In Spain, mask traders, ex-kings, football stars and politicians are united by ruthless corruption. It’s a country habit because it’s easy.
The interior mask ban came to an end in Spain last week.
The compulsion to mask for more than two years was one of the last corona restrictions, now life in the country is even more reminiscent of the so-called old normal.
Even though the masks leave in front of people’s faces, there’s still enough talk about them for a long time.
Corruption also speaks of the old norm.
After the pandemic just over two years ago, it killed nearly a thousand people a day in Spain at its worst. Doctors and nurses weighed in a garbage bag for a long day when there was a shortage of protective equipment.
The situation was particularly bad in the hospitals of the capital Madrid.
Then two young entrepreneurs, Alberto Luceño and Luis Medina, smelled of niche.
They knew the cousin of the mayor of Madrid, which allowed them to do the trades of their lives.
Protective equipment and tests also did not meet quality standards.
From the deals, they offset a commission of almost one million euros.
In the neighboring town of Marbella, they slept in a hotel that cost 6,000 euros a night.
Now The prosecutor of the Spanish Anti-Corruption Unit is investigating the mask shops and the mayor’s involvement in them.
It has ordered the confiscation of Luceño’s and Medina’s million-dollar commissions and the purchases made with them.
Luceño and Medina have said they acted out of sheer desire to help. According to the mayor, the relative link was a coincidence.
This is not the only obscure protective equipment trade.
Also the regional director of Madrid Isabel Díaz Ayuson is suspected for his brother-in-law “by chance”.
Of the masks that cost more than three times the market price, the company represented by the brother net a plush brokerage commission.
For the prosecutor, they know the jobs and the headlines familiar to the media.
When I moved To Spain 12 years ago, the country began the worst economic crisis in recent history.
At the time, there were also numerous cases of corruption in the headlines.
The consequences of both the economic crisis and corruption were particularly visible in my first hometown of Málaga and the surrounding Costa del Sol.
The holiday paradise favored by Finns was one of the main stages of Spanish corruption. In its cities, politicians took bribes against building permits when the nation became indebted.
Numerous publicly funded ghost projects also became symbols of the economic crisis and corruption.
Among other things, I visited the olive oil town of Jaén, where the new rough trams stood idle in the depot.
At the same time, some of the city’s schools were without electricity.
There are many things In Spain, it has improved in just over ten years, but corruption remains.
Both the main parties, the right-wing People’s Party Partido Popular and the current Prime Minister’s Party Socialists, have been able to grumble and bite out of the public cake.
The headlines have also included Barcelona star player, singer Shakiran known as spouse Gerard Piqué.
Why corruption then it’s so hard to get rid of?
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has raised the question in Spain, for example, of why the country’s energy revolution is lagging behind, even though it has wind, sun and lithium.
Because public money does not end up in the development of society, education and thus in the development of technology, as in Finland, for example, writes Puigverd.
Instead, money often ends up in the pockets of a small elite that gets rich through their relationships.
It is to be hoped that the EU’s recovery billions will not end up in the same pockets.