Central Europe correspondent for The Financial Times, based in Warsaw. Previously New York Times in Spain. Book author of "¿Esto es España?" Views are my own.
Portugal went from saturated Lisbon hospitals in January to reopening nightclubs this Friday, after almost completing its Covid-19 vaccination program. The Navy officer who led its vaccine rollout said success requires "people who are not politicians."
An in-and-out, unscheduled visit by
@sanchezcastejon
to Barcelona ends with him leaving the hospital using the ambulance emergency exit. Interesting way of restoring a sense of calm to the second city of the nation.
He fought as a teenager in the Spanish Civil War, and five years later drove straight past the Nazis to the city hall to liberate Paris. My obituary of Rafael Gómez Nieto, last member of "La Nueve," honored too late in life for his bravery.
NYT obituary of Neus Català, an incredible survivor of the Spanish civil war and Nazi concentration camps, who saved Spanish orphans and later sabotaged German weapons.
For the past decade, the Catalan independence movement has sought support across the EU, largely to no avail. In contrast, some Hong Kong protesters organized a Catalan solidarity rally. We live in an unpredictable but truly global world.
The more I report this story, the more I feel Catalonia is the elephant in the room that will simply make nothing sustainable in Spanish politics until politicians, and not judges, really and seriously try to resolve this conflict.
Ripoll's imam, organizer of Barcelona terror attack, was informant for Spanish secret service, according to
@elpais
and
@LaVanguardia
. If correct, this bombshell news could explain why Spanish authorities never worried about him even after his prison stay.
Germany discards charge of rebellion against Puigdemont and orders release on bail pending final extradition ruling on possible misuse of public funds. This decision is likely to have big consequences for the whole Catalan trial in Madrid... and future of politics in Catalonia.
Ten days after King Juan Carlos left Spain, there is still no confirmation as to where he went. Media reports have located him in the Dominican Republic, then Portugal and now Abu Dhabi. Why add such opacity to an already complicated royal situation?
Among several questionable claims made during the TV election debate,
@sanchezcastejon
promised to bring Puigdemont back to Spain (prompting
@Pablo_Iglesias_
to remind him about the separation of powers.) Puigdemont's defense lawyers took good note.
Here is a
@nytimes
video on how Spain's health workers are bravely fighting
#COVID19
, often without adequate protection in saturated hospitals. As they tell it, this can require the ingenuity of MacGyver combined with the spirit of the Kamikaze.
Spain's foreign minister,
@JosepBorrellF
, denies insider trading while sitting on Abengoa's board...six years after he was forced to leave his rectorship of IUE university in Florence for breaching academic rules on corporate conflicts of interest.
Another peaceful and massive Diada shows Catalonia's independence movement remains strong - even as its political leadership seems split over how to reach the promised mountain top. The next milestone? The trial in Madrid of those accused of rebellion.
As Spain's new government re-establishes a ministry of equality, we publish an obituary for Ana Orantes, the brave Andalusian woman whose horrible murder turned gender violence into a national debate two decades ago.
For Spain, an important outcome of the British election is the crushing nationalist victory in Scotland. Sturgeon is already calling for another independence referendum. No doubt Catalan independence movement will welcome that.
I predict a heated debate about exactly why Spanish children will be able to go to the supermarket or pharmacy with an adult, but not for a relaxing stroll, far from others. What is the health risk assessment?
Organized by Vox, today’s anti-goverment, drive-by rally has taken over central Madrid. This couple in their sports convertible know how to protest in style.
44 years after his death and after a yearlong judicial battle, Franco is leaving the giant mausoleum that he built. Ahead of a repeat national election, the dictator's exhumation has also turned into a heated political dispute.
Puigdemont now seems set to sit next month in the European Parliament in Strasbourg rather than in the courtroom of the Supreme Court in Madrid. This is not the end of the legal battle, but it's not the way Spain's judiciary was hoping to end 2019.
It's good to hear
@sanchezcastejon
apologize, but his repeated claim could be used by Puigdemont's legal defense and is hurtful for Spain's judiciary. As for his explanation that "son expresiones que se utilizan en los debates electorales"... No comment.
PM Rajoy is visiting Bulgaria - but ahead of Thursday's EU-Balkan summit, where Spain will be the only absentee among the 28 nations of the EU. The reason? Rajoy didn't want any linkage between unrecognized Kosovo and Catalonia, according to Bulgaria's PM.
1) Some personal news: I'm rejoining the staff of the Financial Times as Central Europe correspondent, based in Warsaw from June. I'm looking forward to the fascinating and big challenge of covering for
@FT
the region that borders Ukraine at such a decisive moment for Europe.
Quien dice hoy en Madrid que la izquierda radical trae irresponsabilidad financiera?
@ManuelaCarmena
ha reducido la deuda en 54%, con superávit en 2018. Un contraste con las cifras de los antiguos alcaldes (conservadores - pero no a la hora de gastar)
Spain is now leading Europe's efforts to seize superyachts owned by Russian oligarchs. A third was impounded on Wednesday in Tarragona, worth $600 million and apparently the sister vessel of another yacht that U.S. officials have linked to Putin.
The forthcoming trial of Junqueras and other separatist leaders seems almost certain to return Catalonia to the top of Spain's political agenda. Here's my article after a visit to the Lledoners prison.
Researchers from the University of Barcelona found the coronavirus in the city's wastewater in March 2019 - one year before Spain decreed a lockdown and also before China alerted on Covid-19. The breakthrough finding, however, has left some skeptical.
In the Spanish village of Urueña, there is now neither a baker nor a butcher, but instead a dozen owners of bookstores who have help turn it into one of Europe's smallest literary hubs.
As part of his legal battle,
@JulianAssange_
is opening a Spanish front. He will testify from Britain by video link before the Audiencia Nacional, to accuse a Spanish security company of illegally spying on him while living in Ecuador's London embassy.
European Court rules against Spain, saying that burning the King's photo in public cannot be "construed as incitement to hatred or violence.” This ruling coincides with tough report from
@amnesty
about freedom of speech in Spain.
Spain is set to adopt a euthanasia law that is described as "a failure" for society by its Catholic Church, and instead "a great social conquest" by its government leader. Only a handful of other countries already allow assisted dying.
Catalan independence leaders took center stage on the last day of their trial. “You have the responsibility of not worsening a political situation,” Jordi Sànchez told the judges. “I would not like to be in your shoes now.”
El Sr. Juan Ignacio "Desconozco" Zoido: Can a former interior minister really not remember anything, nor even why and how Spanish police officers were deployed in Catalonia before the 1 October 2017 referendum?
So Spain's public prosecutor won't prosecute as a national threat a sniper who kept 16 weapons and promised his friends he would kill the prime minister if he exhumed Franco? But what then constitutes a national stability/terrorism threat under art. 573?
I visited 5 Madrid pharmacies to buy gloves, but mission impossible. One told me that they last got supplied a week ago, but only a batch of small-size gloves. How will Spain return to normalcy without making basic protection gear available to its residents?
How far right is Spain's military? “It’s clear to me that there are now serving officers who uphold anti-democratic values, even if I’m not saying their views are shared by the whole army,” said former Supreme Court judge.
PM Rajoy cancels Kiev trip to watch Real Madrid, when in 2012 he went to Poland hours after Spain launched banking bailout. This corruption scandal is clearly worrying him...
Living and working alone for two months in Barcelona's hotel Vela is a surreal self-isolating experience. Great views from the 24thfloor bedroom, but also 1400 taps to check. Tourism infrastructures need care, even when business has ground to a halt.
At
@rtve
, journalist now steps down to protest the state broadcaster's censorship of video that showed the state secretary of communications for PM
@marianorajoy
insulting pensioners. Is she the right person to be resigning over this PR debacle?
EU's top court rules that Spain should have allowed Junqueras to take his seat in the European Parliament, or get a special immunity waiver. An important case that will no doubt be used by Puigdemont and Comín to fight their extradition from Belgium.
Every year, the Council of Europe has been criticizing Spain's weak efforts to fight political corruption, including the failure of lawmakers to adopt a better code to regulate their own conduct.
Guess who will pay the final bill for the disastrous Castor gas project, led by ACS, financed by the EIB/Spanish banks and approved by the Zapatero government, even though it did not meet the basic industry standards? Well, of course, the Spanish taxpayer.
Catalonia’s Separatists face unusual hurdles to form government, starting with Spanish judges. My NYT analysis of another unpredictable chapter in Spanish politics.
"I want to be able to protect my family," said an accountant who was among Polish civilians on a one-day army training programme. Poland ended conscription in 2009, but Ukraine's war has pushed the military back to the top of its budget spending.
Worrying to read that the Supreme Court managed to generate a new Franco controversy, by stating in Tuesday's ruling that Franco was "head of state from 1 Oct. 1936 until his death." That amounts to forgetting those who fought to prevent his military coup.
Mil gracias al equipo de
@Avivir
por esta despedida y a los compañer
@s
de mesa
@mathieudt
@anafuentesf
y Iñigo Dominguez. Gracias
@javdelpino
por invitarme a lo largo de estos años en España. Echaré mucho de menos a la gente de este maravilloso país.
In Catalonia, latest poll shows public opinion has shifted between the political parties, but not in terms of the broader picture: 48% would vote for independence parties and almost four-fifths are favorable to a referendum.
How can a Madrid university
@urjc
and a politician
@ccifuentes
let this masters scandal drag on for almost two weeks without doing more than promising internal investigations and launching lawsuits against
@eldiarioes
?
Another Spanish election was held, but for what? On Sunday, it was mostly to hear cheering from the big winner, Vox, and its "patriotic alternative." Spain is no longer a European far-right exception.
Five coronavirus cases in Spain in the past 24 hours, all coming from Italy. Why is the Spanish government not urgently introducing health checkpoints at airports? It's a longstanding practice in Hong Kong... and Italian airports are now doing it.
A record turnout in Poland's election shaped the opposition's victory, with unprecedented grassroots mobilisation and strategic voting in pivotal constituencies to oust PiS from power.
@FT
A Spanish political artwork was banned from
@FeriaArco
(an art fair whose 2018 theme is supposedly "the future"). The "Streisand effect," of course, is that the work has eclipsed anything else on show - and the debate in Madrid is about censorship.
"Spain’s crisis has demonstrated that one symptom of the virus has been the tendency of one government after another to ignore the experiences of countries where the virus has struck before it."
On a day when Spain sadly reached the milestone of 1 million registered coronavirus cases, lawmakers traded in Parliament the kind of insults and mutual blaming that suggests the country also faces a tough winter of political antagonism.
Madrid's biggest snowfall in 50 years put the focus on Cañada Real, a huge area outside Spain's capital whose decades-long miserable living conditions reminded an aid worker of Bosnian refugee camps. My
@nytimes
story with photos by
@Samuel_Aranda_
Puigdemont took the Catalan conflict to Belgium, Gabriel to Switzerland... and in a different way
@JosepGuardiola
- Catalonia's main sports ambassador in Europe - is doing the same in England, but by defying FA rules.
Puigdemont
@KRLS
is due in Switzerland this weekend to debate self-determination at
@fifdh
, Geneva's human rights film festival, alongside Calmy-Rey, the former president of Switzerland. He's no longer seeking re-election, but still spreading the pro-independence footprint..
This is the horror story of Spanish soldiers finding dead residents abandoned in their nursing home beds. But I also heard from a nursing home owner about the "shameful" emergency aid he got from the Comunidad de Madrid: only 2 gowns and 8 face masks.
This Chaves interview showcases the culture of impunity. Not even a "sorry" to Andalusia from a former
@psoe
leader who got sentenced as part of a €680 million unemployment corruption case. And published just as he gets indicted in another fraud case...
Feria, a debut novel by Ana Iris Simón, has been an unexpected bestseller that also heated Spain’s political debate over whether past generations lived better than the current one.
An
@nytimes
obituary of José María "Chato" Galante, a pursuer of justice for victims of Franco's regime. “I agree with the idea of reconciliation,” Mr. Galante said. “But you just can’t turn the page. You have to read that page before you turn it.”
Vox is the big winner in Sunday's election. But a dozen parties defending regions/provinces will sit in the Spanish Congress. Nationalism is gaining, but it is multi-faceted and not everybody wants the country back under Madrid's control.
Turning 100 is a major milestone, but for 27,000 teenagers born in Spain in 1920, it proved a curse, as they got drafted into the Republican "baby bottle" conscription, sent across the Ebro river to fight the longest battle in Spain's Civil War.
Much of Spain's bullfighting season was called off by
#Covid19
. Animal rights activists are now hoping to accelerate the sector's demise, while breeders and matadors want a left-wing government to come to the rescue of the national fiesta.
Foreign minister Borrell says Spanish bombs sold to Saudis won’t produce collateral damage?? That should reassure the people in Yemen. vía
@Elperiodico
La huelga de los taxis destapa elementos inexplicables dentro del mismo sector - a parte del tema VTC. Como se puede justificar el coste de la licencia (mas de €150,000) con un salario mínimo mensual del taxista es €945? Solo si se mantiene un monopolio.
Spain is rightly proud of its AVE high-speed trains and other great infrastructure, but at what cost? Study suggests +€81 billion of wasteful spending, including more than half of the rail investment. No price for guessing who picked up the bill...
After two Moncloa briefings, I'm still confused by Gen. Santiago Marín's "lapse." Is it better if the Guardia Civil tracks info about “the institutions of the whole state"? Gen. Santiago also said: “We're not talking about political criticism." How do policemen fix this limit?
Puigdemont should be released from prison Friday morning, though that's not the end of his judicial problems. Will there be a knock-on effect for the politicians held without bail in Madrid, now that Germany discards the usage of violence last year?
Protest chaos at Barcelona airport follows a landmark Supreme Court verdict against Catalan politicians, sentenced for sedition. This conflict cannot end in the courtroom, nor on the streets. It seems time for politicians to do far more to resolve it.
So where is King Juan Carlos? A week after he left Spain, nobody knows for sure, adding a layer of intrigue to his already problematic situation. via
@nytimesworld
With one quarter of the EU's bike production, Portugal is riding a boom that has speeded up during the pandemic, as more people pedal to stay fit and travel at a safe distance from others.