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INSIDE SPAIN

Inside Spain: Where heat kills and anti-squatter vigilantes

In this week’s Inside Spain we look at how the Spanish government is upping its game to protect its citizens from extreme heat and why the country’s ‘okupa’ problem is increasingly being solved by tough-talking bodybuilders.

Published: 18 May 2024 13:23 CEST
Inside Spain: Where heat kills and anti-squatter vigilantes
Dani Esteve, the head of Desokupa, a private company used by property owners to forcibly remove unwanted occupants, speaks during a demonstration against Barcelona's former mayor Ada Colau. (Photo by Josep LAGO / AFP)

That it gets hot in Spain in summer is nothing new, but often decimal points can mark the difference between life and death.

Spain is the second European country where most people die due to heat, with a record 11,300+ casualties in the summer of 2022. 

Every year, the Spanish Health Ministry launches its prevention plan to protect the most vulnerable from the dangerous effects of exposure to extreme heat, and this year they’re aiming to provide warnings that are more specific than ever. 

On June 3rd, authorities will launch a reference map that will alert of heat episodes in 182 territories within the country’s 52 provinces.

After all, temperatures can vary greatly within the same province or region- it can be sweltering down in Málaga city but cooler in Los Alcornocales Natural Park, or horrifically hot in the concrete jungle that is Madrid but fresher in nearby Cercedilla up in the sierra.

Each of the 182 territories will have maximum risk thresholds that register differences of more than ten degrees Celsius. These limits have been set by studying the exact temperature at which heat-related deaths and hospital admissions increased in previous years in set locations.

Heat tolerance is logically higher in some places of Spain than others, so whereas in southern Córdoba the heat alarm threshold is set at 40.4C, in northern Asturias it’s 23.9C.

Although the effects of meteorological phenomenon La Niña are yet to be confirmed, most meteorologists agree that this summer will probably be another scorcher in Spain.

READ MORE: Will this summer in Spain be as hot as the previous two?

If you haven’t started making plans to protect yourself from el calor (the heat), now is probably the right time to do it. 

Preparation is also what many Spanish homeowners need when it comes to preventing their homes from being occupied by squatters. 

The okupa (squatter) movement is very controversial in Spain, not least because Spanish law often sides with the squatter over the owner unless the latter acts quickly (48 hours usually), and okupas know exactly what to do to ensure their occupation is legally protected.

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What’s emerged in recent years as a result of this powerlessness on the part of affected property owners are numerous anti-squatting companies popping up around the country. 

Staff members are usually made up of no-nonsense muscle-bound tough men who promise clients the swift exit of the okupas, for a fee of course. 

These desokupación firms often operate on the margins of the law, sometimes threatening squatters and using underhand tricks to get them out. In fact, some of these anti-squatter vigilantes have been charged with coercion, and they are often accused of having links to alt-right and fascist groups.  

“People know that Desokupa is faster than the justice system,” Daniel Esteve, head of the most famed anti-squatting firm in Spain (Desokupa), which has reportedly carried out 9,400 squatter evictions without any of his team or clients being prosecuted, told El Periódico de Ibiza. 

In fact, there is evidence that even Spanish banks now are hiring the services of these companies rather than relying on police to retrieve the properties they own, and that judges are accepting the normalisation of these anti-squatter companies rather than the issues being resolved in the courts. They even now offer customers the possibility of cleaning up and refurbishing their recovered homes, as many of them are left in a poor state when the squatters leave.

“We are professionals, lawyers, bodyguards and detectives, we are not thugs,” Esteve concludes.

“In Spain those who don’t pay are protected, we defend the owners from a great injustice.”

Thugs or not, the emergence of these companies specialising in the eviction of squatters are a prime example of people in Spain taking the law into their own hands when they feel justice isn’t being carried out.

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INSIDE SPAIN

Inside Spain: ‘corrupt’ TV stars and new fake news law

In this week’s Inside Spain, we look at how corruption is so pervasive among the country’s elite that even the protagonists of Spain’s longest-running TV series have been in the dock, and how the government wants to put a stop to fake news. 

Published: 15 June 2024 13:01 CEST
Inside Spain: 'corrupt' TV stars and new fake news law

If you’ve ever watched an episode of Cuéntame cómo pasó (‘Remember When’), better known as Cuéntame, you’ve taken a big step to integrate in Spain, as it’s perhaps the most quintessential Spanish prime time TV show ever. 

The series charts the tumultuous modern history of Spain through the lives of the Alcántaras, a working-class Spanish family. It ran for 22 years (23 seasons, 413 episodes) before its grand finale last year. 

Every Wednesday, millions of Spaniards tuned in to watch Cuéntame on La 1; and the series’ stars Imanol Arias and Ana Duato are household names here. 

So it was perhaps (or perhaps not) a surprise for their fans to see them stand before a judge this week accused of evading millions of euros in tax.

“I want to stop being part of this cast, the sooner the better,” Arias told the judge before pleading guilty to five charges and agreeing to pay back more than €2 million owed in tax as well as a penalty. 

He, as so often happens to high-profile offenders with no previous misdemeanours in Spain, will not actually end up behind bars despite being handed a 26-month jail sentence.

His co-star Ana Duato is next to stand before the judge and fight her corner against the fiscal fraud charges she faces. Duato plans to plead her innocence even though she faces a possible 32-year sentence.  

The Cuéntame scandal is part of the Nummaria case, involving a law firm by the same name that allegedly helps its clients (Arias and Duato included) avoid taxation in Spain by using opaque shell companies overseas.

However, what’s most telling of all is that two TV stars who have for more than two decades portrayed a typical Spanish couple have ended up showcasing exactly what Spain’s rich and powerful often do with their money. If only they’d worked it into the series’ plot. 

On another somewhat related note, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is preparing what’s been dubbed the ‘anti-fake news law’, legislation which will fight against what he’s called la maquinaria del fango (which could be translated as the ‘mud-slinging machine’). 

Sánchez started using this term when he announced he was considering standing down as PM due to accusations of corruption against his wife Begoña Gómez. 

He ended up staying after several days of ‘reflection’ and keeping Spain on a knife edge.

But it didn’t stop his wife from being investigated (the probe is ongoing) and there is now also a case open against his brother Daniel Sánchez. 

So the timing of this new legislation seems particularly appropriate, as what the ley anti-bulos would reportedly serve to do is to give news outlets and journalists that allegedly publish fake news 24 hours to retract their comments or face legal action. 

Sánchez appears to be targeting right-wing media which in his words “dehumanise and delegitimize the political adversary through complaints that are as scandalous as they are false.”

It may seem like Spain’s PM is attempting to protect himself, his party and entourage from so-called “pseudo media” but it’s actually part of a wider plan under European law to fight disinformation, AI-generated content and fake news.

By 2025, all EU Member States are expected to have legislation in place addressing this, but it will be a difficult balancing act for both Spain and the EU for such laws to not come across as censorship and an attack on freedom of the press.

According to the 2022 Digital News Report, only 13 percent of Spaniards see the press as free from undue political interference, one of the lowest rates in the EU.

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