đ„ This Week in Spain: Parliament Brawls Are Back
Also: Teresa Ribera has a big new job at the EU and more problems with Venezuela.
By @IanMount and @AdrianBono | September 19, 2024 | Madrid | Issue #70
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đ„ This Week in a Nutshell: Parliament has started kicking things into gear, which can only mean one thing: the sad, unavoidable and regrettable end of summer. PM SĂĄnchezâs âdemocratic regenerationâ continues to raise more than a few eyebrows and the crisis with Venezuela deepens after the Maduro regime announced this weekend that it had arrested two Spanish âundercover agentsâ. So much intrigue!
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Summerâs not over until someone screams âdictatorship!â
Parliament is back in action with lots of swearing and yelling over, well, everything
Alright, everybody tuck your pants into your socks. Parliament is back to its usual shenanigans, which means summer is officially over. As MPs met face to face once again on the parliamentary floor yesterday, we saw that despite the August break the violent vitriol is alive and well here. Thank god we didnât forget how to fight.
The debate over âdemocratic regenerationâ begins (and itâs already ugly)
Prime Minister Pedro SĂĄnchez threatened to resign five months ago over accusations of influence peddling made against his wife, which he said were based on fake news published on âpseudo media outletsâ.
In the end, he didnât quit. He just took some time off to relax. Still, he said he would push for a so-called âdemocratic regenerationâ plan, which would seek to fight disinformation and media outlets of dubious origin that push âfake news"âwhich drove the opposition nuts, as in their view his ultimate goal was to control media that didnât support him.
Now that the Cortes Generales (Parliament and the Senate) are back in session, the government has offered new details of the plan, which contains 31 provisions and, as El PaĂs explains, introduces âmore control over public officials and limits on institutional advertising in the mediaâ.
The plan calls for: Mandatory electoral debates, the creation of two new units in the State Prosecutorâs office to fight against âpublic and privateâ corruption and a reform of the political parties law so that parties, MPs and senators disclose their finances to the public.
Media rules: The plan is to create a public media registry where media outlets disclose who their owners are and the advertising money they get. It also calls to limit government advertising (so that media outlets donât live off public money) and for the creation of a parliamentary committee to analyze disinformation. Lastly, it calls for an amendment of the right to honor and rectification so false assertions are corrected within an appropriate time frame.
What happens now? SĂĄnchez hopes Parliament approves the text, but itâs an uphill battle. For one thing, the proposals arenât yet fleshed out with specifics. And putting them in play will reportedly require amendments to six different major laws. If yesterday was any indication, that will be a tough row to hoe.
SĂĄnchez clashed with PP boss Alberto NĂșñez FeijĂło on Wednesday and it wasnât pretty. FeijĂło accused the PM of âstarting the year with a plan of censorshipâ against the media. âCensorship and persecution,â he added, that âhas not been seen in Spain since Francoâ was in power (see video above).
SĂĄnchez responded by asking FeijĂło to stop being âthe bitter oppositionâ, saying that âfor six years youâve all been saying that Spain is sinking, yet Spain is growing more than the European averageâ. Which has nothing to do with media regulation, but anywayâŠ
The upshot? Not muchâif anythingâis likely to happen on these proposals, at least as they are. They contain some points that the PP has supported at the EU level, but others not so much. Plus, why would they give the PSOE and SĂĄnchez a win right now? Donât expect much.
The looming threat of a PP + Vox + Junts equation
Thereâs more trouble in paradise, this time in the shape of an unlikely, de facto alliance. What happens if the PP (center-right), Vox (far-right) and Junts (Catalan separatist and in theory center-right) start voting together? It looks like weâre about to find out.
Bitter. Junts, led by separatist outlaw/Brussels resident Carles Puigdemont, is still bitter about the fact the Catalan socialists struck a deal with ERC (separatist but leftish) to appoint Salvador Illa, who is against Cataloniaâs independence, as the new regional president. Junts is also not happy with the fact that Spainâs Supreme Court refuses to grant amnesty to Puigdemont.
The call is coming from inside the House (of Parliament). Even though Junts supported SĂĄnchezâs run for PM, it looks like the separatists have decided to start torpedoing any legislation that his PSOE and allies try to pass (this week they voted against a bill to limit the number of short-term rental apartments, even though they said they would abstain).
Enter the troll. Itâs been ERC MP Gabriel RufiĂĄn, known for his troll-like antics on the floor, who has decided to pick up the glove and go after Puigdemont. âThereâs a phantom threat in the building,â he said, warning of a PP + Vox + Junts coalition that could help FeijĂło become PM, all thanks to the right-leaning separatists joining forces with âthe ones that deny the Catalonian nationâ.
You need me. Puigdemont, however, noted that SĂĄnchez âdoesnât have an absolute majority to governâ (this is true). This morning, El Mundo says that PSOE representatives admit they need to âwait and seeâ how Puigdemont evolves. Translation: this is only just beginning.
And whatâs going on with Venezuela?
Thought last weekâs diplomatic rift was sorted out? Youâd be wrong.
The bilateral relationship has definitely gotten worse over espionage accusations (more on that below).
Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo GonzĂĄlez, who arrived in Madrid last week as a political exile, said yesterday that he was âcoercedâ by his countryâs authoritarian regime to sign a document that recognized that NicolĂĄs Maduro had won the election as a condition to allow him to flee the country.
Bad look. Since this took place in the Spanish embassy in Caracas, PP leaders have accused the PSOE government of being âcomplicitâ and âthe main collaborator with the Venezuelan dictatorshipâ. PSOE leaders are outraged.
More news below. đđ
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đŹ Five things to discuss at dinner parties this week
đ»đȘ 1. Venezuela arrests 2 Spanish citizens, calling them âterroristsâ
Venezuela drama keeps on giving. If you thought that last weekâs diplomatic crisis between Spain and Venezuela would be over by now, you were (very obviously) wrong.
In fact, itâs gotten worse.
The Venezuelan government on Saturday announced the arrest of two Spanish citizens, JosĂ© MarĂa Basoa and AndrĂ©s MartĂnez Adasme, who it accused of being part of a broader effort orchestrated by Spain to undermine the authoritarian regime led by President NicolĂĄs Maduro. The announcement, made by new âInterior and Peaceâ minister Diosdado Cabello, said the two men had an arsenal of weapons.
This one goes to 11. Not only that, Maduro insisted on Monday that they were a part of Spainâs National Intelligence Center (CNI) and that they were âterroristsâ.
Spainâs government denied these accusations, adding that these two men from Bilbao have no connection to the CNI or any other local agency. Indeed, the families of the two men insist that they were on vacation in Venezuela. Which is a pretty country, if currently a bit of an economic and political shit show.
The families say the two men flew from Madrid to Caracas on Aug. 17 and last spoke to them on Sept. 2. After the men failed to return a rental car on Sept. 5, family members took to social media to report them as missing. Then on Saturday, the Venezuelan government made their arrest public.
Com-pli-ca-ted. The situation has been further complicated by Venezuelaâs alleged failure to adhere to international diplomatic protocols, which require consular notification when foreign nationals are detained. This time, the Spanish government learned of the arrests through Cabelloâs televised statement.
Look, a coup! The Spanish government sees this drama as an attempt by Maduro to distract Venezuelans by ginning up a story of external aggression to rally support for his leadership after he, um, seemingly lost an election in a landslide.
Election? Spain had been trying to act as a mediator in the Venezuelan crisis that exploded after the
shamcontroversial presidential elections of July 28 in which Maduro announced heâd been reelected without providing any official voting records.But⊠Things took a turn for the worse after Spain offered asylum to Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo GonzĂĄlez Urrutia, who fled to Madrid claiming political persecution. And even worse when Venezuela recalled its ambassador from Madrid after Spainâs Defense Minister Margarita Robles referred to the Maduro government as a âdictatorshipâ because truth hurts.
đȘđž đ đ»đȘ. Guess the whole Spain+Venezuela = #BFF is off.
2. đ§âđŠ± Who is Teresa Ribera, PM SĂĄnchezâs green enforcer in Brussels?
Spainâs PM SĂĄnchez got a win on Tuesday and judging from the shenanigans in parliament (see big story âïž), he needed it.
Teresa Ribera, SĂĄnchezâs Third Deputy Prime Minister (hey, she used to be fourth!), was named an Executive Vice President in European Commission President Ursula von der Leyenâs incoming (second term) administration. Not only that but she was given Super Powers âĄ!
Bit oâ context. In VDLâs first term, Spanish pol Josep Borrell (formerly SĂĄnchezâs foreign minister) served as High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, which sounds (and should be) amazing and super powerful, but Borrellâs mandate has been marked byâoh, letâs just quote the title of a Politico profile of him: â5 lessons from the worldâs most gaffe-prone diplomat: Josep Borrellâ.
Ribera is different. Besides not being gaffe-prone, Ribera also got a major promotion.
Green chief. In SĂĄnchezâs government, she served as the Minister of the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge (basically, in charge of the govâs green policy and fight against climate change), which she will now do at the EU level.Â
Draghiâs hands. In this position, sheâll lead up attempts to turn the to-do list in former Italian PM and ECB president Mario Draghiâs damning report on how to reverse Europeâs economic and industrial declineâespecially âthe development of the new Clean Industrial Deal for competitive industries and quality jobsââinto reality.
But so much more. Ribera will also take over from Europeâs long-serving antitrust chief Margrethe Vestagerâyou know, the person who has won landmark cases cracking down on Appleâs Irish tax sweetheart deal and Googleâs anti-competitive practices.Â
So much power. That means her role is, again according to Politico, âperhaps, the most powerful post ever created within the EUâs executive arm: A position combining the jobs of competition chief, net-zero architect and economic transformer.â
Main enforcer. In the words of friend-of-Tapa David Meyer at Fortune, âRibera will also be the main enforcer of the Digital Markets Act, a recently enacted law that places strict limitations on the behavior of Big Tech âgatekeepersâ like Meta, Google, and Appleâall of which are already subjects of non-compliance probes.â
Ribera has been criticized for being more of a green activist than an effective politician. VDLâs own center-right EPP party (the PPâs parent), the nuclear industry and the French government all criticized her recently. But she has managed to get some things done in Spain andâunlike Borrellâwonât be so gaffe-prone as to congratulate Ecuador for holding âpeacefulâ presidential elections even though one of the candidates was assassinated. đ€Š
3. đ¶ No more music for you, Florentino PĂ©rez!
Remember when Taylor Swift played two nights in Madrid in May and there was a huge love-in about the city's new major concert venue, Real Madridâs remodeled Estadio Santiago BernabĂ©u? Well, now Real Madrid has announced that it will suspend or cancel concerts planned for the stadium through March 2025, after a bazillion neighbors of the arena complained for months about HOW F-ING LOUD THEY WERE! JUST LIKE A âTORTURE DOMEâ!Â
Florentino PĂ©rez actually lost something? FP, if you donât know/grew up under a rock is the dead-eyed construction business (Grupo ACS) honcho and president-for-life of Real Madrid and he never loses anything. Heâs like the ultimate Hollywood supervillain (here he is with Kim Kardashian!) but Madrileños love him because he and his team win everything. But more on that in a minute.Â
They kept complaining. A July deal with neighbors had the stadium stop partying at 11 p.m. (it was loud! People were drunk! Somebody died!) but they kept complaining because it, like, sucked to live near the worldâs largest open-air jukebox. And the barrio is pretty nice so the anti-concert lobby (which supposedly has 2,000 supporters) had lawyers. But donât blame them for their money: âThey paid attention to us because we were right, not because weâre pijos,â one told El Diario.
Cancellations galore. This has meant the cancellationâor at least the need to moveâgobs of big concerts, including by Aitana, Lola Ăndigo, Dellafuente and the worldâs biggest K-Pop festival (pitty the poor pretty K-Pop boys). 240,000 fans had bought tickets! Here are all the canceled shows.
Bummer for Real Madrid. Remodeling the stadium cost âŹ900mâŠor âŹ1.17bnâŠor âŹ2bn. Anyway, it cost a lot, and money to pay back the loans for it was supposed to come from the concerts. One hedge-funder who might be unhappy? Alan Waxman, the boss of Sixth Street, which in May 2022 loaned the club âŹ360m in exchange for 30% of the income from stadium use through 2042. Whoops!Â
Whatâs next? Real Madrid went to its in-town rival AtlĂ©tico and said youâre a lesser club so do what we say would you mind hosting our shows while we add more soundproofing to our incredibly expensive stadium? And AtlĂ©ti was, like, no-fĂng way, we have to, um, take care of our sacred turf. (Real Madridâs new stadium may not have enough soundproofing, but it does have a retractable turf system; AtlĂ©tico does not.)
Never count Florentino PĂ©rez out. As in, new Real Madrid star Kylian MbappĂ© turned him down in 2022âbut arrived this year. Our prediction? PĂ©rez will do some minor remodeling and have all the concerts he wants next season, neighbors be damned. And heâll find a way to destroy AtlĂ©tiâs turf too.
4. đ Vox makes brave stand for right of poor to pollute
If Vox hates anything more than bike lanes, itâs urban low-emissions zones. So, good news (for them)! Madridâs regional supreme court sided with the far-right outfit in a lawsuit it filed to suspend Madridâs low-emissions zones. Phew! Oh, waitâŠ
Excuse us? What happened? Yes, the court overturned the three low-emissions zones in Madrid, on a kind of bureaucratic technicality: that the economic impact study done before the lawâs passage was âinsufficientâ because it had not taken into account the effort lower-income people would need to make to get the kind of low-emissions vehicles needed to comply with the so-called ZBE areas.
Vox, party of the people. This sort of fits with Voxâs brandâhelping âregularâ Spaniards stare down crazy âwokeâ environmental regulations and the like. But the tighty righty partyâs celebration was a bit, um, over the top. As in:Â
Javier Ortega-Smith (the Gibraltar cement block collector) said the âbraveâ ruling was a âjoy for Vox and the people of Madridâ and Mayor JosĂ© Luis MartĂnez-Almeida âought to resignâ (!); regional spokeswoman RocĂo Monasterio addedânot at all hyperbolically!âthat âliberty can return to Madrid.â Thank god.
Why so angry at Almeida? Well, when he said he was a candidate, he said he would get rid of the zones, but over time allowed them to remain and even expanded them because, um, the EU demanded cleaner air and most madrileños seem to accept them. But that makes him a traitor to Vox.
And now what? This isnât the end of the road for the restrictions, as Madrid city hall can appeal the ruling to the national supreme court (which it most likely will) by the end of October. And maybe do a better economic impact study?
But Vox is doubling down. It wants the city to not appeal the ruling and return the fines it charged drivers so far. And itâs a LOT of money đ¶đ¶đ¶. The lobby Automovilistas Europeos Asociados (AEA) estimates the city had levied 1.7m fines for âŹ330m. That feels like an exaggeration, but even if itâs halfâŠthat blows a big hole in the budget, right?
5.đ Immigration is now Spainâs top concern (and we may be turning right)
Immigration is now the top concern for Spaniards, to the surprise of pretty much no one. In only three months itâs gone from ninth to first place, ranking above unemployment, the economy and the housing crisis, according to public research institute CIS.
Why? As summer began, the Canary Islands regional government warned that their reception centers were overwhelmed with undocumented migrants arriving in boats from the coast of Africa. So far, boat arrivals have increased by 126% this year, the Interior Ministry says. A total of 31,155 people have arrived in Spain by land (through North African enclaves Ceuta and Melilla) and sea, which is 66% more than in the same period in 2023. Also, the Africa-Canary Islands route is the deadliest in Europe, with at least 702 deaths registered so far this year.
Is it really the top worry? 30.4% of respondents named immigration as the top concern for Spain, according to CIS. Such figures hadnât been seen in the country since 2006 during the so-called cayucos crisis in the Canary Islands. But we should add that when people were asked about which issue most personally affected themâand not the countryâimmigration came fifth.
Immigration tension. While the EU is pledging âŹ14 million for an action plan to help the Canary Islands, things at home are as divided as ever.
The Canary Islandsâ regional president is very unhappy with the PSOE government, which he feels is not helping his autonomous community enough. His government recently introduced a new protocol for receiving migrant minors, imposing additional procedures and slowing the reception process.
This led to a clash with the central government, which claims the protocol may cause a âconflict of powersâ and potentially violate the fundamental rights of children, so itâs now taking preliminary steps to challenge the Canary Islandsâ regulation before the Constitutional Court.
Rome is lovely this time of year. In the meantime, PP boss FeijĂło is making a move abroad. Today, the PP leader is meeting with Italian PM Giorgia Meloni, known for her strict stance on immigration.
FeijĂło wants to pressure the EU to support Spain in managing its migration crisis and âpush for a full deployment of (the European Border and Coast Guard agency) Frontexââwhile at the same time distancing himself from the more controversial approach from far-right Vox.
Happy to take credit. Vox leader Santiago Abascal, however, is celebrating the meeting and âhopes he can learn from herâ.
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