The right and far right did better in elections in Andalusia on Sunday than the polls had projected, possibly ending forty years of left-wing rule in the most populous region of Spain. Read more
Pablo Casado has pulled Spain’s conservative People’s Party to the right, taking a harder line on everything from abortion to Catalonia to Gibraltar to immigration.
So far, it has neither helped nor hurt his party in the polls. Read more
Spain has demanded greater clarity on the status of Gibraltar before signing off on the treaty that is meant to regulate Britain’s exit from the EU in March 2019.
“We want the interpretation to be clear in that text that the negotiations between the United Kingdom and the EU will not apply to Gibraltar,” Josep Borrell, the Spanish foreign minister, said on Monday.
Here is why his demand is a bit of a dud. Read more
When Spain’s conservative People’s Party was in power, it promised not to exploit Britain’s exit from the EU to renegotiate the status of Gibraltar.
Now that the party is out of power, it blames the ruling Socialists for failing to do just that. Read more
Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez has negotiated a spending deal with the far-left Podemos party that could keep him in power for another year.
Sánchez’ Socialist Workers’ Party does not have a majority of its own. In addition to Podemos, it leans on the support of regionalist parties in the Spanish Congress.
Some of them have mounted a challenge, though: the Catalans have proposed trading their support for a legal and binding referendum on Catalan independence. Sánchez has ruled that out.
He may just get his budget through if one of the Catalan parties abstains and parties from other regions vote with him. But it will be tight. Read more
Catalan president Quim Torra has given the Spanish government of Pedro Sánchez an ultimatum: allow the Catalans to exert their right to self-determination (which Spain doesn’t recognize) by November or lose the support of Catalan nationalist parties in Congress.
Sánchez needs the Catalans for his majority, but Torra’s position is weaker. Read more
The Spanish right is taking Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to task for the unrest in his minority left-wing government.
First Sánchez lost his minister for culture and sports, Màxim Huerta, after it emerged he had been fined for tax fraud.
Then his health minister, Carmen Montón, was forced to resign for obtaining a Master’s degree seemingly without attending any classes.
Now Sánchez himself is accused of plagiarizing his PhD thesis.
Meanwhile, his government has yet to pass a 2019 budget with the deadline one month away. Read more