Goodbye to a 17 billion euro investment, 12 hotels with 36,000 rooms, six casinos, golf courses, shopping malls, a convention center, bars and restaurants. And goodbye, supposedly, to some 250,000 new jobs.
The project was cancelled because the Spanish government didn't accept the promoter's latest demands, but these were so far-fetched that they look more like a lame exit strategy on the part of Adelsohn (they included reducing taxes on gambling earnings to 1%).
Analysts suggest that the real reason Adelsohn pulled the plug is the failure of banks to line up financing for the project. Too much pie-in-the-sky.
So what's to celebrate? It's not like Spanish politicians didn't rush in to try to meet Adelsohn's demands for changes in labor laws, smoking restrictions, zoning and other legal niceties.
Didn't they learn anything from the past 15 years of debauched investments in failed theme parks, airports and cities of this and that (Culture, Arts and Sciences, Cine, Justice, etc. etc.)? No, it's the same old formula. But for once the banks didn't go along (the banks that went along with the first 15 years of boondoggling are no longer in the business).
How could they believe that EuroVegas, with its cheap jobs and mafia taint, could be a solution to anything?
Despite it all, though, I'm celebrating.
Goodbye, EuroVegas!
Bon Voyage!!!
Photo: Rendering of EuroVegas
From The Guardian. Feb. 8, 2013
Stories on the cancellation:
Eurovegas not coming to Madrid after company demands rejected
El País, Dec. 13, 2013
(in English)
José Marcos
EuroVegas planta a Madrid por Asia
El País, Dec, 13, 2013
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