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FT 25 JAN 92 / Too high a Costa?: The 'nursing home of Europe'
By NICK INMAN and CLARA VILLANUEVA
'KEEP Gibraltar,' Spain's King Juan Carlos is reported to have said to
Prince Charles. 'Just let us have Javea back.'
A sleepy port on the Costa Blanca, Javea could almost be another Home
Counties borough were it not for the perpetual sunshine. Its gleaming white
houses are fringed by well-intentioned but threadbare lawns and thirsty rose
bushes. There is an English school, an Anglican church, a local Conservative
branch, a tea room and a charity shop.
Javea is typical of Mediterranean Spain. From Valencia to Gibraltar, the
coasts have been taken over by Britons and other northern Europeans. It has
been estimated that 7 per cent of the population of Alicante province are
what are oxymoronically called 'residential tourists.' Some resorts have
more foreign residents than native Spaniards, posing unusual political and
social problems.
According to Francisco Jurdao and Maria Sanchez, authors of a study of
Spain's foreign residents, there are 1.5m foreigners living in Spain
(including 160,000 Britons) - three times the number of officially
registered foreign residents. Exact figures are hard to come by because most
residents seek invisibility for tax purposes.
'Don't use my name or say I live here,' said one man, 'I come for three
months at a time as far as the Inland Revenue and the immigration
authorities are concerned.' These are not film stars and criminals, 80-90
per cent are elderly or early-retired people.
The first settlers arrived in the late 1960s when Spain was a backward
country by European standards and desperate for income. Life was cheaper and
no town hall clerk dared to wave the planning by-laws at a sterling-bearing
foreigner.
Since Spain joined the EC in 1986, the cost of living has soared. Foreign
settlers resent the rise. Some claim that, were it not for the reduced
winter fuel bills, it would be cheaper to live in Britain. A few have gone
home already.
Others would like to but are caught in an expatriate 'poverty' trap. The
money they would get for their villas would not buy them anything comparable
in the inflated British property market.
They are not in Spain because they love it. They have come for the good life
in which it is always afternoon and the booze is cheap enough to substitute
for tea.
The ex-patriates remain determinedly British. They observe English
meal-times; they have their own pubs and clubs, fish and chip shops,
newspapers and magazines. They keep their TVs tuned to satellite channels.
'Their bodies are in Spain but their brains are in England,' said Alan
Lipton, former editor of a local newspaper.
The further away Spaniards ('them') and the real Spain are, the better. The
language and culture are of little interest to the settlers and the natives
are almost an inconvenience: Spaniards, they moan, know all about
bureaucracy but nothing about queuing.
Their lingua franca is English. To talk Spanish is almost unpatriotic.
Twenty-two per cent of foreigners questioned by Francisco Jurdao and Maria
Sanchez on the Costa del Sol did not believe it was necessary to know any
Spanish to live in Spain. 'To solve the problem of communication,' said one,
'the Spanish should learn languages because the majority of us find it hard
to learn Spanish.'
The authorities seem content to leave the foreigners alone in return for
their contribution to the country's crucial tourist industry, which accounts
for 10 per cent of GNP. In fact, the money they bring to Spain is minimal.
Their savings are kept in Gibraltar, Jersey and the Isle of Man - out of
reach of British and Spanish tax men. The rich set up offshore companies
especially to 'buy' their houses and avoid tax.
Until now the two communities - indigenous and settler - have gone their
separate ways. But the day of reckoning is at hand. Spaniards are beginning
to wonder what has happened to their once-beautiful coasts and who all these
people are, living in Spain but refusing to be part of it.
So far, it has been up to each coastal town to cope as best it can. Some
have made a good living from the marks, kronas and guilders; but they may
yet have to pay the price.
Thirty years ago, Alfaz del Pi (population 7,000, more than half of them
foreigners) was a sleepy orange-growing village of dirt roads. Now, it has
modern health and art centres, a multi-lingual radio station and children of
18 nationalities at its primary school.
Improvements have been paid-for largely by the town's disenfranchised
foreigners. Mayor Toni Fuster waxes eloquent about his 'planetary town' with
its 'great international family,' but most of his foreign residents would
rather have their cash than the services.
What do you say to a retired foreigner who does not want to pay for all
these public works? 'It's a question of solidarity,' said Domingo Martin,
Alfaz's director of services. 'No one lives alone.'
The foreigners may not agree when they finally get to vote in local
elections. The Dutch were deprived of the vote last time by a loophole
engineered by the Socialist government, fearful that the 'grey vote' would
be cast in self-interest. It is unlikely that the government will be able to
stop EC citizens voting in the next elections in 1995.
Spain is fast becoming the 'nursing home of Europe': a sunny place where
colder countries 'export' their elderly. Even Japan has flirted with the
idea of creating colonies of pensioners on the Costa del Sol.
In the meantime, someone has to clean up the mess caused by three decades of
unchecked coastal development. Most estates were built hastily in the days
before democracy, conservation and planning. 'Someone's going to have to
sort out the problems of sewage, rubbish disposal, water pollution, soil
erosion and desertification,' said a spokesman for Valencia Community's
Environment Agency.
If, in a borderless Europe, we all decide to end our days in the sunshine,
someone will first have to bring order to the chaos.
The Financial Times
London Page VIII