrorist organisation: more than 60 injured when a car bomb exploded outside the Civil Guard barracks in Burgos early on the 28th, followed the next day by the death of two Civil Guard officers on Mallorca. There was no warning call made on either occasion. Mallorca went into security lockdown after the blast which killed Diego Salvà Lezaún and Carlos Sáenz de Tejada just a few metres from the main barracks in Palma.

August

Corruption, floods and forest fire, and Spain’s first face transplant operation

As the Gürtel corruption investigation continued in the courts on three fronts – by the High Courts in Valencia and Madrid and by the Supreme Court – the Valencia Court ruled on 3rd August to archive its investigation into the Partido Popular Regional President of Valencia, Francisco Camps. The ruling considered that the corrupt network had indeed paid for gifts of suits for members of the PP, but saw the gifts as having no connection to their positions and contracts awarded to the company Orange Market. It deemed there to be no crime therefore in accepting them.

A new corruption case broke in Spain in August, connected to the Palma Arena Velodrome on Mallorca and the money spent on building the complex. Five people were arrested on 5th August, including the Partido Popular spokesman at Palma City Hall, Rafael Durán, and the 1996 Olympic sailing champion, Pepote Ballester. The case summary released later in the month revealed alleged irregular funding of the Partido Popular to be under investigation in the case. The assets of the former PP Regional President of Baleares, Jaume Matas, are being scrutinised by the judge.

Forest fire continued to rage in Spain this month, with a new blaze which broke out on the island of La Palma, Canarias, on the last day of July not brought under control until six days later. Another wildfire destroyed 5,000 hectares in Zaragoza later in the month.

26 year old Dani Jarque, captain of the Spanish football team Espanyol, died suddenly of a heart attack on 8th August while on pre-season training with the team in Italy. He collapsed while talking on the telephone with his girlfriend.

A statement from the ETA terrorist organisation published in the Basque newspaper ‘Gara’ on the morning of 9th August claimed responsibility for four bomb attacks in the summer which claimed the lives of 3 members of Spain’s security forces in the summer and caused extensive damage to the Civil Guard barracks in Burgos. The fourth was a device planted at Socialist Party offices in Durango, Vizcaya, in July. The statement was followed just hours later by a series of small bomb blasts in Palma de Mallorca. There were no injuries in any of the explosions. The arrest of 3 members of ETA’s logistics operation in a French ski resort later in the month led to the discovery of a number of arms caches in the country more than one ton of explosive material.

Despite this month being the hottest August for 50 years, the scorching weather gave way to torrential rain as August entered its second week, causing flooding and lengthy delays on the AVE high speed rail line between Madrid and Andalucía, with the AVE service cut off between Madrid and Toledo for almost 20 hours and 23,000 passengers affected by delays. There was hail in Granada and Murcia, and flooding in Ronda, Málaga province, when the heavens opened with a torrential downpour of hail and rain.

It was also during this week that Emilio Morenatti, a Spanish photographer on assignment for the Associated Press in Afghanistan lost a foot after his vehicle was hit by a roadside explosion in the south of the country. He was covering the situation in Gaza for AP when he was kidnapped by Palestinian gunmen in 2006 and spent 15 days in captivity before his release.

On 16th August, the rescue operation for an injured mountaineer who had been trapped on a ledge up a Pakistani mountain for 11 days was finally abandoned when bad weather conditions made it impossible to continue with the attempt to reach the injured man, Óscar Pérez, from Huesca. He had been left there with a broken leg while his climbing companion returned to base camp to raise the alarm. Another Spanish mountaineer, Luis María Barbero, was lost on another Pakistani mountain in late July.

A team led by the noted surgeon Pedro Cavadas on 19th August successfully concluded Spain’s first face transplant operation, only the eighth to have taken place in the world. The surgery was performed at Valencia’s Hospital La Fe and the patient was discharged with a smile on his face the following month.

September

Cabinet approval for a major overhaul of abortion legislation and the morning after pill is sold over the counter

Hundreds of youths clashed with police as riots erupted in the Pozuelo de Alarcón area of Madrid during the local fiestas early on 4 September. Two of the 10 officers who were injured in the disturbances were seriously hurt. 20 people were taken into custody, including 7 minors.

25 Britons were arrested in a major drugs swoop on Ibiza in a series of dawn raids on the island on 4th September. Officers seized more than 20,000 ecstasy tablets in addition to 1.5kg of ketamine and smaller quantities of cocaine and crystal meth.

On 20th September, Spain became the European basketball champions when they beat Serbia in the final by 85-63. It was the first time Spain had won the Gold medal despite being in the final on six previous occasions.

Also on this day, Spain withdrew its last troops from Kosovo, when a contingent of 88 troops landed at the Getafe Air Base in Madrid. Defence Minister Carme Chacón had announced the decision earlier in the year.

16 years of Partido Popular government ended in Benidorm on 22nd September when a motion of censure ousted the Mayor, Manuel Pérez Fenoll. The new Mayor is Agustín Navarro, who resigned from PSOE with his 11 Socialist colleagues after permission for the motion was refused by party leadership. They had support in the vote from a turncoat councillor who had left the ranks of the Partido Popular in June.

The morning after pill became available over the counter without prescription in September, on sale at Spanish pharmacies for just under 19 €. A Cabinet meeting towards the end of the month meanwhile approved the government reforms to legislation on abortion, the controversial amendment which proposed an unconditional termination at 14 weeks from the age of 16. The draft text stipulated that no parental consent was needed for underage mothers of 16 and 17.

The same meeting approved a VAT hike for the general IVA rate up to 18% in 2010.

In Málaga, the ex Mayor of Marbella, Julián Muñoz, completed a three-year prison sentence for a total of planning crimes and left prison a free man on 25th September, where he had been under the third grade prison regime since the previous October. There are another 50 or so cases still pending against him.

After endless rumours, the news was finally confirmed on the last day of September that Ferrari had signed Fernando Alonso for the next three Formula One seasons. His wages for the contract are reported as 25 million € a year.

October

The Alakrana tuna trawler is hijacked and Madrid fails in its bid for the Olympics

The 36 crew of the Basque tuna trawler, the Alakrana, began their 47 days in captivity at the start of October when the ship was hijacked by Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean. Two of the pirates were captured two days later when they left the trawler on board the skiff the pirates had used in the assault and were sent to Spain to face charges. The group holding the trawler and its crew issued their demands 11 days later: a ransom of 4 million dollars to release the Alakrana with the condition that their colleagues held in custody must first be freed.

The final vote for the host city for the 2016 Olympics was a big disappointment for Spain, when Madrid was beaten by Rio de Janeiro in the final round on 2nd October, after winning the first round of voting ahead of the other contending cities. Chicago was knocked out in round 1, followed by Tokyo in round 2, but in the final vote for Rio more than doubled the number of votes for the Spanish capital, beating Madrid by 46 votes to 29. It was Madrid’s second consecutive attempt to host the Games.

The Prime Minister finally saw the Oval Office of the White House for a meeting with the U.S. President Barack Obama on 13th October. The two men discussed matters including Afghanistan, the Iranian nuclear programme and the economic crisis.

On the 14th of the month, the Partido Popular’s No. 2 in the Valencia region, Ricardo Costa, was temporarily relieved of his position as General Secretary of the Valencia PP and as the party’s regional parliamentary spokesman over the Gürtel corruption case. The regional executive were seen to have given in to pressure from the party’s leadership to make the move, following a tense situation the previous day when Costa announced in the morning that he had no intention of resigning. A meeting of the regional executive that afternoon was then expected to agree his temporary dismissal, but in the event said that he would only stand down if national party leadership set up an internal investigation into the party’s funding. The situation became even more complicated on the Tuesday evening, when the Valencia PP, and Costa himself, denied an announcement from the party’s leadership in Madrid that they had been informed by Francisco Camps, the Valencia President, that Ricardo Costa had been relieved of his responsibilities. Costa’s successors in Valencia as the PP General Secretary and parliamentary spokesman were finally announced on the Wednesday morning. Just over two weeks after, Costa was suspended from his party membership by PP internal affairs in Madrid as a disciplinary measure over his ‘attitude’ for continuing to publically refer to himself as the Valencia General Secretary.

A new corruption case broke in Cataluña in October with Civil Guard swoops on three local councils in Barcelona province ordered by the National Court judge, Baltasar Garzón. Some 20 people are under suspicion in the case investigating alleged planning crimes, including former high-ranking officials with the Generalitat regional government and the Mayor of Santa Coloma de Gramenet, Bartomeu Muñoz.

Another corruption swoop in El Ejido, Almería, saw the town’s Mayor, Juan Enciso, arrested amongst the 20 suspects.

The Junta de Andalucía started work this month to excavate the site in Alfacar, Granada province, where the bones of the poet, Federico García Lorca, are believed to lie. Six areas at the site are identified by ground-penetrating radar as possible mass Civil War graves.

Spain and the Royal Family said goodbye this month to Sabino Fernández Campo, Count of Latores, the former Head of the Royal Household who was at the King’s side throughout the failed military coup attempt in February 1981, and was a key figure in the transition to democracy. He died in hospital on 19th October at the age of 91.

November

As one hostage situation is resolved another begins in Mauritania, and Aminatou Haidar starts her hunger strike

One of the greats of Spanish literature died this month, just a few months after celebrating his 103rd birthday, the celebrated award-winning author, Francisco Ayala. The noted essayist and respected sociologist was seen as one of the greatest writers of the 20th Century. He died on 3rd November.

On the 5th of the month, the first arrest is made by detectives investigating the murder of Alejandro Ponsoda, the Partido Popular Mayor of Polop de La Marina, Alicante province, who was fatally shot outside his home in October 2007. The arrests continue throughout the month, including two Czech hit men, and the man who took over from Ponsoda as Polop’s PP Mayor, Juan Cano. He is still in prison on remand.

In mid-November, the Western Sahara human rights activist, Aminatou Haidar, takes a flight from Lanzarote back her to home in Laayoune, the capital of the disputed territory, after a trip to New York to receive the Civil Courage Prize from the Train Foundation. She is deported back to the Canary Islands for allegedly writing her nationality as ‘Sahrawi’ on the entry form at the airport and her passport is withheld by the Moroccan authorities. Back in Lanzarote, she starts a hunger strike which will last for 32 days to demand that she be allowed to return home.

The Prime Minister held a press conference on 17th November to announce the news that, ‘Our sailors are free and are coming home’.

The Alakrana and its 36 crew, including 16 Spaniards, had finally been released after 47 days in captivity. There has been no confirmation of exactly how much ransom was paid to secure their release, but it’s believed to have been around 4 million dollars. The Alakrana’s captain, Ricardo Blach, said he would never sail again.

Lawyers representing the Duke and Duchess of Lugo, the King’s eldest daughter, the Infanta Elena, and her husband, Jaime de Marichalar, confirm on 25th November that the couple are to divorce and have, in fact, signed the divorce papers, two years after a temporary separation was announced. They married in 1995 and have two children.

On the 29th, three Spanish aid workers are kidnapped in Mauritania while travelling with the aid group, Barcelona-Acciò Solidaria, in a huminatarian convoy 150 kms from Nouakchott, the Mauritanian capital. The North African branch of Al Qaeda later takes responsibility for the kidnapping and says they are also holding a Frenchman who was earlier snatched in Mali. Negotiations are continuing to secure their release.

December

An extended smoking ban for next year and Aminatou Haidar returns home

The start of the month saw a fourth Davis Cup and its second consecutive win for Spain, beating the team from the Czech Republic in each of the best-of-five matches in the finals held over the first weekend of December. Spain’s team leader, Albert Costa, became the first Spaniard to win the Davis Cup both as a player and as a captain.

Massive online protests start against a move announced by the Minister for Culture, Ángeles González-Sinde, to close down illegal download or P2P links to music or films without a judicial order, as part of the Sustainable Economy Law.

In Huesca, a forestry worker, Santiago Mainar, is found guilty of the 2007 murder of the Partido Popular Mayor of the small village of Fago, Miguel Grima, and sentenced to more than 20 years in prison.

An unofficial referendum on independence from Spain was held in 166 municipalities in Cataluña on 13th December. The result was a 95% vote for yes, but turnout was low and did not even reach 30%.

The Health Minister confirmed in December that Spain is to introduce an extended smoking ban in 2010, during the six-month Spanish presidency of the European Union. The ban will extended to all closed public spaces, and will include the larger bars and restaurants which until now have been permitted to allow smoking on the premises by providing a separate, closed-off area for smokers. The hostelry sector fears it could force many out of business.

The new abortion bill passed its second round of voting in Congress on 17th December, after the government gave way on a number of points, including the most controversial issue of allowing 16 and 17 year old mothers to go ahead with a termination without informing their parents. They are now obliged to inform a parent or a guardian, unless doing so would put them at risk of violence or of being thrown out of the home. Other amendments allow medical staff who would play a direct part in a termination to register as a conscientious objector and specific instruction on how to perform an abortion for medical and nursing staff as part of their training. Current legislation only permits abortion in cases of rape, if the foetus is seriously deformed, or if there is a risk to the mother’s mental or physical health. A termination under any other circumstances is seen as a crime.

The Sahrawi human rights activist Aminatou Haidar finally arrives back home in Laayoune on 17th December after 32 days on hunger strike at Lanzarote Airport. She survived throughout that time on nothing more than sugared water.

On 18th December, Andalucía’s regional councillor for justice, Begoña Álvarez, announces that excavations at the site in Alfacar, Granada province, where Spain’s much-loved poet, Federico García Lorca, was believed to lie have concluded with no human remains being found.

The big freeze hit Spain on 19th December, with temperatures falling to -20 degrees in some areas that night. The snow gave way to heavy rain, storms and high winds, bringing flooding to many areas and a wet end to 2009.

In the United States, María José Carrascosa from Valencia was sentenced to 14 years in prison for taking her daughter to Spain after a lengthy custody battle with her ex husband, Peter Innes. Carrascosa had been held on remand in the case since 2006.
The homophobic Murcia judge who maliciously delayed a lesbian woman’s adoption of her partner’s daughter had his suspension increased to 10 years by the Supreme Court.

On New Year’s Eve, the three Spanish aid workers kidnapped in Mauritania at the end of November remained in captivity and El Mundo newspaper revealed that the kidnappers have demanded 7 million dollars for their release.

In business news in Spain this month, Air Comet collapsed leaving thousands of passengers stranded until a rescue operation to get them to their destinations was launched by the Spanish government. The Prime Minister warned of more unemployment in 2010, but with a moderate reduction in falling employment and the beginnings of a slow recovery towards the end of the year.

Mergers were confirmed between Antena 3 and La Sexta, and Telecinco and Cuatro television and, at one second into 2010, television advertising ended for ever on the Spanish state broadcaster, TVE. Their loss in publicity income is to be picked up by the private channels. 2010 brings other changes to the sector, with the analogue switch-off across the country set for 3rd April.