News
Spain’s political
turbulence goes on
Spain’s political hiatus remained
unresolved in December as acting
president Pedro Sánchez of the
socialist PSOE party continued
negotiations with other parties.
However, the whole process was
thrown in turmoil just before
Christmas by a ruling from the
European Union’s Court of Justice.
In the general election in November,
the PSOE won 120 of the 350 seats in
the lower house of Spain’s parliament,
the Congress of Deputies, and Sr
Sánchez has been struggling since then
to form a coalition with a working
majority.
During December, King Felipe held
meetings with each party leader, after
which he nominated Sr Sánchez as the
candidate with the best chance of being
sworn in as President by Congress. The
socialist leader held further talks with
the leaders of the Partido Popular and
Ciudadanos before Christmas, while
dialogue was opened with some
smaller parties which previously had
been excluded. These included the far-
right Vox party and the Basque
nationalists EH Bildu, but talks with the
separatist Catalan Republican Left
(ERC) were thrown into disarray on
December 19 following a ruling from
the EU’s Court of Justice.
The ERC leader, Oriol Junqueras, is
one of the Catalan politicians who have
been jailed for their part in Cataluña’s
illegal independence referendum in
2017. Nevertheless, he stood as an MEP
in May 2018 and was elected, but he
was then not permitted to leave
custody to be sworn into the role. He
subsequently appealed his case to the
EU Court of Justice.
This Court ruled that Junqueras
became an MEP as soon as he was
elected, and thus enjoyed
parliamentary immunity from that
moment. Spain’s Supreme Court will
review the case sometime this month
and make a decision on whether or not
he should be released to take up his
place in the European parliament.
Assuming that an investiture vote is
eventually held, Sr Sánchez must have
the support of 176 Deputies for an
absolute majority in the first round of
voting, and if that fails, must achieve a
simple majority in the second round. If
that fails as well, Spain could be facing
another general election, the fifth in
under five years.
Gibraltar takes Vox
to task
Gibraltar’s government has lodged a
criminal complaint against four leaders
the far-right Vox party for, “inciting
hatred against the people of Gibraltar.”
Vox, which won 52 seats in November’s
general election, wants Gibraltar to be
brought under control from Madrid.
The Rock’s Chief Minister, Fabian
Picardo, said the complaint referred to
statements and social media posts in
which the leaders of Vox referred to
Gibraltar as a “leech,” a “parasite” and a
“den of money launderers.” An official
statement from Gibraltar in December
claimed the comments disparaged
residents and were “designed to create
an atmosphere of hatred among
Spaniards towards Gibraltarians.”
Congrats Boris
The government added that it had also
asked Spanish prosecutors to
investigate an online group known as
Gibraltar: Espanol, which it described
as an “echo chamber for anti-Gibraltar
propaganda of Vox,” and that it plans
to raise its concerns with the social
media platforms which host the group.
It promised to “leave no stone
unturned” to make sure that anti-
Gibraltarian hate is prosecuted to the
fullest extent of the law.
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Acting prime minister Pedro Sánchez
sent a Tweet to British PM Boris Johnson
the day after his victory in last month’s
UK General Election. Sr Sánchez said he
wanted the EU-UK relationship to
remain, “as close as possible.” The
British Chamber of Commerce in Spain
says Mr Johnson’s new government will
build a “close” trade relationship after
the UK invested €3.1 billion in Spain in
the first half of this year.
Life sentence
The man found guilty of murdering an
18-year-old Madrid teenager has been
sentenced to a permanent renewable
prison term, equivalent to a life
sentence. Diana Quer went missing while
on holiday in Galicia in August 2016. A
court in A Coruña also ordered José
Enrique Abuín Gey, nicknamed El
Chicle, to pay the victim’s family a total
of €300,000 compensation after finding
him guilty of murder, sexual assault and
abduction.
Driver detained
The driver of a van which made an
illegal turn in the Carabanchel district of
Madrid last month and crashed head-on
into a number 47 bus was high on
cocaine and had been disqualified from
driving. One adult and two minors in the
van were seriously injured, while several
bus passengers sustained light injuries.
The 30-year-old van driver was less
seriously hurt and taken into police
custody.
Holiday crackdown
Tourists behaving badly face a harsh
crackdown in Magaluf and elsewhere in
the Balearics. The regional government
says those found “balconing” (jumping
from their bedroom balcony into the
swimming pool) will be expelled from
their hotels immediately. Bars which
flout the law to encourage “trash
tourism” also face fines of tens of
thousands of Euros and could be closed
for three months, during the high season.