Ex-Castellón chief Fabra sentenced to four years for tax fraud

Provincial court convicts Popular Party veteran on four charges worth 700,000 euros

LORENA ORTEGA Castellón 25 NOV 2013 – 14:54 CET

Carlos Fabra, the former chief of Castellón province who became famous for building a planeless airport featuring a large statue in his honor, has been sentenced to four years in prison for tax fraud.

The anticorruption public prosecutor had requested an eight-year jail sentence for the Popular Party (PP) politician on four counts against him related with his not declaring income of almost two million euros to the tax office between 1999 and 2004 – a fraud worth almost 700,000 euros.

The Castellón provincial court absolved him of two other charges of influence peddling and bribery.

Fabra’s ex-wife was also sentenced to two years in prison on two other tax fraud charges.

The sentence is the culmination of a 10-year investigation into the man who headed the provincial council of Castellón, part of the Valencia region, between 1995 and 2011.

In the last session of the trial in October, the public prosecutor considered Fabra’s responsibility proven and emphasized the accusations of tax fraud: “He is not just any fraudster, he was president of the provincial council and while he demanded taxes he was committing fraud in the background.”

The sentence, which was made known on Monday, absolved the businessman who reported Fabra and his ex-wife of crimes of influence peddling and bribery. The ex-senator Miguel Prim, also charged with influenced peddling, was similarly cleared.

via Ex-Castellón chief Fabra sentenced to four years for tax fraud | In English | EL PAÍS.

Castellón airport needs a further three million euros to open

LORENA ORTEGA Castellón 8 NOV 2013 – 19:47 CET

The airport in Castellón — which has become notorious both at home and abroad for never having received a single plane — will require a minimum additional investment of three million euros before it will receive the authorization and permission it needs to open. That’s according to the conditions included in the tender published this week by the Valencia regional government for companies interested in the commercial exploitation and maintenance of the airport.

The baggage hall at Castellón airport, which has yet to receive any flights since it was inaugurated in 2011. / ÁNGEL SÁNCHEZ

The regional government has budgeted 25 million euros for the management of the airport over the next 20 years. But before the planes finally arrive, the region will have to finalize the documentation needed for the State Air Safety Agency (AESA) to certify that the airport complies with all of the requirements for operation. The airport is still lacking equipment and infrastructure, such as computer systems and software, the cost of which has been estimated at three million euros.

The government has decided that the company that wins the tender will have to assume this new cost. The public company Aerocas, which was set up to manage the airport project, will assume any cost overruns from the installation of the required equipment and infrastructure, according to the government documentation, “providing that it can be irrefutably proven that the planned investment of three million euros has been made.”

Former provincial leader Carlos Fabra — who is currently involved in a court case on accusations of corruption — inaugurated the airport back in March 2011. But at the time, the application for the certification process had not even begun. The time frame forecast for obtaining all of the necessary permits was six months, but the lack of proper documentation presented by the former managing company and the need to carry out further work on the airport — such as the lengthening of the runway — meant long delays.

The former managing company, Conaer, was supposed to have taken care of the certification of the airport. But a court case that saw Aerocas obliged to pay out 120 million euros for the additional work on the airport was symptomatic of Conaer’s slovenliness.

Aerocas publicly complained about the failure of Conaer to respect its commitments, not only for having left much of the work uncompleted but also because of its failure to present the documentation required.

But even after Aerocas broke off relations with the former managing company, it failed to complete the certification process. If the new tender is successful, the airport still won’t be ready to open until next year, given that the process of securing the certification will take around six months.

The details of the tender also explain that Aerocas will assume the costs of structural elements, such as repairs to the terminal. The successful managing company will then be able to choose between charging the regional government a maximum of 25 million euros over 10 years, independently of the passenger traffic achieved, or a payment system based on the number of people who arrive and leave from the airport.

The regional government opted for a new tender in the summer, after a failed attempt to sell the airport and after commissioning a new viability study.

via: Castellón airport needs a further three million euros to open | In English | EL PAÍS.

A €150 Million Airport That’s Never Been Used

I reach Castellón, a somewhat sleepy coastal city on the Mediterranean, with a nice park and a phenomenally ugly department store.

As a child, I liked Castellón, the last place where we stopped to get gas before reaching our village. I’m here because I want to know why Castellón built an airport from which no aircraft has ever taken off, an airport that cost €150 million in a city that’s only 65 kilometers from Valencia, which already has an airport that’s much too big for the region.

I leave the Autopista del Mediterráneo and drive along the CV-10 toward the Castellón airport. The CV-10 is the best highway I’ve ever driven on. The asphalt is perfect, the signs are new, and there is grass in the median. After about half an hour, I’m standing in front of a fence arguing with a security guard. The man reaches for his radio and says: “Serra 1 to Serra 2, we have a code 3!”

You can trigger a code 3 by asking a guard at the fence whether you can take a look at the airport from up close, an airport that was built with taxpayer money and was officially opened on March 25, 2011.

I get out of the car. Behind me is a large sculpture standing at the access road to the airport. A good friend of a local politician is still working on the piece, which is unbelievably ugly and reportedly cost €300,000. The guard talks into his radio. From where I’m standing, I can see the tower, some of the 3,000 parking spaces and a portion of the 2,700-meter (8,856-foot) runway.

“I gave your license plate number to the police,” says the guard. I nod and think to myself that the Castellón airport isn’t even the most pointless — and certainly not the most costly — airport in Spain. An airport was built in Ciudad Real, 160 kilometers from Madrid, at a cost of €1 billion. It now serves small private aircraft.

For years, Castellón suffered from the fact that it wasn’t as important, rich or well-known as Valencia and Alicante, the other two major cities in the region. Someone hit upon the idea of changing that by building 17 golf courses. Seventeen 18-hole golf courses translate into a lot of golfers, hence the airport. The golf courses never materialized.

The city behaved like a microcosm of Spain as a whole. Spain didn’t want to be Europe’s little brother. It wanted real airports and real highways. The days were gone when people like my father would arrive at a German train station in jackets too thin for the climate. The new Spain could play football, and it had companies like global telecommunications giant Telefónica and world-famous chefs like Ferran Adrià.

I leave the guard standing where he is and return to the highway. I’ll be in my parents’ village in three hours. A small detour takes me past a large construction site on which the Spanish railroad system is building another high-speed line. The country has more high-speed rail lines than Germany or France.

I ask myself what it must have been like to be a politician in the boom years, a period of senseless intoxication and time without measure. To be re-elected, many politicians had to have something to show for themselves, a project, and preferably one built of stone and concrete. Playing fields, theaters, swimming pools and streetcars were popping up everywhere. The economy had gone mad, and so had politicians. But the democracy was fully functional. Spaniards could have asked where all the money was coming from, and why roads were improving and trains were getting faster, while their children were doing worse in school. They could have elected different politicians, more level-headed ones. I firmly believe that every village, every town and every province got exactly the politician it deserved.

This extract is taken from an article “A Visit To Absurdistan: What Happened to the Spain Where I Was Born?” by Juan Moreno published in Der Speigel. The full article can be seen here:-

http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/return-to-absurdistan-a-spiegel-reporter-visits-crisis-plagued-spain-a-847513-2.html

Valencia politicians shocked to hear engine roar at empty Castellón airport

Probe planned to find out how local racing driver gained permission to practice at phantom facility

ADOLF BELTRAN / LORENA ORTEGA Valencia / Castellón 22 ENE 2013 – 12:35 CET

“We’d gone there to denounce the fact that, two years after its inauguration, it still hasn’t opened,” said Valencia regional deputy María José Salvador after a visit to Castellón airport. “When we got there we heard a noise like a Formula 1 car and we saw a vehicle doing laps of the runway.”

One of the cars in practice at Castellon Airport

Upon quizzing the security guard, the delegation of politicians, which included the deputy speaker of the Valencia assembly, Ángel Luna, and the mayor of nearby Vila-real, José Benlloch, were directed to the public company that runs the airport, Aerocas. Its president, Carlos Fabra, is a former Castellón provincial leader and the driving force behind the facility, which has yet to see a single plane arrive or leave.

One of the delegation, Eva Martínez, called Aerocas and was told that the car had permission to be there by an administrator who did not confirm the name of its driver. Her question was answered when a group of children arrived to catch a glimpse of Roberto Merhi, a Formula 3 champion and local resident, who now competes for Mercedes in the DTM championship.

Merhi visited Fabra in 2010 and presented him with a model of his car, which bore sponsorship from the local tourism department. Despite Martínez’s failure to raise an Aerocas manager on the phone, she held little doubt as to who had authorized the session: “I’m sure it’s the person who thinks the airport is his.”

The delegation said that their planned complaint will not be to do with the driver’s training but the lack of transparency over activities at the phantom airport, which was opened in 2011 by Fabra and former premier Francisco Camps, who resigned that year to stand trial in the Gürtel corruption case.

via http://elpais.com/elpais/2013/01/22/inenglish/1358854320_929967.html

In Spain, a Symbol of Ruin at an Airport to Nowhere

By RAPHAEL MINDER

Published: July 18, 2012

MADRID — A plane has finally reached the ghost airport of Castellón, in southeastern Spain.

Domenech Castello/European Pressphoto Agency

This statue at an airport in Castellón Province in Spain was supposed to honor an official who is now under investigation.

Rather than sitting on the runway, however, the aircraft, an aluminum model, was placed this week atop a giant statue along the entrance road to the airport — another twist in the tale of a $183 million project that has become a symbol of the wasteful spending that has sunk Spain deep into a recession and a banking crisis.

The statue, 79 feet tall and budgeted at $375,000, was supposed to honor Carlos Fabra, the longstanding head of Castellón’s provincial government and the driving force behind the airport project.

Mr. Fabra was placed under judicial investigation this year in connection with several cases of corruption and tax evasion. He has not been charged, however, and he is not expected to appear in court before the end of the year.

On Saturday, Mr. Fabra formally stepped down as the head of the provincial branch of Spain’s governing Popular Party, which he had run for 22 years. He still maintains the chairmanship of the public company that runs the airport.

Even though the airport has failed to attract a single scheduled flight, Mr. Fabra has staunchly defended his project. In March 2011, when the airport was formally inaugurated, he argued that it would provide a unique opportunity to turn an airport into a tourist attraction, giving visitors full access to the runway and other areas normally kept out of bounds because of safety concerns.

On Saturday, he again described the airport as “a necessary development tool” for his province. Castellón lies in the region of Valencia, which has a debt load of just under $25 billion and a credit rating that was recently downgraded to junk status.

The statue was commissioned by Mr. Fabra and was built by a local sculptor, Juan Ripollés, who titled his work “The Plane Man.” Mr. Ripollés is now saying that he was forced to spend $155,000 of his own money and “empty the pockets of my children” to complete a work that, he said, ended up costing about $600,000.

As part of a decade-long construction and housing boom, Spain added airports, toll roads and railway lines, often under pressure from regional politicians seeking a greater presence within the national transport network. Many of the recently built highways are now deserted, and only one-fifth of Spain’s airports made a profit last year.

Mr. Fabra’s daughter, Andrea, a national lawmaker who also represents the Popular Party, sent a written apology this week to the speaker of Parliament after a defamatory outburst last Wednesday, when Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy presented an $80 billion austerity package, including cuts in unemployment benefits. Ms. Fabra later insisted that her insult was aimed not at the jobless but at the Socialist lawmakers, who later asked for her resignation.

A version of this article appeared in print on July 19, 2012, on page A8 of the New York edition with the headline: In Spain, a Symbol of Ruin At an Airport to Nowhere.

via In Spain, a Symbol of Ruin at an

Airport to Nowhere – NYTimes.com.

Castellón resort “rejected” as EuroVegas site after last-ditch casino bid

A day after Castellón announced that it wanted to be considered as a bidder for Sheldon Adelson’s EuroVegas, the Las Vegas Sands Corporation said Tuesday that it would not consider the Valencia province’s offer to host the multi-million-euro mega casino project at the Marina d’Or resort complex.

Company sources said that “only Barcelona and Madrid are being considered” by Aldeson to build his mammoth casino, hotel and convention center project, but “thanked” Castellón for its interest, Europa Press reported.

“At this moment, negotiations are nearly at their final stage,” the sources said, adding that both Barcelona and Madrid still have a “50-50 chance” of hosting EuroVegas.

Castellón made a splurge on Monday when it announced that it was throwing its hat into the ring at this stage of the game.

Lluís Recoder, the Catalan commissioner for territory and sustainability, said that he thought Castellón was “a latecomer.”

Officials at Marina d’Or had said they only made a formal proposal to bid for the project, and were waiting to hear from the chairman and CEO of the Las Vegas Sands Corporation so they can set up a meeting.

Marina d’Or and Castellón airport are two of the biggest construction flops of the past decade

Valencia government officials said they were being “prudent” about the proposal, but regional premier Alberto Fabra on Tuesday was less than discreet. “We are going to give them all the help they want, where it is needed, so that this dream becomes reality,” the Popular Party (PP) premier told reporters. But others, such as Lola Johnson, the Valencia tourism commissioner, and Javier Moliner, the speaker of the regional parliament, played down the announcement by acknowledging that the plans were still in their “infancy.”

Landing EuroVegas would be a huge stroke of luck for Castellón, which has been grappling with two of the biggest regional construction flops of the past decade. Thousands of homes built during the real estate boom sit empty at the seaside Marina d’Or resort, in Oropesa del Mar, while Castellón is also dealing with a white elephant regional airport, which has still not seen a single plane given that it is unable to obtain the necessary flight permits. What’s more, the State Agency for Air Security has found that its main runway is too narrow for airplanes to turn around, and will have to be widened to meet regulations. The subject of intense criticism by the Valencian Audit Office, the airport cost 200 million euros to build with an additional 30 million euros spent on advertising. It was the pet project of Castellón’s former provincial administrator, Carlos Fabra (no relation to Albert Fabra), also of the PP.

Marina d’Or president Jesús Ger has offered EuroVegas some 18 million square meters of land between Oropesa del Mar and Castellón, where he had planned to build the massive Marina d’Or Golf resort. Currently there are three golf courses, a string of hotels and hundreds of apartments built on the land, but the project, which was approved by the Valencia regional government in 2010, never got off the ground.

In 2009, Marina d’Or was 700 million euros in debt. Its workforce was reduced from 1,540 employees to 865.

Carlos Fabra, who remains the PP party leader in Castellón as well as secretary general of the local chamber of commerce, also came out on Tuesday in favor of bringing EuroVegas to Marina d’Or.

“It would be the end of an old chapter and the beginning of a new era for Castellón,” he said in a press release. Fabra went on to say that “its proximity to the airport, its 320 days of sun a year, and the efforts made by Marina d’Or provide the necessary framework to make this a success.”

LORENA ORTEGA Castellón 5 JUN 2012 – 19:29 CET

via http://elpais.com/elpais/2012/06/05/inenglish/1338917024_575153.html

Airstrip at Castellón’s plane-free airport needs to be widened

State Agency for Air Security has found that main strip is too narrow for planes to turn around

Regional officials have kept problem under wraps since April 2011

MARÍA FABRA Castellón 14 FEB 2012 – 20:45 CET

The airport in Castellón — a controversial multi-million-euro regional air facility that was inaugurated last year but hasn’t seen a single plane land — will soon see its air strips being torn up. The State Agency for Air Security has found that its main strip is too narrow for airplanes to turn around, and will have to be widened to meet regulations.

Regional officials found out about the narrow-runway problem in April 2011, when the airport was inaugurated, but kept it under wraps. The airport, the brainchild of former provincial leader Carlos Fabra, was never opened because it still doesn’t have the proper permits to receive air traffic.

The private contractor hired to run the airport for 50 years is demanding that the Valencia government reimburse the airport management firm the sum of 80 million euros for canceling its contract.

via Airstrip at Castellón’s plane-free airport needs to be widened | In english | EL PAÍS.

Still waiting for take off

It is now less than two months for the date given for the commencement of flights from Castellón Airport and there is still nothing definite to report.

Last week at a conference under the title “The impact of the airport on the Castellon economy” Juan Garcia Salas, Director of the Castellon airport, admitted that we’ve done things wrong and we have made mistakes although he did not specify what they were and made a plea to ensure that that planes arrive and the infrastructure is profitable.
He was subjected to questions from the audience, who insisted on the fact that the infrastructure continues without airplanes. Several audience members posed questions to the airport director. Among others, a German woman, who focused upon the fact that 8,000 Austrian tourists had to come through Reus last year because the airport of Castellón was not operational, a circumstance that will be repeated again this year. Salas Garcia said he went personally to Austria to ask pardon of the president of Austria for not having been able to achieve the airport.
Garcia Salas defended the airport as necesarry to put Castellón on the world map. He stated that its execution is an investment and not an expense. Acknowledging failure, he said the important thing is that the balance is positive and for it we work. In this regard, he urged the tourism sector and the Administration to begin selling what Castellón has. We have to package our product better, we have things we have not been able to exploit. Those who think it is crap, think that is your crap and you have to sell it and start to extol its advantages and not its shortcomings, he said bluntly.
As for the arrival of the first flights, Garcia Salas said it was almost almost seven months since the submission of the necessary documents for approval and, within 15 days, they will be visited by the technicians. But that is not enough. Those who bring the planes are the tour operators or companies and that rests not with me but with the tourism sector, he said. That is why we urge hoteliers in the room to start working to add value to the province, recognize that the product offered by the province is not the best in the universe and they have to improve the offer.
Garcia Salas also spoke about the search for a manager after the breaking off of the contract between the Generalitat and Airport Concessions. He said, we have to determine if Aerocas edoes this itself. If it has to do it, and that’s the order I receive, it will and if it has to outsource to another company it would would be done.
With regard to air traffic control, the airport director announced that the next council is expected to award the air traffic control to Saerco. Aerocas has had to re-process the file after the withdrawal of the previous award.

White elephants

In the past few days there has been so much in the press about Castellon Airport that it is difficult to keep track of it. It would appear that Castellon Airport has become the metaphor for waste in Spain.
Adolf Beltran in his article “Una manada de elefantes blancos” in El País claims that the airport without planes of Castellón triumphs in the world as a symbol of waste. He quotes the recent article in the Daily Telegraph “Spain’s white elephant airport 30 milion euros spent on advertising.”

There was the Giles Tremlett article “Spanish politicians 24-metre sculpture prompts accusations of megalomania” in the Guardian reproduced here last week.

And then this weekend in El País there was the rant of Antonio Muñoz Molina “La era de la fealdad” ( The era of ugliness) in which he makes reference to the airport.

“To remind that the sculpture will cost 300,000 euros is without doubt a meanness. Who puts a price on art. And after all that spending is a trifle at an airport that has cost 150 million euros, and will cost 8 million a year to maintain. In the not improbable case that no plane comes to land, the locals can indulge walking bucolically along the runway and admire in silence the sculpture of the artist Ripollés. Perhaps in a thousand years the 20-ton Castellón colossus will be one of the few visible relics of our era of ugliness.”

Spanish politicians 24-metre sculpture prompts accusations of megalomania

A copper monument dedicated to Carlos Fabra is being erected in front of a new airport at public expense.

Giles Tremlett in Madrid guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 10 January 2012 16.15 GMT

Many Spanish airports have been forced to close, raising questions about the new airports viability. It is the biggest white elephant in Spain – a €300,000, 24-metre-high statue dedicated to an infamous politician whose face will welcome people to a brand new airport that no one uses.The monument to Carlos Fabra, head of the newly built airport in the eastern province of Castellon and local boss of the governing Peoples party PP, is being erected in the middle of a roundabout at the airports entrance.Although still only half-built, the 20-tonne copper sculpture has provoked outrage in a Spain gripped by ferocious public spending cuts and massive unemployment.The local sculptor Juan Ripollés has said one of several faces on the monument will be that of Fabra, who recently retired after 16 years as president of the provincial assembly.”It is a homage to the origins of the airport project and to the person behind it, Carlos Fabra,” he explained. “It is made up of several faces, and will include the figure of Fabra.”The bill will be paid by the public company in charge of the airport, which happens to be run by Fabra himself.”This is proof of Fabras megalomania,” said the regional deputy Marian Albiolo of the opposition United Left party.With the newly built airport not yet in use, and questions already being raised over its viability after several airport closures in Spain, the money for the monument in effect comes out of taxpayers pockets.”This airport was finished 10 months ago, is not used and owes money,” said the socialist deputy Joaquim Puig.Fabra has been at the centre of corruption allegations with, among other things, court investigators wanting to know how he regularly appears to win Spains El Gordo Christmas lottery – whose winning tickets are sometimes bought up by people trying to launder money. He denies the allegations, which have yet to be brought to trial.Fabra belongs to the Valencia regional branch of PP, the party of the prime minister, Mariano Rajoy. PP is mired in numerous corruption scandals.The Valencia region also has one of the biggest budget deficits in Spain, with the regional PP government this week announcing new tax rises and spending cuts.Austerity measures are being put into place across Spain as the economy sinks into the second part of a double-dip recession and unemployment reaches 23%.

via Spanish politicians 24-metre sculpture prompts accusations of megalomania | World news | guardian.co.uk.