As Greeks tense for the outcome of the Troika’s review later this month, spare a thought for Spain. Madrid and Barcelona are awaiting a decision on which one of them will get the development known as EuroVegas. Local governments in both cities are touting the plan as a way to alleviate both the financial crisis and unemployment, currently at a record 25% and rising.
You want to tell them, be careful what you wish for. The six-casino resort complex is the latest plaything of Sheldon Adelson, the biggest single donor to Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign and a huge supporter of Zionism. Who did Paul Ryan go to see straight after receiving Romney’s nomination as vice-presidential candidate? Why, Sheldon Adelson, of course. He’s given $US6.5m so far and his Republican Jewish Coalition has vowed to spend up to $US100m to defeat Obama and stiff-arm Washington into a more aggressive pro-Netanyahu Middle East policy.
Adelson’s company Las Vegas Sands, the world’s biggest casino operator, is currently under investigation by the state of Nevada, by US federal authorities and by the Chinese government over allegations of money laundering, bribery and prostitution rackets, relating to both its American operations and its Macau venue. According to the Singapore newspaper Straits Times, documents filed in a wrongful dismissal lawsuit by a former employee show that “a man identified by the United States Senate as an organised crime figure” was allowed to move a US$100,000 gambling credit from the company’s Las Vegas casino to one of its Macau casinos in order to pay a bribe.
Adelson’s company claims that the planned Spanish complex would create a quarter of a million jobs and involve an investment of $6 billion. But it’s had the nerve, at a time when Spain has resorted to a 100bn euro bailout, to demand that 60% of the investment be raised locally from bankers for the competing cities. The tender also requires exemption from European and Spanish regulations governing construction, employment conditions, taxation and even smoking restrictions. The company wants tax breaks and the right to import cheap labour. This raises the issue of who rules – the elected government, or Las Vegas Sands?
LIKE A HEAD OF STATE
The past few months have seen the unedifying spectacle of local authorities in Madrid and Barcelona falling over themselves to court Adelson and his envoys, headed by his chief operating officer Michael Leven. Leven is positively salivating at the thought of taking advantage of the European crisis. “Sheldon calls it EuroVegas, but maybe the euro won’t be around when we go to build it,” he laughed recently. No one in Europe was hugely amused.
The Catalan Greens have expressed concern that Spanish authorities welcomed Adelson “like a head of state, while the most powerful countries in the world have placed him under suspicion.”
Possible sites for the casino city include the Alcorcon plateau near Madrid, home to thousands of unemployed immigrants, and the Llobregat Delta wetlands near Barcelona, which are Spain’s biggest source of sweet water.
The protest movement Stop EuroVegas is alarmed about the wetlands, but their wider concern is that politicians of all major parties are presenting the project as a means of salvation from the economic crisis, when it’s anything but. It is, they say in a statement, “a model of economic growth based on real-estate and financial speculation which is one of the main causes for Spain´s economic crisis”. Its main business, gambling, “will only benefit the multinational and not the local territory and businesses”.
A decision by Las Vegas Sands is expected in the next fortnight. Current speculation is that the “winner” of the casino project will be Madrid. In Barcelona the right-wing coalition government of Catalonia, which is effectively broke, is desperate to secure the development. But Madrid’s ultra-conservative regional president, Esperanza Aguirre, may have the edge – she’s a sympathiser of America’s Tea Party.
Whichever city gets it, EuroVegas will mean casino capitalism has come to Spain.
TAKING THE MEDICINE
The Greeks can always tell you why something you love is good for you. They invented hedonism, after all. I’d expected them to be passionate about olive oil. I’ve been mildly surprised by their devotion to honey – every small town has at least one small shop specialising in nothing else, and wonderful stuff it is, straight from the hive and full of goodness.
But ouzo? Well, it turns out to have so many traditional healing uses that its other name is to farmako – the medicine.
The famed island of Lesbos, also known as Mytilini, produces about half of Greece’s supply, traditionally prepared by local women from the remnants of grapes pressed for wine. It’s not usually distilled but left to develop in sealed bottles, most often with anise but sometimes with mint or coriander, and no sugar.
The island has an ouzo festival every August with music and dancing, talks by agronomists, nutritionists and sociologists – and of course a fair bit of eating and drinking. Health benefits proclaimed by the people of Lesbos include blood thinning, which is especially important in the hot Greek summer. It’s also used as a decongestant, an expectorant, an antiseptic and a cure for insomnia, toothache, rheumatism and just about any ill that inflicts the human frame.
Its digestive properties are the reason you normally drink it at the start of a meal, with a little water which turns it milky white, to accompany those delicious meze starters. But our Athenian friends swear you can drink it any time you like. In moderation, of course – neat, it’s 40% alcohol.