After reading the entire thread I also agree on it being a culture issue. I have trained in Portugal for a couple of months. And it takes ages to get something done.
I do think some spanish controllers give priority to spanish carriers, most of them just go with the sequence. But for some reason when controllers and pilots speak spanish on the ground it always seems to be a very long conversation??? Does it take longer to give a clearance in spanish? Or is it just because i'm waiting to step in???
With regard to speed control at BCN, maybe we take the speed control in spain a bit to serious? I know there is another thread running with a UK controller complaining about pilots not adherring to speed control. And I think this is one of the causes for not adherring to speeds.
And about not getting enough directs, just ask most of the times you get it. Don't expect to be told everything. You are flying and you can ask. Its not Eurocontrol.
Flying in the UK isn't always pretty either.
How often doesn't it happen to be cleared for the localizer, but subseqently not being cleared for the glide and eventually finding yourself diving down to capture it????? Especially when it is a nice day with loads of GA traffic, who don't have any R/T discipline! And just start chatting away for almost a minute.
And why was this practice, of clearing for the localizer and glide separately, put into place? Because some pilot f*cked up and descended to the MSA after being cleared approach. This took him out of controlled airspace.
So some wise men in the UK decide, in the interest of safety, to come up with the ridicoulous idea that we see now. Instead of penalizing the airline that f*cked up?!?!
But I guess that's culture as well! And because the spanish culture doesn't match you feel there is a safety issue.
Maybe the UK has gone to faar in trying to eliminate every risk there is. Even to the extent that pilots don't feel they can do a rawdata ILS on a nice day.