El Govern de Salvador Illa will have its first budgets and Catalonia will have validated accounts, something that had not happened since 2023. The Catalan Executive will be able to approve the budget project in July after securing the 68 votes necessary for it. After closing the pact with Esquerra Republicana last Tuesday, it remained to regain the six votes from Comuns, who had requested to update the agreement they sealed in February because they consider these will be the only budgets of the legislature.

Surprise, what you call surprise, it really isn’t. That the bailout of the airline Plus Ultra in the middle of the pandemic was a case of moral corruption by the Government is a certainty. A forceps delivery that upset and embarrassed members of the Executive itself and officials who…

Between shock and desolation, from disbelief and perplexity to unease about what may be coming. Again. The PSOE trembles, from north to south and from east to west, after the indictment of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero for alleged corruption crimes.

The first time a politician was convicted of influence peddling in Spain was 31 years ago. The historic socialist mayor of L’Hospitalet de Llobregat, Juan Ignacio Pujana, was sentenced to six years of disqualification, one month of arrest, and a fine. The Barcelona Court considered that he had facilitated an award for the construction and concession of several underground parking lots to a company that in turn had to subcontract the work to a construction company owned by a friend of his. The judges coined the term “chain influence peddling.” The mayor, using his position, pressured municipal technicians and officials. He did so, initially, out of friendship, since the sentence considered that he did not receive money in return, and he was acquitted of the charges of bribery and forgery. Evidently, Pujana disappeared from the public radar. Since then, it has been clear that the crime of influence peddling is one of the most difficult to discern, since it is necessary to prove pressure on an official or public officer and also to have the authority to carry out that coercion. Politicians who are already former, that is, who have left their positions in governments, often maintain a significant capacity for influence in those administrations, so they are often recruited by consultancies and companies to open the doors of the public sector for them. Is this the case of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero?