As in recent weeks, we awaited the UK referendum on Brexit, we hardly gave so much attention to another development that is quite important in European terms – this Sunday’s elections in Spain, the second one in six months.

The major gamechanger will apparently be the new alliance forged with the small ex-Communist party by Podemos, the left wing party that emerged from the streetprotests of some three/four years ago against austerity policies: the alliance could become the second largest political formation in Spain.

If this happens, the question could arise: will the socialists who would finish in third place, be ready to participate in a coalition government with Podemos? Not so long ago, Podemos refused to support the socialists when they tried to set up a government.

If Podemos manage to get a coalition going, three southern countries would be led by governments with a left-left leaning: Greece, Portugal and Spain.

Up high

I always believed that constructing high rise towers could be an effective solution to the challenge of how to limit urban sprawl. It could be a way by which to economise on land use, while providing increased living and work space for people, without damaging further the building heritage left by our predecessors.

Today I tend to agree with those who say: better be careful about the many highrise projects that are being announced. It is true that most of them will turn out to be ephemeraland will never become real life projects. However even if only two do get built, with the double digit skyline by way of storeys mentioned for them, problems might arise.

Similar developments need to be planned with care, transparency, and no underhand deals or corruption. The infrastructure that they need should be defined and confirmed, not as happened in the scandalous Tigne case, left hanging by the authorities, despite the obligations that were embedded in that project.

We still have not developed the practice to ensure such planning.

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Culture

Some friends of mine were displeased when media and internet articles referred to Maltese society as one of the least in Europe to value reading and culture.

One can try to console them by pointing out how both inside Europe and outside, it is always considered easier to slate the smallerrather than the bigger countries.

However, to be honest, it is difficult to provide such consolation with a clear conscience. The truth is that among us, the arts, culture, reading, literature have remained interests limited to a small minority, whom it would be easy to classify as an elite. Moreover, others who are popularly considered as the elite, and who expect to be so considered, amount to a few hundreds; really, they are more interested in where they can be seen and how, rather than in cultural matters.

Significantly, the leading Sunday newspaper publishes its weekly magazine which covers culture among other subjects, under the title ESCAPE.

Luckily, new groupings of young activists havebeen emerging who try to open new cultural horizons. It would be useful if they could lead a debate about how this could be done.