☀️ This Week in Spain: Summer Break!

But first, an update on PM Sánchez and Catalonia.

By @IanMount and @AdrianBono | August 1, 2024 | Madrid | Issue #68

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

🥜 This Week in a Nutshell: It’s the last one before our summer break this month (we’ll be back in September), so we better make it count. You may have noticed everyone is totally checked out for the holidays so not much is happening, but we couldn’t go dark for 30 days before telling you about the two things that happened this week: an agreement in Catalonia and PM Sánchez’s press conference yesterday.

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Going out with a bang and a whimper

A Quick Recap Before We Head into the Summer Break: PM Sánchez vs. Judge Peinado and Catalonia vs, well, everyone else

It’s August 1, the official beginning of Spain’s “Month That Does Not Exist.” And it comes at the end of a week that tells us that September is going to be spicy. 🌶️

• First, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez declined to testify in the corruption investigation into his wife, sued the judge, and said he “wasn’t attacking the justice system”. Yesterday morning’s press conference (which was supposed to be a balance of his government before heading into the August break) was intense (see video above). Sánchez had to face repeated questioning from journalists who were hoping for a few headlines and, well, they got them.

• Sánchez also commented on this week’s PSOE deal with the Catalan leftish separatist party, ERC, to finally elect laconic socialist Salvador Illa as regional president in exchange for allowing the Catalan government to keep all federal taxes collected in the region and not share any with Spain’s other (mostly poorer) regions. (Which is sorta like saying California could keep all the federal income tax collected there in exchange for voting in Elon Musk as governor.)

Hurray! The end. Everyone can now go on vacation.

We’re kidding, of course. This is just the beginning of the drama.

• The deal has made everybody outside of Catalonia — including PSOE folks in other regions — very, very, VERY angry. 🤬

Will Caso Begoña hot up and burn Sánchez — or burn the judge who took on the dubious case? Can Sánchez use the fear of a Vox planet to push through another piece of legislative quid pro quo (that almost nobody likes) in order to stay in power? As we said, prepare for a spicy September! 🔥

And with that, we bid adieu adios and head out into The Month That Does Not Exist, where we plunge our toes in the sand, drink frosty beverages, and sleep until we damn well please.

Thanks to everyone who’s been accompanying us through the Very Much Not Boring Year, and see you in September!

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