Roamer's Column

I had no idea Spain was the second largest country in Europe after France, so I mugged up my Economist's World in Figures and there it was, exactly as I had been told by my professor in Spain. And yet, with a landmass of 505,000 square kilometres, it is half the size of Egypt - never knew that, either - and can fit three times into Libya, 18 times into the United States and almost twice that amount of times in Russia.

The country has no lakes or rivers or mountains to write home about. Its population is half that of Germany and its population density is lower than that of the United Kingdom. It places sixth in the lowest fertility rates (number of children per woman) - a mere 1.13 - and is the 11th largest economy in the world with a GDP that nudges 560 billion dollars. Spain runs the sixth largest deficit (-$17.257 billion). Huge as this is, it remains on the right side of safety as a percentage of GDP. Madrid does not feature among the 30 largest cities in the world.

It was to Madrid that six of us flew, intrepid travellers all. The holiday turned out to be an experience of extravagant opposites that started with an evening of never-to-be-forgotten flamenco in Madrid courtesy of our cultural mentor, the very same he who put me right on the size of Spain. It ended, for two of us, with a preferably not remembered, but by no means unpleasant, needs-to-be-recorded visit to a police station in Barcelona; our second in the space of three days. A notice in the waiting area informs visitors that the police "offer to recuperate different documentation keys and credit cards in order to return your goods as soon as possible". Now there's a comprehensive health service for you.

In between the exhilarating freedom of dance and the undesirable propinquity to gaol, there were excursions to Toledo (too short, too short; our guide too fast, too fast); to Segovia, where the professor cut his birthday cake and, I must add, helped himself to a goodly piece of it having consumed the vastest merluzz - but then he has the luxury of being on the right side of 60 - and after an al fresco lunch which we ate in the arched shadows of a magnificent Roman aqueduct, said learned gentleman, fluent in Spanish and other linguistic disciplines, joined the tour to visit the Alcazar accompanied by his wife, the senior administrator in a private school, my companion, a lady of property and leisure, and by the wife, also propertied, of a successful entrepreneur, who asked me to enlarge on that activity and would I please add the word professional and sophisticated with a capital P and a capital S for emphasis should I refer to him? That, he told me, would distinguish him from the rest of the crowd, set him off, establish a hierarchical superiority. So be it.

The group's departure left SPE and me beneath the aqueduct, soaking in arch-shaped slabs of sunshine, suspiciously agreeing on most everything for a change before we decided to catch up with our friends - PSE all the while breathing unsophisticatedly and, come to think of it, unprofessionally, through nicotine-congested lungs - as they emerged from the castle with a bloodcurdling account. It seemed, we were told breathlessly, that at some point in the centuries-long story of Segovia the baby daughter of the castle had fallen to her death and her father, the prince or something, enraged, hurled the errant nurse out of the same window from which gravity had claimed his girl at a speed of 32 feet per second per second and which now pulled the hapless nurse downwards at precisely the same Newtonian rate to her bone-breaking, blood-spattering death, he the master of her fate, she no mistress of her destiny; and then to Avila-wrapped-tightly-in-walls, followed the next day by a seven-hour train journey to Santiago de Compostela (never again; Professor with consort flew there in 50 minutes) past a forest fire and through 400 kilometres of hilly, attractive, occasionally craggy landscape; two nights there, a flight to Barcelona via Madrid and sheer exhaustion four nights later. Whatever happened to my fear of flying? It was, truth be told, kept in check by a prudent mixture and dosage of tranquillisers and alcohol.

My recall of the 11 days is a blur, but there are distinct spaces within the haziness through which Blanca del Rey dances fluently on the retina of my mind. Even to a newcomer to what is unquestionably an art-form, an expression of dance as attractive as ballet and more immediately powerful, her interpretation of mood, her creativity and dramatic, sensuous, absorbingly graceful presence on a small stage at the Corral de la Moreira were mind-drenching.

A mesmerised stranger to it all, I was to learn only later that we had been watching who one critic has described as "the most important flamenco dancer of all time" and another: "as one of the most remarkable flamenco dancers in the history of this art". It was a marvellous start to a holiday with friends of similar tastes.

And the end

Was no less exciting for being banal. At Barcelona (the party split up in Madrid, Professor and SPE with respective wives to return to Malta) we spent an hour, an hour and a half, of our second and last evenings in that exciting city inside a police station. The first was spent on the Carrer Caspe in a lovely apartment, opposite a muted Gaudì residence, with friends - he, one of the Maltese philistines talking all the while in a Portomaso apartment, last July, while La Bohème did its best at sea, she, his blonde, attractive Catalan wife, who generously prepared a v. tasty supper, champagne on entering their abode and wine. It was good to be in Barcelona, about which some other time.

Our first direct experience of Spanish policemen the next evening came about because we had to report the loss of our air-tickets. This purely administrative procedure cost, I know not why, 100 euros. Our names were in Air Malta's computer and, therefore, retrievable at the Air Malta office on the Gran Via. Propertied lady of leisure tried with might and main and in vain to explain this to the girl, who stuck to her guns. We were to report the loss, provide her with a police report and then, only then, would she issue fresh tickets in exchange for 100 euros, please. All very Catalan.

She directed us to the wrong establishment of law and order where our plight was explained in pidgin Spanish to a jovial but clearly uncomprehending policeman. I must say he appeared to display a great deal of interest in what it was we had to say but, alas, he could not understand why we were there. He only dealt with reports about battered women. You look unbattered, señora, he remarked as he smilingly buttered her up. A glance in my direction and was she reporting such a case?

There was no other way left. The explanation of our loss had to be made via the medium of charade. He watched with intensity but insisted on interrupting with his own charade - he was a battered man as every man is who is manacled to a wife, he conveyed successfully; this act was followed by loud laughter; his. Good joke, yes? Hilarious, but we flapped our hands to show an aeroplane, then went through the motions of searching for tickets and as incomprehension clouded his features, we cheated with an uttered ffffft! to show they had gone, disappeared, faded leaving not a wrack behind. No tickets. After four or five tries, it worked, and we were soon in another taxi heading for the urban police station where these mundane matters could be sorted out. The place was in a sleazy side-street off the Ramblas. We were not to know we would be visiting it again three nights later on the evening of Malta's Independence Day.

Our names were taken. We were told to wait in another room where nothing happened for some time. Notices were pinned to the walls. A large map of Barcelona had its south-eastern tip torn off. Around us were photographs of people of all ages. Wanted Persons. What each had in common was the fact that at some time or another, Pepa Veldas, aged 30, had disappeared. So had Anastasia Ginse, 70; Noelia Gonez, 20; Isidro Pires Orrit, 5! And Ramon Casanova, 78. About 30 in all, some reported missing more than ten years ago. They were wanted very much by their families, these desaparegutis - desapareceidos. Sobering. Our tickets seemed small fry, but still, without them we could not return to Malta.

An extremely smart policeman asked us what the matter was. We repeated the charade. He twigged immediately, brought us a form to fill up. Name. Father's name. Mother's name. Address in Spain. Address in Malta. On the other side of the form a list of 34 items. These ranged from spare tyres to rucksack, jewels, vaccination certificate, tickets (tickets!), to that all-embracing item: Other.

Ticked tickets. Signed. Policeman stamped the fact that the following report had been lodged.

Shook hands. Out into the street and then up the Ramblas, once a watercourse that led to the sea, now a long, wide island of an avenue lined with trees and packed with flower stalls; where everybody seemed to have gathered to chat, sit and eat at one of the many al fresco cafes and restaurants offering everything imaginable and unimaginable, young men eyeing the girls who return the stares with insolent confidence; all part of the rich tapestry of life.

As the hours passed, the tempo stepped up, humanity in its many shapes, forms and guises came on to the street. There were girls slim as anorexia, others ample enough to have come out of a Rubens canvas. There was not much glamour in the dress department - jeans have destroyed fashion anyway, which is why they created designer jeans and non-designer jeans are everywhere, on everybody. But throughout this avenue that stretches from the nerve centre of the city at the Placa de Catalunya towards the beach, you are embraced by a palpable vitality.

Not all was light. If you look hard enough you will see the sleaze of side streets and the sorry condition of those who either live or work there. And if you look harder still, you will see a pavement decoration in mosaic by Mirò.

And so? Where was the culture, ey? Where the buildings, the cathedrals, the museums? Ah, yes. They will have to wait for another time.

My euro, my Europe

It is only less than 50 years since six countries embarked upon a form of union, originally based on steel and coal. See what has happened since. That first 'union' has since developed in all directions, commercially, politically and in the sharing of sovereignty by not six but twenty-six minus one. Europe has come a long way and if there have been fits and starts, the motivating force behind union has ensured that movement has been in a forward direction.

Sweden's surprising No to the euro was one of those fits, a fairly serious one that may present governments with the stark choice of a two-tiered Europe with all that that entails. If the Swedish electorate's decision was a slap in the face for Goran Persson, first, France and Germany, second, and 20 other countries including Malta, third, it was sweet music to England, the most recalcitrant member of the club. Here was a check on the process of deeper integration so loved by Germany, so feared by British euro-sceptics. Poor Mr Blair. It is almost certain that the Swedes have made his mind up over holding an euro referendum.

Sceptics there are overjoyed the outcome of the referendum. They hope that their government will attend the first session of the IGC in Rome, next week, with the confident stride adopted by a certain Margaret Thatcher more than a decade ago. The stakes are different today, it is true. Europe has reached the stage where it has itself a draft constitution, one which some member states are determined to alter, amend and redefine. Not for them the blurs that Valery Giscard d'Estaing cunningly incorporated into the document. Behind the indistinctness they perceive cunning plots hatched by the Paris-Bonn axis.

There is also the question of God and the centrality of Christianity to the idea and development of Europe, warts and all, during the past 2,000 years. If a document fails to record the origins of its subject, wherewith will that subject be salted? Before you reach the entrance to the monastery church at Monserrat, there is the figure of a saint beneath which we are reminded that St Benedict was pater Europae.

There will be little progress registered at the first session in Rome. One of its outcomes, it is being hoped, will be to chart successfully the problems that need to be examined and, if at all possible, solved; but any solution will have to wait for the final session when a moment of triumph or defeat awaits the six-month Italian presidency. The Italian prime minister seems to have got over the seemingly disastrous clanger he dropped inside the European Parliament and Mr Schroeder, who declared he would not holiday in Italy, made a point of going there on official business and all was smiles. We will see what he is like at the finishing tape.

Malta does not have an option over the adoption of the euro; this was part of our accession process. The thinking on the island, whether on the street or in the hallowed boardrooms of the Central Bank, the Malta Financial Services Authority, the Stock Exchange, does not appear to have any problem with our conversion to the currency. Government would do well, however, to lay on a positive familiarisation campaign which lays out the effects a switch to the euro will have on business generally and in our everyday life.

Belonging to the euro will bring with it a set of fiscal rules, one of which states that a country's budget deficit cannot exceed 3%. If we were to follow the example of France and Germany, this need not bother us unduly. Both countries are operating outside this requirement. As long as the French get away with it, so can we; but note that Holland may yet haul France before the Commission.

Mr Dalli had better get down to some serious work in order to rein back a deficit that is threatening to return to the mountaintop. And social partners, wherever and whoever they are, had better understand the need for restraint that is required of them as their contribution to fiscal responsibility. So had the rest of us.