🥊 This Week in Spain: Parliament Brawls Are Back

Also: Teresa Ribera has a big new job at the EU and more problems with Venezuela.

Sep 19, 2024

By @IanMount and @AdrianBono | September 19, 2024 | Madrid | Issue #70

🎉 Welcome to The Tapa, an English-language, weekly newsletter about all things Spain!

🥜 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 Sánchez’s “democratic regeneration” 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 “undercover agents”. So much intrigue!

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Summer’s not over until someone screams “dictatorship!”

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 didn’t forget how to fight.

The debate over ‘democratic regeneration’ begins (and it’s already ugly)

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez 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 “pseudo media outlets”.

In the end, he didn’t quit. He just took some time off to relax. Still, he said he would push for a so-called “democratic regeneration” plan, which would seek to fight disinformation and media outlets of dubious origin that push “fake news"—which drove the opposition nuts, as in their view his ultimate goal was to control media that didn’t 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 País explains, introduces “more control over public officials and limits on institutional advertising in the media”.
The plan calls for: Mandatory electoral debates, the creation of two new units in the State Prosecutor’s office to fight against “public and private” 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 don’t 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? Sánchez hopes Parliament approves the text, but it’s an uphill battle. For one thing, the proposals aren’t 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.

Sánchez clashed with PP boss Alberto Núñez Feijóo on Wednesday and it wasn’t pretty. Feijóo accused the PM of “starting the year with a plan of censorship” against the media. “Censorship and persecution,” he added, that “has not been seen in Spain since Franco” was in power (see video above).
Sánchez responded by asking Feijóo to stop being “the bitter opposition”, saying that “for six years you’ve all been saying that Spain is sinking, yet Spain is growing more than the European average”. Which has nothing to do with media regulation, but anyway…
The upshot? Not much—if anything—is 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 Sánchez a win right now? Don’t expect much.

The looming threat of a PP + Vox + Junts equation

There’s 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 we’re 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 Catalonia’s independence, as the new regional president. Junts is also not happy with the fact that Spain’s Supreme Court refuses to grant amnesty to Puigdemont.
The call is coming from inside the House (of Parliament). Even though Junts supported Sánchez’s 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. It’s been ERC MP Gabriel Rufián, known for his troll-like antics on the floor, who has decided to pick up the glove and go after Puigdemont. “There’s a phantom threat in the building,” he said, warning of a PP + Vox + Junts coalition that could help Feijóo become PM, all thanks to the right-leaning separatists joining forces with “the ones that deny the Catalonian nation”.
You need me. Puigdemont, however, noted that Sánchez “doesn’t have an absolute majority to govern” (this is true). This morning, El Mundo says that PSOE representatives admit they need to “wait and see” how Puigdemont evolves. Translation: this is only just beginning.

And what’s going on with Venezuela?

Thought last week’s diplomatic rift was sorted out? You’d be wrong.

The bilateral relationship has definitely gotten worse over espionage accusations (more on that below).
Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo González, who arrived in Madrid last week as a political exile, said yesterday that he was “coerced” by his country’s authoritarian regime to sign a document that recognized that Nicolás 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 “complicit” and “the main collaborator with the Venezuelan dictatorship”. PSOE leaders are outraged.

More news below. 👇👇

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💬 Five things to discuss at dinner parties this week

🇻🇪 1. Venezuela arrests 2 Spanish citizens, calling them “terrorists”

Venezuela drama keeps on giving. If you thought that last week’s diplomatic crisis between Spain and Venezuela would be over by now, you were (very obviously) wrong.

In fact, it’s gotten worse.

The Venezuelan government on Saturday announced the arrest of two Spanish citizens, José María Basoa and Andrés Martínez Adasme, who it accused of being part of a broader effort orchestrated by Spain to undermine the authoritarian regime led by President Nicolás Maduro. The announcement, made by new “Interior and Peace” 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 Spain’s National Intelligence Center (CNI) and that they were “terrorists”.

Spain’s 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 Venezuela’s 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 Cabello’s 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 ~~sham~~ controversial presidential elections of July 28 in which Maduro announced he’d 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 González Urrutia, who fled to Madrid claiming political persecution. And even worse when Venezuela recalled its ambassador from Madrid after Spain’s Defense Minister Margarita Robles referred to the Maduro government as a “dictatorship” because truth hurts.

🇪🇸 💔 🇻🇪. Guess the whole Spain+Venezuela = #BFF is off.

2. 🧑‍🦱 Who is Teresa Ribera, PM Sánchez’s green enforcer in Brussels?

Spain’s PM Sánchez got a win on Tuesday and judging from the shenanigans in parliament (see big story ☝️), he needed it.

Teresa Ribera, Sánchez’s Third Deputy Prime Minister (hey, she used to be fourth!), was named an Executive Vice President in European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s incoming (second term) administration. Not only that but she was given Super Powers ⚡!
Bit o’ context. In VDL’s first term, Spanish pol Josep Borrell (formerly Sánchez’s 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 Borrell’s mandate has been marked by—oh, let’s just quote the title of a Politico profile of him: “5 lessons from the world’s most gaffe-prone diplomat: Josep Borrell”.

Ribera is different. Besides not being gaffe-prone, Ribera also got a major promotion.

Green chief. In Sánchez’s government, she served as the Minister of the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge (basically, in charge of the gov’s green policy and fight against climate change), which she will now do at the EU level.
- Draghi’s hands. In this position, she’ll lead up attempts to turn the to-do list in former Italian PM and ECB president Mario Draghi’s damning report on how to reverse Europe’s economic and industrial decline—especially “the development of the new Clean Industrial Deal for competitive industries and quality jobs”—into reality.
But so much more. Ribera will also take over from Europe’s long-serving antitrust chief Margrethe Vestager—you know, the person who has won landmark cases cracking down on Apple’s Irish tax sweetheart deal and Google’s anti-competitive practices.
- So much power. That means her role is, again according to Politico, “perhaps, the most powerful post ever created within the EU’s executive arm: A position combining the jobs of competition chief, net-zero architect and economic transformer.”
- Main enforcer. In the words of friend-of-Tapa David Meyer at Fortune, “Ribera 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 “gatekeepers” like Meta, Google, and Apple—all of which are already subjects of non-compliance probes.”

Ribera has been criticized for being more of a green activist than an effective politician. VDL’s own center-right EPP party (the PP’s parent), the nuclear industry and the French government all criticized her recently. But she has managed to get some things done in Spain and—unlike Borrell—won’t be so gaffe-prone as to congratulate Ecuador for holding “peaceful” presidential elections even though one of the candidates was assassinated. 🤦

3. 🎶 No more music for you, Florentino Pérez!

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 Madrid’s remodeled Estadio Santiago Bernabéu? 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 ‘TORTURE DOME’!

Florentino Pérez actually lost something? FP, if you don’t 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. He’s 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.

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 world’s largest open-air jukebox. And the barrio is pretty nice so the anti-concert lobby (which supposedly has 2,000 supporters) had lawyers. But don’t blame them for their money: “They paid attention to us because we were right, not because we’re pijos,” one told El Diario.

Cancellations galore. This has meant the cancellation—or at least the need to move—gobs of big concerts, including by Aitana, Lola Índigo, Dellafuente and the world’s 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 €900m…or €1.17bn…or €2bn. 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 €360m in exchange for 30% of the income from stadium use through 2042. Whoops!

What’s next? Real Madrid went to its in-town rival Atlético and said ~~you’re 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 Atléti was, like, no-fíng way, we have to, um, take care of our sacred turf. (Real Madrid’s new stadium may not have enough soundproofing, but it does have a retractable turf system; Atlético does not.)

Never count Florentino Pérez out. As in, new Real Madrid star Kylian Mbappé turned him down in 2022—but arrived this year. Our prediction? Pérez will do some minor remodeling and have all the concerts he wants next season, neighbors be damned. And he’ll find a way to destroy Atléti’s turf too.

4. 🚘 Vox makes brave stand for right of poor to pollute

If Vox hates anything more than bike lanes, it’s urban low-emissions zones. So, good news (for them)! Madrid’s regional supreme court sided with the far-right outfit in a lawsuit it filed to suspend Madrid’s low-emissions zones. Phew! Oh, wait…

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 law’s passage was “insufficient” 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 Vox’s brand—helping “regular” Spaniards stare down crazy “woke” environmental regulations and the like. But the tighty righty party’s celebration was a bit, um, over the top. As in:
- Javier Ortega-Smith (the Gibraltar cement block collector) said the “brave” ruling was a “joy for Vox and the people of Madrid” and Mayor José Luis Martínez-Almeida “ought to resign” (!); regional spokeswoman Rocío Monasterio added—not at all hyperbolically!—that “liberty can return to Madrid.” 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 isn’t 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 it’s a LOT of money 💶💶💶. The lobby Automovilistas Europeos Asociados (AEA) estimates the city had levied 1.7m fines for €330m. That feels like an exaggeration, but even if it’s half…that blows a big hole in the budget, right?

5.🛂 Immigration is now Spain’s 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 it’s 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 hadn’t 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 them—and not the country—immigration came fifth.

Immigration tension. While the EU is pledging €14 million for an action plan to help the Canary Islands, things at home are as divided as ever.

The Canary Islands’ 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 “conflict of powers” and potentially violate the fundamental rights of children, so it’s now taking preliminary steps to challenge the Canary Islands’ regulation before the Constitutional Court.

Rome is lovely this time of year. In the meantime, PP boss Feijóo is making a move abroad. Today, the PP leader is meeting with Italian PM Giorgia Meloni, known for her strict stance on immigration.

Feijóo wants to pressure the EU to support Spain in managing its migration crisis and “push for a full deployment of (the European Border and Coast Guard agency) Frontex”—while 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 “hopes he can learn from her”.

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