One of the freighters from the new German shipping line using Motril port, FRS Express, arrived without its cargo; they had offloaded elsewhere.

Why? because the ship was due to dock Friday evening, outside normal working hours; i.e, technically the weekend, and they didn’t want the risk of finding that there were no custom inspectors on duty.

As you can imagine, the smelly stuff hit the fan and recriminations flew between the Port and the Central Government. Madrid says that they’re onto it but that sort of assurance doesn’t convince German shipping lines, naturally.

The Port Authorities, headed by a socialist politician, is spitting feathers and the conservative governing party accuses the P.A. of turning it into a political issue.

Naturally, the shipping line couldn’t give a flying fig over the squabbling between Spanish politicians and quite frankly, neither could Motril.

Shipping lines operating out of Motril need customs coverage 24/7 and it is surprising, to put it mildly, that Madrid hasn’t got its act together on this.

An impartial observer could be forgiven for thinking that the conservative Central Government has it in for Motril Port because this affair is just another blow in a long string of blows. Take Madrid’s decision to subsidize Málaga and Alméria Ports whilst denying Motril the same advantage. Motril only wanted a level playing field: everybody or nobody gets the subsidies.

Editorial comment: OK, the whole article is an editorial but even so, I should like to add that sometimes it appears that politicians were put on this Earth solely to screw things up.

(News: Motril, Costa Tropical, Granada, Andalucia)