Tag: Autonomo

Latest Gran Canaria News, Views & Sunshine

Foundation Investigated for Alleged Mismanagement of Public Funds Meant for Care of Unaccompanied Migrant Minors

The 7th Investigative Court of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria has opened a preliminary investigation into the Social Response Foundation Siglo XXI and four of its directors. The Anti-Corruption Prosecutor’s Office in Las Palmas filed a complaint against them, alleging crimes that could include forgery of commercial documents, mismanagement, and embezzlement of public funds. The investigation aims to determine whether this nonprofit organisation, and its officials, could have misused public funds intended for the care of unaccompanied migrant minors, during the migration crisis of 2020 that was precipitated by the pandemic confinement on the islands, leading to a build up of arrivals having to be assessed and cared for by the Canary Islands Regional Government, using hotels left empty due to the lack of tourism. The estimated amount involved in the alleged misuse stands at around €12.5 million between 2020 and 2022 on Gran Canaria alone.

 

Canary Islands Expect Rain and Potential Storm Weather Next Week

The Canary Islands are preparing for a change in the weather next week, as a significant increase in cloud is expected bringing higher probability of rain. The effects of a powerful storm forming in the Atlantic Ocean are likely to extend to the Canary Islands as well as neighbouring Madeira and The Azores.

 

The Canary Guide #WeekendTips 2-4 June 2023

June is here and that means that summer is just around the corner. The Patron Saints’ festivities in honour of San Juan de Bautista and San Antonio de Padua are just getting started on Gran Canaria, and in Pueblo de Mogán the main Romería pilgrimage for San Antonio El Chico is this first Saturday of June, as well as the start of the build up to those in Arucas, Santa Brígida and Moya. This weekend also brings the biggest outlet fair shopping experience back to INFECAR and a collectables fair in Gáldar.
OPERATION KILO is this weekend, at all participating supermarkets, asking you to add a few non-perishable food items to the Food Bank collection boxes to help families in need.

Vox Enters Canarian Politics, Stage Right: Anti-Migrant, Anti-Feminist, Anti-Green, Anti-Autonomy, Anti-LGBT, Anti-Multiculturalism, Pro-Franco politics find a foothold on The Canary Islands

The Canary Islands were unable to avoid the rise of the far right on Sunday, unlike in 2019, writes Natalia G. Vargas in Canarias Ahora. Vox, which previously had no representation on the islands, managed to make its presence felt in several municipalities and councils this May 28. They also secured seats in the Canary Islands’ regional parliament, securing four deputies. “Defending what is ours, our own, and fighting against insecurity” were the slogans that underpinned Vox’s campaign in The Canary Islands, along with “family, employment, and freedom.” This rhetoric, coupled with an electoral program that was repeated across all local elections in Spain, proved sufficient. Dozens of cities and towns on the islands welcomed their first far right candidates of the modern democratic era into Canarian politics, with urban areas serving as their main strongholds.

La Alcaldesa Bueno Secures Incredible Majority in Mogán

Mogán, May 29, 2023 – The often controversial incumbent, O Bueno, La Alcaldesa, has achieved an unprecedented and resounding victory once more in Mogán. The candidate who switched her party’s name, for these elections, to “Juntos por Mogán”, a local ally of the regionalist conservatives “Coalición Canaria” (CC), will once again assume the role of mayor. Her party has clinched a rather noteworthy 17 out of the 21 seats in the Municipal Council of this popular tourism destination located on the sunny southwest of Gran Canaria.

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Contributions increase for Spanish self-employed workers despite losing €60 billion due to pandemic

The Association of self-employed workers (La Federación Nacional de Trabajadores Autónomos, ATA) has complained about the rise in the Social Security contributions rate for 2020, which was applied from October after having been postponed back when the pandemic began.
“The Ministry has been insensitive to the self-employed”,  the president of ATA, Lorenzo Amor, declared this Monday saying that the rate hike applied “has punished 3.2 million self-employed.”

 

Amor stressed that “now is not the time to carry out quota increases as a result of a pact agreed in 2018, when the economy was growing at 3% and when it was impossible to foresee that it would currently be falling by 12%. Freelancers don’t deserve this treatment”.
Social Security sources have explained that this rise in the contribution rates of the special regime for self-employed workers (RETA) was contemplated in an agreement reached between the Government and self-employed organisations back in 2018.
By virtue of this pact, which established greater protection for this group pending a reform of the RETA, the contribution rate was progressively raised over four years, from 30% in 2019 to 31% in 2022.
Last October there was an increase in contribution rates of three tenths, going from 0.7% to 0.8% for any cessation of activity and from 0.9% to 1.1% for professional contingencies, adding to the existing contingencies rate (28.3%) this has raised the total contribution rate to 30.3%.
According to the Ministry for Social Security, this rise represents an increase of €3 per month for most self-employed people, while, according to the ATA, it will raise the quota paid by the self-employed in September by between €6 and €24.
To this will be added, over the next few months, the rise corresponding to 2021, with the rate of contribution for cessation of activity rising one tenth, to 0.9%, and the professional contingencies rate by 0,2%, to 1.3%, reaching a total applicable rate of 30.6%.
There is a Government RETA reform on the table to charge self-employed people Social Security on the basis of their actual income, being negotiated with the social agents, but opinion among the self-employed seems quite divided.
ATA say that, according to their members’ barometer data, 43.9% of self-employed respondents are in favour of contributing based on real income and 35.9% are against the move, while 20.2% do not know or have not responded.

28.8% declare having suffered losses of more than € 30,000
With less than a month till Christmas, and night curfews in place across much of Spain, with lock down confinements, regional closures and considerable restrictions on hotels, leisure and commerce, the ATA barometer responses are a reflection of the extremely complicated situation that self employed people are going through this year. The self-employed have lost an estimated €60 billion so far throughout the pandemic.  28.8% of the self-employed people surveyed by ATA state that they have suffered losses of more than €30,000.
DOWNLOAD THE FULL BAROMETER HERE (In Spanish)
SITUATION OF YOUR BUSINESS CURRENTLY
Given the uncertainty the ATA are working to explore the real situation of self-employed workers and their activities at a time when practically every regional autonomous community in Spain have implemented restrictive measures on activities that directly affect the self-employed, such as hospitality and trade.
Currently, say the association, three out of four freelancers have some kind of restrictions on their business. Around 20% of the more than 2,000 self-employed members who were surveyed, 19.3% specifically, have their businesses and/or activities completely closed at the moment, which, according to the ATA, could be extrapolated to almost 620,000 self-employed people throughout Spain.  4.1%  of respondents claim to have been closed for business since last March. (Table 1).  56.5% say they have opened for business, but that they are working at 50% capacity.
 

Only 15.7% of the self-employed surveyed by ATA say that they are open and functioning normally and 3% even admit that they are doing even better than before the pandemic.

The results point to (table 2) an overwhelming 84.9% of self-employed people having seen a reduction in their turnover compared to the previous year and for half of them, the fall has been more than 60% (graph 2). 9.7% say that turnover has been maintained and 3.2% say that their turnover has increased despite everything.
 

The estimated loss for the self-employed in 2020 could stand at more than €60 billion. 28.8% of those surveyed say that their losses will exceed 30,000€, (Table 14) mainly in the events industry, entertainment (children ‘s entertainment, nightclubs, cultural and and other show) and to a lesser extent, the commerce sector.
11.1% of the self-employed who responded say they have made no losses this year.

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