BANKIA, THE CURRENT NIGHTMARE OF SPAIN
One of the most read news on the BBC website is WHY SPAIN’S REGIONS OWE SO MUCH MONEY.
According to that article it may seem that the so called regions of Spain are the ones to waste money while the state of Spain was the only one to act in a right way.
Well, I will just put an example and in this case it was the government from Madrid the one who wasted the money.
There is Catalonia a station called Camp de Tarragona. It is one of these places that you hope that never Angela merkel will visit because one has the feeling that if Angela Merkel was there she would immediately want Spain out of the eurozone and even from the EU.
This station is in the middle of nowhere. Yes, I repeat: in the middle of nowhere. High speed trains between Madrid and Barcelona stop there but this station is not inside a city but inside a forest.
This station is very big and it is very beautiful. It is made of black marvel and its ceiling is enormously high.
Each time I visit this station I ask myself: Is Spain so rich to build such an expensive station just inside a forest?
Needless to say that as this station is in the middle of nowhere a lot of people in that part of Catalonia do not use it but the old stations that are inside the cities and where there is no high speed trains.
I understand that when you build a new station you have to try to make it look gorgeous. But that station is too much. It is ostentatious! It is a clear example of the syndrome of the new rich.
Well, this new station was made by the government of Spain. It was not money from the so called regions.
Another thing to add to the BBC article is that Education and Health are transfer to the so called regions so that it is not strange they have problems with money.
And if some regions spent so much money in stupid airports and so was because they had behind political parties that are not regional parties.
It is sad that the BBC does not take into account that to put the problem in the regions is typical of some politicians in Madrid. Besides, why do we have so many regions with their own governments, etc? Just because when the Basque Country, Catalonia and Galizia had its own autonomy then others wanted to have the same.
Instead of talking so much about the regions, as some political party in Madrid wants to, the BBC could try to talk about the connections between Bankia and the current party in power in Spain. One of the cajas merged into Bankia was Caja Madrid. I remember perfectly well that some years ago it was news the fights in Madrid to control Caja Madrid. What I mean is that the cajas were in the hands of the politicians.
The BBC should try to investigate on its own and not just say what some media in Madrid write about. For example, they could say that in Catalonia the civil servants had a cut in their wages while the Spanish goverment does not do the same with Spanish civil servants? Does that not reach the BBC in Madrid?
Does the BBC know that some high speed train lines have to be close because of so few passengers using it?
And to end, does the BBC know that the central government owes to Catalan government almost 1000 millions euros?
In brief, it is normal that in Spain the so called regions have the problem with the money because in Spain the so called regions have to take care of health and education.
In any case, if the so called regions are so bad for the economy of Spain then let Spain only have autonomy for the so called regions that can afford that! Catalonia can afford that. In fact we are doing cuts that some other places do not do while at the same time we are giving more money to other so called regions than we are receiving.
Catalonia cannot receive lessons from central government. We were the first to have cuts as a new government came to Catalonia earlier than in other territories. And if the money we pay to Madrid as taxes came back to Catalonia then we would not be in such a bad situation.
Why is the BBC only giving the view from Madrid where the broken bank Bankia has its headquarters? Why the BBC does not give the view from Barcelona where not broken bank Caixabank has its headquarters?
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