When Ana Botella looks up from the files in her office on the fifth
floor of Madrid's city hall, she sees the crown of a fertility goddess.
The marble statue of Cibeles standing in a chariot being pulled by lions
is the centerpiece of a busy plaza in the Spanish capital. On good
days, the players and fans of Real Madrid, the city's league-leading
soccer club, celebrate their victories in the square in front of the
Cibeles Fountain.
Last Thursday wasn't one of those days. Instead of jubilant soccer
fans, there were tens of thousands of protestors waving red flags in
front of the fountain just below the balcony of Botella's office. They
were protesting against the fact that over 5 million of their fellow
citizens are unemployed and against the austerity measures imposed by
the conservative federal government, which are plunging many families
into poverty.
That morning, inside city hall, Botella and the city council had
decided to free up about €1 million ($1.3 million) in funds so that
rents could be reduced for the city's poorest residents living in
subsidized housing.
Indeed, these are hard times on Cibeles Square. Madrid's mayor still
has to pay over €1 billion for 16,712 outstanding bills from 2011 as
well as try to get the finances of Spain's most heavily indebted city
under control. And she needs to do so as quickly as possible.
Inherited Burdens
Ana Botella, 58, the wife of former conservative Prime Minister José
María Aznar, has been Madrid's mayor since the end of December. Before
that, she had served eight years as a city councilor, initially for
family and social affairs and, most recently, for transportation and the
environment. Rather than being elected to the office, Botella inherited
it from her predecessor after he was brought into the administration of
Mariano Rajoy, a fellow party member who became Spain's prime minister in November.
Botella inherited not only the office with the best view, a room
larger than the Oval Office in Washington, in a 1917 palace that was
converted into the city hall at a cost of €500 million, but also the
services of a butler whose sole duty is to serve coffee to her and her
guests. But she has also inherited close to €6.4 billion in debts.
By the end of March, Botella had to present the Finance Ministry with
an austerity plan demonstrating that the city's future expenditures
would no longer exceed its revenues. She had to draft this plan because
the government of conservative Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy enacted a
law last week that will impose sanctions on public administrations that
continue to incur new debts.
In this sense, the mayor's position is not unlike that of the prime
minister. For the 2012 budget, which he approved in the Council of
Ministers last Friday, he will have to make over €27 billion in cuts and
collect more than €12 billion in additional taxes.
Rajoy's socialist predecessor as prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez
Zapatero, also left behind a dubious legacy: a deficit of 8.5 percent of
GDP, which is much higher than what had been agreed to with Brussels.
The current administration is now expected to reduce the deficit to 3
percent of GDP by the end of 2013 -- a promise that Spain must keep at
all costs if it hopes to regain the confidence of its European partners
and the financial markets.
Unlike the prime minister, Botella cannot blame a political rival on
the left for the city's past wasteful habits. Instead, it was her
predecessor, a conservative, who had increased Madrid's debt by a factor
of five. He had a ring of expressways built around the city and pursued
Madrid's candidacy as a host city for the Olympics twice. In the
process, he spent many millions on stadiums that are now underused. The
new mayor wants to continue the city's bid for the 2020 Summer Olympics,
arguing that most of the infrastructure has already been built, -- and
that it's also important for a society to have its dreams. But, as far
as everything else is concerned, she champions a tough new austerity
course.
A New Political Style
Botella, a lawyer and devout Catholic, isn't the worst choice to
manage the city in its current plight. "I married at 23 and supported my
family during the first few years," Botella say proudly. She worked as a
civil servant in the administration, most recently in the Finance
Ministry. She only stopped working when her husband, whom she brought
into the conservative People's Alliance party in the late 1970s, became
prime minister in 1996 and the family of five moved into the Moncloa
Palace, the prime minister's official residence. She keeps a photo from
the night of the election on the bookshelf next to her desk.
As the wife of the prime minister, she was derided for wearing
leather jackets from a cheap retail store on official trips. She also
raised eyebrows once when she appeared in jeans and a plain jacket
instead of an evening gown at a reception for the royal couple.
Today, she also embodies a new style. Her predecessor in Madrid's
city hall was fond of luxury and fancied himself an excellent, well-read
speaker. Botella, on the other hand, wears off-the-rack dresses and
hardly any real jewelry. What's more, she stiffly adheres to her
prepared speeches -- partly out of a fear of repeating the kinds of
gaffes she has previously made in remarks about homosexuals or people on
the left.
City Belt-Tightening
But the thing most demanded of politicians these days is strict
bookkeeping. Four years ago, when the real estate bubble burst, one of
the main sources of revenues for Spain's municipal administrations dried
up. Cities could no longer collect nearly as many fees for issuing
building permits, and they also lacked the trade tax revenues from
construction contractors.
What's more, many companies in the construction sector were forced to
declare bankruptcy. While companies are required to pay value-added tax
upfront to the tax authorities, the customers -- and especially those
in the public sector -- were unable to make their payments to the
companies during the crisis.
Now the Rajoy government has promised assistance. Heavily indebted
cities can now borrow money for 10 years, at an interest rate of only 5
percent, from a €35 billion fund managed by the National Credit
Institute. The city of Madrid will avail itself of the offer beginning
in May so that it can finally pay close to 1,700 suppliers and
craftsmen. Nevertheless, the mayor still realizes she has to trim her
future spending and seek out additional sources of revenue.
To do so, Botella plans to start selling city assets, including
buildings and commercial interests, to local businesses, such as the
water utility. She has also made €130 million in cuts, reduced the size
of the city's motor pool, dismissed advisers, put the redesign of
Madrid's art district on hold and slashed subsidies for programs helping
drug addicts and first-time employees.
Cutting State
Spending
In addition to municipalities, Rajoy must also restructure the
country's 17 "autonomous communities," which are regions comparable with
Germany's federal states. Primarily responsibility for the fact that
government spending has spun out of control lies with these regions. The
new government and the overwhelmingly conservative governors of these
regions have agreed to impose debt ceilings. But since it will probably
be impossible to stay below these levels without additional cuts in
spending on education, health care and social benefits, many state-owned
companies will be privatized or dissolved.
On the weekend before last, voters gave Prime Minister Rajoy his
first warning. The leftists won an election in the southern region of
Andalusia, where unemployment stands at 31 percent, or 8 percent above
the national average. They had promised to guarantee the blessings of
the welfare state instead of focusing exclusively on austerity measures.
Rajoy's tactic of keeping his budget plan a secret in the run-up to
the regional elections failed. With his bid to avoid upsetting voters,
he had risked triggering a lot of resentment at the European Commission
in Brussels. His Italian counterpart, Mario Monti, even voiced his
"concern" over Spain's reliability, and the risk premium for Spanish
government bonds went up.
Shortly after coming into office, Rajoy used his absolute majority in
parliament to implement a tightening of the labor-market reforms
launched by his predecessor, Zapatero. It now enables troubled companies
to cut wages and lay off employees without having to pay substantial
severance packages. The conservatives believe that the new law will lead
to the signing of more employment contracts in the long term. Despite
the general strike, Rajoy intends to stand his ground.
The government wants the savings banks, whose books are burdened by
mortgages at risk of default as well as by devalued real estate, to
quickly coalesce into larger institutions. For the coming months, Rajoy
has also announced additional and "equally important" reforms in
government services for the public administration and in the energy
sector. The budget approved by his cabinet will force all ministries to
cut spending by at least 17 percent and freeze all civil-servant
salaries.
Time for Drastic Changes
Still, this is all far from enough. The Euro Group, made up of the
finance ministers of the 17 euro-zone member states, is demanding that
Spain reduce its deficit to 5.3 percent of GDP by the end of the year,
and it plans to monitor the country's progress. This has prompted Rajoy
to go against his campaign promises by raising some taxes after all. The
increase in income tax rates, limited to two years for now, has been in
effect since January, and the tax burden for large companies will also
be increased.
Union leaders and opposition parties on the left have been arguing
that the brutal austerity course is only expanding the army of the
unemployed, will curtail consumption and will deepen the recession.
Nevertheless, Rajoy remains confident. "The worst mistake is to do
nothing," he said
As Rajoy makes these changes, no elections will stand in his way for
at least 12 months. Mayor Botella has even more time. Madrid residents
will not be voting for a new mayor until 2015. Then the woman who
inherited her office might finally be elected.
Asombrado quedéme, este lunes a la hora del primer caviar, cuando el informativo de TVE me ofreció amplia cobertura de la entrega de un Globo de Oro a Jodie Foster,
sin citar que la actriz y directora había dedicado su discurso a
vindicar su lesbianismo. El parte se limitó a decir que había dedicado
el premio a su familia, sin especificar, por supuesto, que su familia
son dos hijos adoptados junto a su ex pareja fémina.
La Gaceta,
para quien ande desinformado de las excelencias culturales del país, es
un joven y arrogante periódico nacido en el apacible y susurrante seno
informativo de Intereconomía. Aquella mañana de autos en la que Jodie Foster apareció en TVE como una niña muy familiar y escasísimamente lesbiana, La Gaceta publicaba a mucha plana una entrevista con Philippe Ariño,
un chico católico vestido de lila que, desde que no folla, se dedica al
pentámetro yámbico libre. O sea, al verso: “Nadie imagina lo feliz que
soy desde que no practico la homosexualidad”, decía en vocingleros
titulares.
Cuando Jodie Foster reconoció su más que resabida homosexualidad en
los Globos de Oro, balbuceaba. Philippe Ariño, muy al contrario, gritaba
desde el interior de su traje lila su católica renuncia al gusto por
los varones. TVE elidió los balbuceos lésbicos de Jodie poniendo una voz
en off que ensalzaba a la familia, como si la familia de la
actriz fuera tradicional, católica, obámica, pepera y atendida
sanitariamente por un Güemes dimitido. La Gaceta, sin embargo, dio rienda suelta al misticismo apóstata gay de Philippe Ariño. Pues yo me quedo con La Gaceta.
Algunos de mis despreciables lectores (que son todos) dirán que el
hecho de que Jodie Foster haya aireado su homosexualidad no es noticia.
Que la noticia es el Globo de Oro. Pues no.
