The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, came out this Thursday in defense of the Barcelona forward Lamine Yamal, whom Israel accused hours earlier of “inciting hatred” for waving the Palestinian flag during the parade through the center of Barcelona that the club organized to celebrate the League title last Sunday.
Fifteen years have passed since the most important social outbreak in democratic Spain. The 15-M emerged on a Sunday in May at Puerta del Sol in Madrid as a demonstration called via the internet, with a success that surprised even the organizers. And those outraged by economic precariousness and the political system did not go home after the protest. They set up a camp that spread to Barcelona, in Plaça Catalunya, and then throughout the country. There was a willingness to participate in politics. Thousands and thousands of hours of assemblies to outline possible roadmaps turned the squares into laboratories of direct democracy. What remains today of that movement? Could it happen again?
At the bar of the restaurant La Isla, in Seville, some gentlemen would gather at noon. Good people who most likely – one can always be surprised – had the characteristic phenotype of the Popular Party voter. Eavesdropping while waiting for the diner, one could get an idea of the program for this weekend. Most would go to the elegant and unparalleled Horse Fair of Jerez.
The Govern and Esquerra Republicana are in the final phase of budget negotiations and, to finalize these accounts, both parties will announce next Monday one of the commitments that will facilitate the agreement: the orbital railway line. The talks are advanced to the point that ERC has called its national council, the highest body between congresses, for next Monday at 5:30 p.m. to assess whether the conditions are met to approve the budgets.
There is a smell of pact —of non-aggression— in the courtroom of the National Court where the trial for Operation Kitchen is taking place, the alleged police plot launched in 2013 to steal incriminating information against the Popular Party from its former treasurer, Luis Bárcenas. After the tense confrontation between former Interior Minister Jorge Fernández Díaz and his former number two Francisco Martínez during the investigation phase —over some SMS messages that led to the former’s indictment— this Thursday an expert suggested manipulation of those incriminating messages without the former Secretary of State, who took them to a notary, refuting even the slightest shadow of doubt cast.
Ready for sentencing. The trial against the Pujol family ended at 13:49 this Thursday, after 38 sessions, in which more than 200 witnesses and experts appeared, and thirteen years, five months, and one day after the visit of Victoria Álvarez, Jordi Pujol Ferrusola’s ex-lover, to the Canillas police complex, accompanied by the so-called “patriotic police,” in which she explains that she saw with her own eyes how Pujol Ferrusola carried bags of cash to Andorra.
To be the leader of the PSOE, it is necessary to have the support of the membership in Andalusia and Catalonia. Due to their weight in members, they constitute the two key strongholds to control the party. As long as Salvador Illa holds the presidency of the Generalitat and has the absolute backing of the PSC, Sánchez will have that flank more than covered. But Andalusia has long been the most complicated and decisive territory in the party congresses. And that is where María Jesús Montero comes into play, the president of the Government’s go-to person.
“Were they killing her with tequilas?”. The first control session in the Assembly of Madrid after Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s eventful institutional trip to Mexico has resulted this Thursday in a cascade of ironies from the opposition about the supposed “extreme risk” that, according to the Madrid president, she faced during her stay in the Latin American country. The plenary thus staged the clash between an Ayuso determined to denounce an alleged political boycott orchestrated from La Moncloa and a left that has ridiculed a narrative it considers exaggerated, victimizing, and full of accusations without evidence.
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, will make a trip to Italy in the last week of May, which includes a meeting at the Vatican with Pope Leo XIV fourteen days before the visit that the Pontiff will make to Spain, according to the Agencia Efe and confirmed to La Vanguardia at Moncloa.
The president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, advocates for Catalonia to free itself from complexes to become a hub of talent attraction in innovation and new technologies. From Palo Alto, a city integrated into the Californian Silicon Valley region, where Illa has met with leaders of local startups, the head of the Government has expressed the hope that Catalonia can “lead the next 10 years without asking anyone for permission.”