The fiesta was a stunning success, if you gauge it by the amount of people that turned up – the new paseo was literally a river of people. Even the most cynical amongst us couldn’t claim otherwise.

I asked the people behind the national stands and just about all of them considered that the moving of the annual Día de Europa from the Parque Botanico El Majuelo to the new Paseo to Velilla was a great idea. I spoke with Marianne Lindahl, who writes our Nordic Viewpoint column and who is the Chairwoman of the Asociacion Hispano-Nóridica, and asked her opinion. She said that having the stalls strung out along the paseo, rather than in an enclosed area, facilitated the flow of people to the stands, for example.

Looking for a sour note, I decided to ask business owners in front of the new underground car park for their opinions – perhaps all the stalls had taken much needed trade away, so I asked Ergon at the newly re-opened Argentina Steakhouse how the day had gone and he replied that it had been truly splendid – he had been packed out.

So, looking from most angles, it was a total success, but of course, if you look deeper at motives and consequences, there is comfort for the cynical. The last minute location swap for the Europa Day was more a political move to ensure a good turn out for a controversial car park inauguration, rather than being motivated by a desire to improve the annual European residents’ day.

A couple of business owners questioned the need for an inauguration fiesta at all, seeing as the eastern end of the paseo had just been plunged into prolonged roadworks to install a cycle lane at a cost of 50% of the few remaining free parking spaces left on the Paseo de Velilla. Look at it from any angle you want but the fact remains that literally hundreds of parking spaces – free or not – have disappeared to be replaced by only 150-odd public parking places on the bottom level of the new underground car park.

And then, the Partido Popular, pointed out that instead of the three constitutional flags: national, regional and municipal, there were only three Andalusian flags. Had this been an event in Cataluña or País Vasco and the Bandera de España had been omitted, then there would have been hell to pay. Is it a mere coincidence, therefore, that the Mayor’s party is the Convergencia Andaluza and the municipal elections are only next spring?
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