What happened to La Línea's piece of the PIE?

EDITORIAL The situation at the border is by all reports becoming ridiculous. Long queues snake their way back into Gibraltar every day, summer heat adding to the misery. (The queue is difficult enough; I haven't taken my car onto the Rock for over 15 years. Have they got a loo anywhere near the loop these days?) Conjecture is rampant. Madrid is worried. Convent Place is outraged. Spanish and Gibraltar unions are planning joint demonstrations (is this the beginning of an entente cordiale?). And as usual it all boils down to money. A piece of the PIE, in fact.>

 As we said in our latest piece on the subject, the central government distributes its largesse via something called Participación de los Ingresos del Estado, or PIE in its not inappropriate Spanish acronym that translates into Participation in State Income. (Read the item here.)

As always, political confrontation and confronted politicians cause havoc for the run of the mill average man or woman in the street. In this case, the street that leads to the frontier with Gibraltar. The two main parties are at each other's throats at a time when they should both be pulling in the same direction, particularly at local level - and all over Europe, come to that.

No, Mayor Sánchez of La Línea belongs to one side of the political divide, the PP. The central government (PSOE) is on the other. Sánchez, presumably backed by much higher-ups in his party who don't want to 'show their face' (dar la cara) in case the excrement hits the fan, is trying hard to force Madrid to pay up what he (and his) believe is the town's divine right: the money due, he says, when the PIE is defrosted (reference to La Línea's piece of the PIE being frozen in 2003 by the PP government then in power). He figures that his town is owed around €30 million from those frozen funds.

What he doesn't say, at least within our hearing, is what happened to the €24+ million the town did receive.

Ah, but it's the fault of his predecessor. Who? None other than Juan Carlos Suarez, also of the PP (but previously of the infamous GIL party - infamous thanks to Jesús Gil and the Marbella debàcle that is still fanning out its own excrement), who had to resign in a hurry in October last year. He didn't get the money either, possibly because he was too busy with 'developing' La Línea to his taste. Or did he?

Meanwhile, back in the queue, all we have to do is turn up the air conditioning. No point in getting aireated  about it, is there?

Plus ça change. Or, how nothing changes but we wish it would.

Prospero