Bomb3r harris :
THERE ARE PROBLEMS. these are safety issues, they need to be addressed, not compared with other countries.
Blaming it on culture is not acceptable.
I disagree on both counts. You need to make comparisons to know where you are, where and you are going to compared to your goal.
What is that goal is the issue here : is it no incident/no accident. or is it a reduction of your actual number or incidents by ,say halving it in 2 years , or is it 10 to the minus 6 ( the ICAO standard ) etc...
You also then need to see where you stand in the EU average , since Eurocontrol PRC ( Preformance review commission )is going to audit you, and compare you.
Then you need to know where your priorities are : is it moving taffic , more capacity to eleminate delays, is it above all to please the airlines-custommers , or it is improving at all costs your safety margins ?
It you are, la country dependant on the Turism industry, the answer might be different , than in you are, let's say, in the North part of Europe.
Then you decide where to put the pressure : fixing problems of course, but compared to what ? the problem reported here so far : e.g "a Binter or an Iberia was cleared before me" , and I got an " unsafe " clearance below MSL once while I was in a turn, " is not going to impress top ATM officials much
.
Which bring me to culture : it is one of the most powerful element . I have learned that over the years. I use to say than in ATC to change a procedure takes 2 weeks, to change a working habbit or so called " Best Practice " is 6 months, but to change a culture is 20 Years "
Based on recent experience in my old Centre, ( re Hannover sectors for the initiated ) I would now say today , "over 30 years" .
Now my information is that Spain is tackling problems and been fixing its ATC at a much faster rate than many others. ( comparisons again !) I do not see a pattern of danger there ( unlike in teh USA at the moment with runway incursions for instance ) , and the reports are not coming from their major airspace users ( their natonal carriers ).
Culture.. Many here in this forum have a strong safety culture ( based on the UK system ) and would like to see this applied all over the world. Laudable wish, but different cultures move at different paces. The UK system is not the panacea either. Transposing it in a hurry to other cultures is definitively not the solution.
End of my ramblings : morale of the story, be tolerant for other cultures and be careful out there, and as I-FORD very correctly said :never delegate the supervision of your flight path to Controllers. Not in Spain, not in the UK, nowhere.