What is the latest news from your country?

I really depends on location.

Take the island where I live, Mallorca: Cost per sqm will be around 2000 Euros+

Take Spain main land, there are (a last life project I would love to find people for, any takers!!??) *WHOLE VILLAGES* (almost abandoned) for sale at around 15.000+ Euros (of cause, because nobody wants to live there, they usually are in rural areas with hard climatic conditions either way: Rain or Heat, or Cold, no infrastructure, and the youth -so it existed- has left ofr the cities to earn a living: Running an Olive Orchard is not the way to make money nowadays...), some of them have been bought and become real beauties by private inititiative of (normally) young people, renting out the places for work input and activating tourism.

Examples:

1. This village (Lacasta), inc. castle, is for sale for 189.000 Euros (that is the price of an average apartment in any other place in Europe):

España Directo: Lacasta, pueblo abandonado en venta

2. The villages shown in the next vid cost between 50.000 and 200.000 Euros (the vid name has it: "Where Silence Lives"), you can take ti (and the responibilities) tomorrow.

Pueblos Abandonados de Tierras Altas de Soria

This  one costs 5.999 Euros, alltogether:

UMBRALEJO, UN PUEBLO ABANDONADO CON FUTURO

This one was for free, if you were a baker, carpenter or plumber and promise to keep the profession going (a Romanian family took it over):

Se Ofrece Vida Nueva (Offer: A New Life). Tempero (24/06/2007)

There are literally hundreds of them.

Rattler

"Mil" in Spanish means "thousand" in English... 189.000 Euros, not Millions

Yes, of cause.


Not that I knew of. Laws for foreign buyers are the same as for Spanish buyers, no difference. You can be forced to cede your land (foreigner or Spaniard alike) if a project like a motorway etc. needs it, but it will have to be for parliament decision that has declared public interest. Apart from this there is no way you can be forced to let your land to government. In France, there is a law that foreigners can not inherit land they bought to their heirs, once they die it falls back to the government, but this is not the case in Spain.


This totally depends on the village, there are completely inctact (if not on modern standards) houses as well as run down ones, the whole spectrum.

Rattler

Thanks Rattler,  that is so interesting...

In France, there is a law that foreigners can not inherit land they bought to their heirs, once they die it falls back to the government, but this is not the case in Spain.


I was just wondering where you got this info. from?  do you have a link for this?

if they knew where he was...why wasn't he arrested then by Irish police? no exchange treaty between Ireland and Spain?

euh...good job?  grrr

Personally I do have a big problem with *imposing* dress rules on people by state, for various reasons, the main being that once that goes through, where is the barrier of state telling me it is illegal to wear jeans if I want to? I went nuts on the supposed "carnival ban" in Germaany in the 70s when it was supposed that wearing a mask was akin to treason, because security forces could not identify you in a (possible) Commie manifestation/demonstration?? ??  Ever crossed your mind why Franco prohibited (catholic) Carnival in this (catholic) country where I live?

Dont fall into this trap (but it looks populism, as in the 30´s, wins, at least in Belgium and Arizona...).

Seriously, being a left liberal, this is not what state should be allowed to decide by law, I was against it in the 70s when it affected me and my buddies ("Vermummungsverbot" = Mummery Prohibition, still in vigor in Germany, here a translation of the relevan WIkipedia entry: http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=es&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fde.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FVermummungsverbot&sl=de&tl=en) , I am against it now when it is others affected (the same goes for the right of - hated from my POV! - NeoNazis expressing their screwed ideas publically, my mil life was trying to reserve this possibilty for *everybody*, else from my POV we would fall again for state dictating values where people do not have a say - Jeans? Prohibited, because we say so !!).

OTOH I will not accept  at face value the juridical claim of a muslim asking for religious liberty if he comes from a state as Marroco, where constituion grants same liberty in theory, but Christians are not allowed to build a church (that is for building Saudi Arab financed Moques), I really want him to explain why he needs a mosque here and Christians cannot hav e a church there...

For me this comes down to ideologically fueled bigotry, along the populistic line of "You came here because you wanted. Adapt to our rules (or: - openly, publically - fiight for the people that made the journey the other way around having the same rights in your country of origin if constitution has it). I, to a certain degree, go along with that, quite conscious of what constitution grants *everybody* living here.

It is a difficult decision, but in the end my take is that *we* are the people (of this country) that fought over centuries to have certain rights (and it is sacrilege from my POV to deny them as the Belgians did, wasting lifes lived of fight for what makes us: Secularism and anti- absolutism for a populistic effect: Goebells, anyone?):

Let everybody live his religion, but in our countries, make immigrants *accept* the rules that come with living in it, or leave (oh, so it is not the pace you wanted to live after all?), no ofeense or laws necessary, just a social consensus (SOCIAL = not necessary POLITICAL).

Really, lets come to our senses, if I choose to live on Mallorca as a German, I have to accept there are Malloquin rules that differ from whaat I was used to in Germany, right?

Rattler

We're wondering what the hell to do with North Korea.

So, you are even stating it yourself and contradicting the first half of your statement: Dress rule (law) after all! (...and being in agreement does not necessarily make a law constitutional or "right", most of the times it just shows that law makers got a sense for populism, we had that 75 yrs ago, thank you...).

The problem is: One thing is a *school* rule (we currently have the case in Spain) - as you know about the rules before you decide which school you choose, and should rules change during your stay, you could change school  - which I find OK, or a *state* rule on its citizens.

For me that brings back the memories of the long list of "rules" imposed by state on a part of the citizens because of religion (all applauded at that time as the hiyab prohibition now) that Monty brought so nicely back to our attention:



Sounds familiar under the muslim aspect?

Belgium, France, Germany, Spain: For Jews, er... Muslims, ritual butcher of animals for nutrition purposes ("Schächten") is forbidden; Jews, er... Moslems, may not wear a Burkha on the street anymore, od a hiyab on public places...; mosques may not have a muezzin, etc... (I am exaggerating here, of cause, but with the Jews in Germany it started out with small things also and I fear we re on the same track, from my POV in Germany it will be ruled inconsitutional, and rightly so).

Maybe I am over sensitive to that, but we have gone through this before as a nation and people and are - rightly so - until today questioned as to "how could you let this happen?!".

Point is, it goes gradually, and liberty is lost in small fractions at a time, and even under applause of everybody present...

My take - and firmly so - is that state has not to iimpose any dress rules, positive or negative: Neither has he the right to force a certan religion to wear a signal that identifies them as belonging to it (star), nor has he the right to request that you *not* wear a signal identifying you as belonging to a religious group (what about nuns?).


Nothing (or only very little) to do with it.

In Germany we had as a result of the 68 situation a law that forced everybody who applied for being a functionary or public job holder (postmen, teachers, street cleaners and soldiers, just to name a few) to prove that he "actively" supported our constitution, else he was not allowed to distribute e.g letters or recolect garbage as  political risk.

Of cause, this was on the height of the Cold War, and directed against anything communist (or suspiciously close to it, whatver that means), and as such was actually anti-constitutional (the ironing here that law makers voluntarily broke constitution to save it...  ).

The problem was that if you, just as an example, participated in a nonviolent and totally legal (even officially allowed and protected by police) demonstration, lets say e.g. against house speculation in Frankfurt, your picture would be taken by the "Verfassungsschutz" (Constitution Protection Police wold be the closest translation), and then the pictures would be screened in Higher, assuming that taking part in a demonstration was not what would be considered "active" support of the constitution (as you were protesting against a constitutional right on speculation, i.e. capitalism, even if you were attacking the bad side of it).

For us soldiers, but also for many others, e.g. people like Henk, this resulted in some serious questioning by authorities, and then in 80+% termination of your state job.

As a result people started wearing masks on those demonstrations, which then again triggered the law forbidding wearing masks in public, with the effect that all participants on public carnival moves were suddenly criminls (nobody had thought the consequences through).

Later (80s) it went even further: As you could not be sanctioned for a demonstrating for some idea if you did not apply violence, a law was made that qualified "standing or sitting on a street inhibiting free circulation of traffic by presence" (the classical sit-in) as "violence"...

The real irony behind all this is that the people I know and that had joined our ranks in those years were actually not asking anything else but that the constitution would be validated and valued as what it was and is: The juridical base we are standing on... We called that (and I feel part of this movement until today) "Verfassungspatriotismus" (translated, more or less as: "Patriot to the Constitution" as opposed to the "motherland"), and this was what we were fighting for in the 70s, be it as teachers, soldiers, thinkers, students or whatever.

As with all "temporary" restrictions imposed once by politics, none of those has never been lifted and still is law in vigor in Germany in all mentioned aspects (they solved the constitutional conflict problems by taking the functionary status off postmen or street cleaners and simply decreting that sit-ins will not be prosecuted anymore, can be reversed tomorrow if needed...).

The only connection with RAF terrorism is that it was the same time frame and originated by the same problems felt, nothing more.

Rattler

Sorry, Jilly, had forgotten about that one.

I do not recall where I have this information from exactly, I remember having read it over a decade ago when this was installed and I am quoting from my memory here: Apparently too many Germans bought houses in the south of France was the reason for modifying the laws there. The newspapers I read at that time were the daily "Süddeutsche Zeitung" and the weekly "Der Spiegel", I would  think it was from one of those two.

Maybe somebody is interested to do some internet research on that?

On first attempt, and not in detail, I just found that things are indeed difficult:

http://www.slowtrav.com/france/planning/real_estate.htm :



In-depth information here (though, not intending to ever buy something in France, I did not read it ): http://www.about-french-riviera.com/french-succession-law.html

Rattler