Costa Confidential

Rivers burst their banks in many parts of the region, leading to hundreds of homes being flooded over the Christmas period.In Ronda a number of horses were allegedly swept to their death at La Indiana, while a horse was also killed when a river flooded in Setenil.Dozens of homes were flooded in the La Indiana and Llano de la Cruz areas of Ronda, as well as in nearby Benaojan and Jimera de Libar.In Jimera six families had to be evacuated, as the mayor claimed it was the worst flooding the village had seen since 1947.The Ronda area has seen up to 400 litres of rain in just over a week. In total up to 80 litres fell in Malaga in just 24 hours.
“We had had 230 litres in just four days,” said vineyard owner Jose Ramos Paul, in Ronda. “It is the heaviest rainfall we have seen here in ten years.“It is far too much in far too short a time and is not good for the land.”Bridges were swept away and dozens of families were cut off around the region.The heavy rain during the Christmas period caused rail links between Sevilla, Huelva, Granada and Jaén to be shut.The AVE fast track line between Malaga and Madrid was also shut for much of Christmas.In total 24 major routes, including the N-IV in Cadiz were shut during Christmas Eve, due to some of the heaviest rain on record.The weather was so bad, the emergency services in Sevilla had 500 calls alone.
The N-IV motorway between Jerez and Cádiz was closed for a kilometre due to flooding.
The access road to the Sierra Nevada was closed by strong winds and an accumulation of snow.In Motril serious flooding led to dozens of houses being evacuated, while a car park full of cars was submerged.There were serious power cuts in the Cádiz Bay area, although supplies are expected to be restored during the day today. Some 1,500 homes are still affected in El Puerto de Santa María, Chiclana and San Fernando.Lightening cut the power to Torrox in Málaga for 12 hours.Many advertising hoardings and other items were blown down, along with trees and the wall of a school in Córdoba, but despite the damage there are no reports of any injuries or fatalities in the region.The forecast until the new year is for more rain, with temperatures dropping.
In Jimera de Libar, a benefit concert has been organised to help people affected by the flooding.

“You try it. Spend two months with your feet in water and see how they end up, even if you have your shoes on,” said Alfonso Vazquez, at Fuente Ymbro, in Cadiz. Furthermore, bulls won’t eat wet feed pellets, and because of the chilly, inclement weather they spend more energy just keeping warm.This means they will enter the ring this Spring a fair bit lighter than normal, making them less impressive and dangerous.The bullfighting season starts this month and takes off next month at Valencia’s Las Fallas festival. “Right now, we are worried,” said Vazquez. “As we get through the first bullfights of the season, we’ll see what state the animals are in and how they perform.” Another owner Alvaro Nunez, said: “There is no denying we are afraid because the fans in Madrid and Valencia demand a lot in terms of the bull.”

The winner is believed to live in the Almeria town of Mojacar, where half of the 10,000 population is British.He was joined by another winner in the UK, who also scooped 60 million euros.One ticket in Britain and one in Spain shared the 120 million jackpot. “There is a very good chance the winning ticket was bought by a Brit living in Mojácar.”Subject to validation, the prize could be paid out when the banks open tomorrow. The winner can then decide whether to go public.A spokesman for the official lottery operator in Spain, Loterias y Apuestas del Estado, said: “There is a very good chance the winning ticket was bought by a Brit living in Mojácar.”Mojacar, a popular holiday destination for Britons, boasts a British library, an English Bullfighting Club and a branch of the Royal British Legion. Last night Lotto bosses in the UK confirmed that a double record-breaking cash bonanza for British players was a realistic possibility. Both ticket-holders will be catapulted into first place in the National Lottery rich list. Joint second on the list of lottery wins are Les Scadding and wife Sam from South Wales, and the Lucky Seven syndicate from Liverpool, who each banked a EuroMillions cheque for £45.5million in November last year.
Angela Kelly from Glasgow is third with her £35.4million win in August 2007 followed by an unnamed £26.5million winner the same month.

Disgraced Jose Aleman also owned a “magic” American Express Centurion card with a credit limit of one million euros – only 300 have been issued in Spain. jailed auditor of El Ejido had stored over three million euros worth of designer watches in his safe. The abundant excesses enjoyed by Aleman were sensationally released after presiding judge Montserrat Pena released parts of the case summary. “Don’t worry, I will see if we can give him a helping hand.”Aleman also admitted that he received a staggering 490,000 euro annual pay packet from El Ejido town hall. Furthermore, the former town hall employee watched the French Open tennis final in luxury seats alongside his wife, brother and sister-in-law. It also emerged that Aleman had a penchant for Michelin-starred restaurants and paid a chauffeur to drive him to Rome to view the 2009 Champion League Final. Aleman even boasted that he had the power to pass failing university students. Speaking about a struggling student he once said: “Don’t worry, I will see if we can give him a helping hand.”Although Aleman is now behind bars, his wife Isabel Carrasco was granted 90,000 euro bail. The mayor of El Ejido Juan Encisco is also facing charges along with some 18 others accused of bribery, perversion of the course of justice and money laundering.

Adnan Khashoggi once owned Spain’s most expensive real estate is set to return for a charity dinner in Marbella. Adnan Khashoggi – former owner of La Zagaleta development in Benahavis – will attend the Children for Peace event at Hotel Incosol.
After a 17-year absence from Spain the business tycoon will attend the dinner scheduled for March 27 with second wife Lamia – the charity’s vice president.
In 1988 Khashoggi was jailed in Switzerland for concealing funds but was acquitted two years later.Born in Mecca, Khashoggi was regarded as the world’s richest man in the 1980s and his yacht, the Nabila, was used in James Bond film Never Say Never Again.

Puerto Banus, Marbella, Spain

The spokesman at the Marbella Ayuntamiento, Félix Romero, has said that the Town Hall will act against Juan Antonio Roca’s legal administrator and take ‘the opportune measures’.It follows the revelation that María Teresa Navarro, the legal administrator for the ex Municipal Real Estate Assessor in Marbella, allegedly diverted 158,000 € from the accounts of his companies to her own.Marbella Town Hall wants Roca, the man at the centre of the Malaya case, and two other top GIL party members to return 24.3 million € which was stolen by them according to the firm sentence of the Supreme Court in the Saqueo case.Navarro is also now under investigation for carrying out a possible crime, given that four of the five payments are not reflected in the accounts of the companies concerned.

Despite thousands of homes now being officially legalised, many others were not included in the much-anticipated plans.Notably, the Banana Beach complex – home to some 300 Spanish and expatriate homeowners – is still in line to be pulled down.And resident John Toomey has vowed to fight on after branding the latest decision a “huge injustice” as well as “discrimination”.The retired lawyer, 63, explained: “Our case is identical to a number of properties which have now been legalised.
“They want to reclaim the seafront, but there is no basis for this in law or reality.”“A top Spanish architect (Angel Dias del Rio) put forward a case in Sevilla to show we were being discriminated against.“But it was simply swept under the carpet by the Junta.”Toomey, from London, also criticised the folly of trying to make an example of Banana Beach.“They want to reclaim the seafront, but there is no basis for this in law or reality,” he added.“If they really wanted to do this then they would have to demolish half of Marbella.”
On agreeing the new PGOU last week Marbella mayor Angeles Munoz previously declared that “16,000 families will now sleep in peace”.Spare a thought for those Marbella homes still fighting for their own reconciliation.

Two schools, in Manilva and Marbella, had to be evacuated after becoming flooded, and in Manilva the A7 was closed for a time as underpasses to gain access to Sabinillas and Puerto de la Duquesa were underwater.There were several landslides affecting roads in the Manilva area.
In Marbella the El Ángel college was flooded and evacuated and a wall collapsed close to the Barceló hotel in San Pedro Alcántara. More than 50 litres per square metre was recorded in Marbella and as much as 80 in some areas.In Estepona the marina was flooded and several local rivers and streams burst their banks leading to flooding of homes and businesses, with the Urbanization Marimontes worst affected. Cancelada was also cut off for a time.Last 12 hours rainfall figures to 7am Tuesday morning
82 litres per square metre in Casarabonela., 84 in Coin and 108 in Ojén.The Spanish Meteorological Agency has extended the orange alert for heavy rain in Málaga province until Tuesday midday.

Gibraltar bank account supposed to hold the company’s cash in fact had a balance of less than nine Euros and no credit facility.

Two senior executives at a prominent Gibraltar law firm, brothers Benjamin and Solomon Marrache, appeared before the Magistrates Court yesterday charged with false accounting in respect of E1.8m of client money.The two men were arrested on Tuesday and spent the night in police cells before being ferried to court in a police van.
The two Marrache brothers were ushered by police through a side entrance to Central Police station just before 10am and appeared before the magistrate in a crowded courthouse a short while later.Attorney General Ricky Rhoda, appearing for the Crown, urged the magistrate to impose stringent bail conditions for fear that the two men might flee the jurisdiction.Keith Azopardi, the defence lawyer representing the Marrache brothers together with Samantha Sacramento, said there was no risk of them leaving Gibraltar because both were of previous good character and had strong family ties here.Stipendiary Magistrate Charles Pitto granted bail but set tough conditions on each defendant, in the form of two sureties to the value of £300,000 for each brother. The court also set a further financial condition of £150,000 in their own recognizance for each defendant.In simple terms, failure to appear at future court hearings could cost the defendants and their guarantors up to £900,000 in total.
Both men also had to hand in their travel documents and agree to reside at their respective family homes, as well as report twice weekly to police.By the end of the day yesterday, a number of persons had stepped up to provide £600,000 in sureties for the release of the two men.At an hour-long hearing in the evening, Mr Pitto questioned the guarantors closely but accepted the sureties. The two brothers were released from custody later that evening.Yesterday’s developments in court were the opening shots in what will undoubtedly develop into a lengthy and complex case.

Mr Rhoda said the sums of money involved “could be quite substantial”.
He said the two men were currently facing “holding charges” and that more charges could follow at a later stage. The Attorney General also said there could be further arrests as a result of an ongoing police investigation.Earlier this week police raided several commercial and residential properties linked to Marrache & Co and seized documents and computers.Prosecutors allege that in January this year, the brothers falsified documents to conceal a shortfall of E1.8m of funds belonging to a company called Portino Comercio Internacional. One document, a letter signed by Solomon Marrache, purported to show that the money was held by the brothers on the client’s behalf. Another document, a letter signed by Benjamin Marrache, purported to give authority to Natwest bank to transfer the client’s money to a bank in Ireland.
But prosecutors said that the Gibraltar bank account supposed to hold the company’s cash in fact had a balance of less than nine Euros and no credit facility.

Work inspectors in the province of Málaga found some 2,000 people working without a contract last year, and nearly 500 of them were also collecting unemployment pay.
Shops and the hostelry business were most controlled by the inspectors in the province last year, and their work recovered 12 million € additional income for Social Security.The numbers are four times higher than those seen in 2008 as the number of work inspections is stepped up.

Spanish Ministry of the Interior has announced plans to reduce the number of foreign prisoners being held in Spanish jails. They want to try to get prisoners to serve their time in the jails of their country of origin.In Spain there are 27,091 foreigner prisoners from 110 countries currently, 242% more than in 2000. The numbers include Cataluña where responsibility for prisons has been devolved to the region.A statement from the Ministry for the Interior said that ‘foreigners are not to blame for the overcrowding in Spanish jails’ noting that the number of foreign prisoners only increased by 3% last year, but even so Spain has one of the highest percentages of foreign prisoners in Europe at 35%.The law already allows for a foreign prisoner to apply to be transferred to his or her home country if he or she wishes, and last year 580 made the application of which 249 have been repatriated. However many do not make the application as conditions in Spanish jails are generally good.If the prison sentence is less than six years and the criminal has not legal residence in Spain he can be extradited instead of going to prison, and under that rule more than 900 foreign criminals were expelled from the country last year.

Socialist Mayor of Cártama, José Garrido, has been indicted on charges of perversion of the course of justice. He is accused by the Prosecutors’ Office of having deliberately let an order expire against a local resident who had built a home on non-buildable land.The case is being investigated by Instruction Court 5 in Málaga and refers to December 2005 when the Town Hall inspectors noted the house being built on rustic land. There was an initial fine and the site was taped up, but the citizen continued to build despite several visits from municipal technicians in January, March, April and May 2006. Work was still continuing in February 2007, and in October 2008 , SEPRONA, the Environmental Division of the Guardia Civil asked the Ayuntamiento for details of the sanction imposed. That sanction expired in December of that year, and now the Mayor faces charges.The Mayor contends that competences in the case are unclear, and said he has done nothing wrong as no irregular licence was issued by the council. He also noted the lack of resources to carry out any demolitions saying that there are more than 2,000 similar cases currently outstanding. The house concerned in the case currently remains standing.

Date for the start of the court cases for the ‘Malaya’ corruption scandal and the ‘Ballena Blanca’ money laundering affair could coincide and that it causing differences between the Málaga Provincial Court and the Anti Corruption Prosecutor’s Office. Final start dates for both cases are still to be set, but they could coincide according to the President of the Provincial Court, Francisco Javier Arroyo. That would cause serious problems for the prosecutor, Juan Carlos López Caballero, who has instructed both cases, and the Chief Prosecutor, Antonio Morales, has concluded that ‘in common sense both cases cannot coincide’.Ballena Blanca was set to start at the end of March, while Malaya could start at the end of May, but with the first expected to last six months and the second a year an overlap is likely. Ballena Blanca has to deal with 19 accused and some 80,000 sheets of evidence, while Malaya has 103 accused and the court summary is 90,000 sheets long.
Antonio Morales considers that the Malaya case should wait until after Ballena Blanca has been completed and has told Diario Sur that he does not understand the hurry.To add to the problems there is a third case, ‘Minutas’ which already has a fixed date of April 6 to June 4 where here the prosecutor, Francisco Jiménez Villarejo, also belongs to the same anti-corruption department.

Brits are the largest group, making up 16 percent of the total number of operations being carried outForeign patients now make up 42% of the activity in the operating theatres at the District Hospital in Torrevieja. The largest group is the British, who made up 16% of the 22,640 operations carried out in the hospital in 2009. It shows the high numbers of British tourists in the area, and the number who live in the town for at least part of the year, many of them aged over 65. Britons make up 10% of the padron census in the 12 municipalities serviced by the hospital.
Next group, but with no more than 5% of the total, come the Germans, then the Norwegians and Moroccans.The numbers come amid increasing concerns in the Spanish press about the costs of providing care to ‘health tourists’, and claims that Spain is not getting all the costs of such operations reimbursed in full.

Two Latin American boys aged 14 and 16 have been charged with the murder of the 71 year old British pensioner Peter Cockshutt who was found dead in his home in Arona on the Costa del Silencio, on Tenerife, after what is thought to have been a burglary gone wrong. One of the boys was arrested on Tuesday afternoon, the other on
Tuesday night.The British man, who comes from Brandesburton, near Beverley in East Yorkshire was stabbed twice in the chest and once in the leg. His body was found by a friend on Monday.The two boys are also accused or robbery and both will appear before the judge shortly, and are being held in Guardia Civil custody. An autopsy has been carried out on the victim, but the results have not yet been made public.
It’s understood the two boys have confessed to the crime, and reporting restrictions have been introduced in the case.

price of resale property in Spain increased in January for the first time in 24 months, according to the real estate portal fotocasa.es. Prices rose by 0.6% on average, with the regions of Cataluña, and La Rioja seeing the greatest recovery in price at 4.6% and 4.5%. Prices also rose in the regions of Comunidad Valenciana (2,2%), Asturias (2%), Baleares (1,9%), Aragón (1,4%), Galicia (0,9%) and Madrid (0,7%).It takes the average price of per square metre for resale property to 2,366 €.

Baltasar Garzón, is to appeal against the Supreme Court case which accused him of adopting resolutions which were allegedly a perversion of the course of justice, by starting to investigate the disappearances of people during the Franco years in Spain.Garzón has said that the Supreme Court case is ‘unsustainable and incomprehensible’ and he has accused the Judge Luciano Varela of using ‘depreciatory arguments’ with no legal base. Garzón has called for international experts who have judged similar crimes to be brought in. Garzón says that Varela has ‘a preconceived idea which stops him analysing the facts objectively’.Garzón also faces a second case where he is accused of not declaring additional income obtained allegedly from the Banco Santander when he was on a sabbatical year in New York.
Meanwhile the Prosecutors Office has said it does not support the accusations being made against the judge and they will be sending their considerations to the CGPJ, despite the fact that the General Council for Judicial Power, the body which oversees the judiciary, started the procedures on Tuesday to suspend the judge.
The Attorney General, Cándido Conde-Pumpido, has said that, in principle, he can see no criminal behaviour which will allow the accusations being made against the judge to be justified.The group ‘Judges for Democracy’ has also expressed its ‘deepest concern’ about the decision of Varela to proceed against Garzón who they do not consider at fault.

Five Ecuadorians have been arrested on Mallorca in connection with the discovery of the body of a 35 year old Bolivian woman.The woman was reported missing last November, and her chopped up body was found on waste land in Campos, Mallorca, the day after the first three people were arrested this week. Paul Gregory R.C., aged 41; Norma del Rocio V.S., aged 39, and Luis Rodrigo Q.Q. who is said to have been the main author of the killing and who is aged 43. Two further arrests were made on Wednesday and further detentions have not been ruled out in the case.

one million Britons living in Spain some 74 per cent revealed that repatriation is now a distinct possibility, according to a study undertaken by Moneycorp.Some 37 per cent of those surveyed admitted that they were already looking into returning to the British Isles.The house market crash has seen the value of homes on the Costa del Sol crash to below 65 per cent their original asking price.

“Brits living in Spain are particularly affected by the struggling property market with many owning holiday homes and letting out their Spanish properties.”
Add the plummeting pound and limited job opportunities, the survey has fuelled fears that there could be a widespread exodus.
“Brits living in Europe are feeling the effects of the weak pound as they are more likely to be reliant on income from their British property, UK pension and other regular sources of funds,” said David Kerns, Head of Private Clients at Moneycorp.
“Brits living in Spain are particularly affected by the struggling property market with many owning holiday homes and letting out their Spanish properties.”

Meanwhile, the survey also revealed that more than a third of expatriates in Italy, Germany and France are also mulling over moving back to the UK.Kerns added: “Our research shows that British expats have had a tough time and the findings reveal that no country has escaped unharmed from the economic downturn.”
The survey interviewed 250 Europe-based UK expatriates and was conducted from October to November 2009.

Margarite Auken, Danish MEP for the Green party and author of the controversial "Auken Report", which recommended EU sanctions against Spain if it did not act on illegal building and urban abuse, demanded yesterday in open parliamentary session that the EU ask for an official report from Madrid on how it will protected property rights for people who have purchased illegal homes.
The question, directed to the President of the European Parliament Jerzy Buzek, coincided with the appearance in front of the EU Parliament of Spanish President Zapatero, who was in Brussels to explain the six month Spanish programme for the EU. Spain took over the rotating presidency of the EU on the 1st of January 2010.
During her question, Ms Auken referred to the "worrying facts" revealed by her report. The Auken Report was approved by the EU in March 2009. "Spain has permitted a culture of endemic corruption to build up around construction" she said.It revealed to the EU the wide range of issues in Spain that has permitted the construction of hundreds of thousands of homes without any permits whatsoever.President Buzek did not reply immediately to the question, but is expected to give a response in the next few days."Many Spanish citizens feel that they must quietly accept fraud and corruption from building companies who can expel them from their homes without any compensation" said Ms Auken.Ms Auken pointed out that the Spanish government has so far refused to give an official reply to the Auken report and so she believes the time has come for the EU to officially demand a reply to the report.The report recommends EU sanctions against Spain if it does not act to tackle urban abuse and property instability in the region.

Willie Meyers, the Izquierda Unida MEP for Andalucia, also used the opportunity to attack the Spanish government for urban abuse.

The Reader recently had an exclusive interview with Mr Meyers when he visited Almeria during a fact finding mission on urban abuse in the province (An interview with MEP Willie Meyers ) where he explained his horror at what he had discovered.Mr Meyers's office has sent an official request to a number of Spanish departments within the Junta de Andalucia and the Spanish government to ask what, if any, notice they have taken of the Auken report.Mr Meyers has also bought the specific example of the Almanzora Valley to the attention of interested parliamentary groups within the EU.Meyer's office released a statement saying "he condemned the many examples of urban abuse produced by rampant and uncontrolled development over the last few years" and saying that innocent home owners must be protected at all costs.Meanwhile, Michael Cashman MEP, has written an open letter to Prime Minister Zapatero. Mr Cashman was one of the MEPs who asked for a European Parliamentary resolution to get Spain to put its house in order given the enormous number of petitions and complaints about building, environmental and urban abuses it had received. According to Mr Cashman there have been over 15,000 petitions as well as a daily flood of letters on this matter.

Many councils in Malaga fear tens of thousands of unregistered residents live in certain municipalities: in the case of Marbella, with an electoral roll of 140,000 people from 137 different nationalities, it is thought a further 100,000 people live without registering.
The failure to register means councils are losing money, as the Spanish state gives subsidies to each municipality based on the size of its electoral roll.
Marbella tourism councillor, José Luis Hernández, said: “The fact both Spanish and foreign residents fail to register on the electoral roll here helps to collapse our public services. It is because of this that we have half the police, hospitals, courts, schools and taxis that we really need for a town of this size.”

2 hours from Spain’s Costa del Sol are the snowy peaks of the Sierra Nevada , Europe’s Southern-most ski resort.December saw the heaviest rain for 50 years fall on the Costa del Sol, officially ending five years of drought in the region and filling the reservoirs to capacity. Although it meant a wet Christmas for Costa del Sol residents, it has led to wonderful conditions in the nearby mountains with the resort management, Cetursa SA, announcing an impressive 3 metres of snow cover over the ski terrain. They are working hard to piste the new snow and hope to have all the runs open soon. To find out the latest information on the state of the pistes visit the British Ski Centre website.If you want to enjoy both the skiing and the warmth of the seaside, you should consider basing yourself on the Costa del Sol and taking a day trip up to the mountains. Alternatively, you could do a two centre holiday and stay in the mountains for one night (be warned the accommodation is expensive) and then move down to the Costa del Sol to relax before heading home.

Buried beneath shells, rocks and sand, for 2,600 years, while the construction boom has been completely changing the surrounding landscape, a treasure of incalculable value has lain just off La Manga. 26 centuries later, archaeologists from eleven countries are bringing these antique objects to the light of day once again. The find appears to be the cargo of a commercial ship carrying ivory from African elephants, amber and lots of ceramic objects. The find has been kept secret for the past three years by the team of divers led by the Spaniard Juan Pinedo Reyes and the American Mark Edward Polzer. The recovery project is being financed by National Geographic, who have reached an agreement with the Spanish Minister of Culture, the Institute of Nautical Archaeology and the University A&M of Texas. The recovery is taking place around Grosa Island and El Farallon Island, just off La Manga. Over the last three years 1,400 objects have been collected. Even some of the wood from the bottom of the ship has survived since the 7th Century before Christ (620 BC), and has been recovered. It is believed the vessel measured approximately 15 metres long.

The find has been described as one of the most important of all archaeological discoveries. The Ivory tusks measure between 70 and 150 centimetres, with Phoenician writing inscribed. They have come from a race of elephants which are now believed to be extinct. There are also copper ingots and stones containing silver and lead. Ceramic pots which were used for transporting fish and oil have been found too, as well as plates, bowls, combs, ivory knife handles, bronze needles and chandeliers.

It is believed the ship crashed into rocks off the island, which are just a metre and a half below the surface. The ship would have set sail from Cadiz, and was probably heading towards Guardamar to a factory there, or to deliver items to a prince living in the area.

"Most countries in the European Union offer universal health coverage for their citizens. And when a citizen from one EU country travels to, or lives in another one, they also are covered. But now Spain is complaining" about the rule, "as more and more northern Europeans choose to retire along its Mediterranean coast." NPR likens the situation along Spain's Costa del Sol to that of Florida, where many U.S. seniors with costly health problems retire (Socolovsky, 1/19). SiMAP union, representing public health doctors in Spain, said non-Spanish EU nationals in Alicante, which has a large British expat community, account for 15-20 per cent of hospital admissions. Criticism is not directed at those who register their residency status and pay taxes, but at expats in the black economy who expect to get treatment by producing a European Health Insurance Card (Ehic), which is designed for the emergency care of holidaymakers. many thousands of Britons who regularly flip between homes in Britain and Iberia are also thought to arrange trips according to where they may get the best treatment, or jump waiting lists. Politicians have been concerned about healthcare "freeloaders" for several years, but Spanish doctors have been more muted. They have to decide what is "emergency" treatment and what isn't and, according to anecdotal reports, have tended to take the patient's word.
But Spain's health budget is as much under pressure as the NHS and the SiMAP move reflects fears among Spanish doctors of further belt-tightening. Cutbacks are bound to raise questions about the availability of resources for patients. The Spanish regions – which are autonomous in matters of health provision – have moved to prevent foreign nationals exploiting "free" healthcare. The last to take this step was Valencia. Two months ago, it introduced measures by which expatriates below retirement age and not registered as employed would no longer get free access.
They are now paying a €90 (£80) monthly tax, which will cease once they reach retirement age. The move brings Valencia into line with the rest of Spain – and France, where President Sarkozy took similar steps in 2007. But thousands of British men under 65 and women under 60 are still thought to be working unregistered in Valencia, the Costa del Sol and other expat

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