PEPINOS DE ALMERÍA RULE, OK!

The 25 deaths in Germany and 2,600 illnesses there and also in other European countries from the E.coli outbreak are tragic. Yet so too are the huge losses suffered by the farming community in Andalucía from Spanish cucumbers being blamed for the E.coli – and then the accusations being withdrawn too late to save the crops or jobs. Now the EU is offering 210 million euros in compensation but it is Germany and not Europeans that should pick up the Spanish bill. Many communities will suffer severe hardship. Around me are farmers and smallholders who grow the crops in their fields and serve them to their families without any ill effects whatsoever. I have never stopped eating their produce and if you have the chance to buy a product produced in Andalucía do. You won’t regret it!


A friend “ML” posted this recently on her Facebook page:

“SE HA DETECTADO EN ESPAÑA SALCHICHAS ALEMANAS INFECTADAS X UNA BACTERIA Q PUEDE CAUSAR LA MUERTE, LA CERVEZA ALEMANA TIENE RASTROS D ORINA HUMANA. LOS SUPERMERCADOS ALEMANES (ER LÍ) ESTÁN LLENOS D RATAS. ¿ACUSAMOS 1º Y NOS DISCULPAMOS DESPUES?.¡¡¡COMO ESTAMOS TAN BIEN OTRO PROBLEMA MÁS A LOS ANDALUCES !!! POR FAVOR YA ESTA BIEN, COPIA ESTO EN TU MURO SI QUIERES Q A LA MERCKEL LE METAN 1 PEPINO X EL JAHR”

THE CURSE OF EMIGRATION RETURNS

In my village many of what are today elderly men left their homes in the 1950s to work in Germany. They still speak some German to this day and they or their widows have sent to them a monthly pension from Germany.


There are photos of my street with my neighbours’ children playing, their mothers gathered together but no men in sight because they were a 1,000 miles away. True they sent home money but the children were raised without a father.

These men, labourers and agricultural workers, were part of the great migration from Spain in search of work. Now in 2011 it would appear the exercise is about to be repeated except this time jobless but qualified young Spaniards would be making the trip instead of sons of the soil.

The move has been revealed in the magazine Der Spiegel. The aim is to partially solve the German deficiency in young professionals especially those who have been left jobless by the Spanish economic crash.

According to Der Spiegel the subject will be high on the agenda of the German-Spanish summit to be held in Madrid on February 3 to be attended by Chancellor Angela Merkel and Spanish Premier José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. It will form a bilateral labour agreement between the two countries. It is not only Spain that will benefit but other nations in the south and the east of Europe which are suffering from the debt crisis and unemployment.

It is understood that young qualified Spaniards and Portuguese are the preferred candidates by Germany because of the ease of movement between the EU countries.

Studies have suggested that Germany needs between 500,000 and 800,000 new qualified workers. The key areas are engineering and telecommunications both seen as important growth sectors for its economy.

Germany is the leading economy in Europe and grew by 3.6 per cent in 2010 with predictions of 2.3per cent for this year. Hand in hand with this growth it has seen its own jobless levels gradually reduce.

The good news is that those Spanish graduates will at last be offered well paid and secure jobs. The bad news is that Spain will loose a generation of those it has educated to university level and who are highly skilled – who once gone – will be very difficult to lure back. Once again families will be broken up and again the curse of emigration will return to the Iberian Peninsula.

SECRET DEALS PUT CLIENT CONFIDENTIALITY AT RISK

It’s a problem I have never had to face but the whole point of the majority of investors placing their money in off-shore locations is to keep their financial affairs secret, especially from the tax man. Now that confidentiality is at risk, and professionals are being placed in a difficult position, by the Gibraltar Government’s policy of signing tax information exchange agreements in secret.

The pressure is on the Gibraltar Government to sign twelve tax information exchange agreements so that it can be removed from the ‘grey list’ of off-shore finance centres and move on to the ‘white list’. Failure to do so will see sanctions imposed and other actions taken plus of course it would give Madrid another stick to beat Gibraltar with.

However rather than this process being undertaken in full view it is being negotiated and signed in secret. Spain kicked up a fuss when Gibraltar signed a high profile agreement with the USA in London in April ahead of the G20 meeting arguing that the Rock was acting like an independent nation rather than a British colony (which is it no longer meant to be).

Critics argue that the current policy of arriving at accords in secret is merely bowing to Spanish pressure but it is also causing confusion amongst the Rock’s own financial centre. Indeed whilst I receive press releases from the Gibraltar Government on a whole raft of topics I have yet to receive one announcing a tax information exchange agreement.

Recently Gibraltar signed a very one-sided agreement with the German Government – an administration that operates a very aggressive tax collecting regime - but nobody on the Rock knew. German clients of financial institutions in Gibraltar were phoning to ask for information and the staff had to reply they knew nothing. The news was only made public when the German Finance Ministry announced the deal in Berlin. Now the same situation seems to have arisen with Australia.

Gibraltar’s GSLP/Liberal Opposition says it notes that the Australian tax authorities have announced that they have signed a Tax Information Exchange Agreement overnight with Gibraltar.

The Shadow Minister for Financial Services, Fabian Picardo, commented on this development: “We support the execution of Tax Information Exchange Agreements by Gibraltar, but we criticise the fact that the Government is not making timely announcements about these agreements being entered into.

“Following press releases I have previously issued on this matter, reliable reports reflect that practitioners in the finance centre have been caught out advising clients in some jurisdictions with which agreements have been signed because the Government has not announced the fact that it has entered into these agreements.

“There is no reason for the Government not to announce that it has entered into these agreements; especially given that the counterpart jurisdictions are announcing the agreements. Keeping the finance centre here in the dark about these developments serves no purpose and can and is causing havoc for many practitioners.”

I also understand this lack of information puts finance centre professionals in a difficult position. They have a duty of confidentiality to the client, yet now have to supply this confidential information to the client’s government because secret accords have been signed which neither they nor they clients knew about. Hence they could be risking being exposed to legal action from their clients.

A STIFF SENTENCE FOR STIFF-ARMED GNOME

If I can I like to bring you a bit of whimsy at weekends although I must admit I often fail in that task.

Today I take you to Germany where prosecutors in Nuremberg have launched an investigation into whether an artist’s gold-coloured gnome giving a stiff-armed Hitler salute violates the country’s strict laws against the use of Nazi symbols.

The offending gnome standing 35 centimetres tall is one of 700 made by German artist Ottmar Hoerl. Nuremberg prosecutors are investigating after a complaint to local police.

Wolfgang Traeg, who is a spokesperson for the Nuremberg prosecutors (wouldn’t you just know his name would be Wolfgang) stated: “We’ve asked both the artist and the gallery owner to explain what the intention is. It’s not a crime if it can be proved that the artist was being critical of the Nazis.”

Apparently the golden gnome has an impish grin and was one of 700 used in a 2008 exhibition called “Dance with the Devil” in the Belgium city of Ghent. The gnomes were also displayed without objection in Bolzano, Italy and Aschaffenburg, Germany.

However giving the outlawed Hitler salute or using Nazi symbols is a crime in Germany. It is punishable by up to three years in prison hence the Nuremberg involvement.

For my part I do not find a gnome giving a stiff-armed salute offensive but I would give a stiff finger to all who inflict gnomes on us. Indeed three years in prison for each of the 700 gnomes created by Ottmar Hoerl would strike me as pathetically lenient – not stiff enough by half!