100 posts
David Cameron stands firm on Gibraltar’s right to self determination during speech before the Council of Europe
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British Prime Minister David Cameron was in Strasbourg this week to address the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (note: entirely different to the EU) of which the UK has now assumed the presidency.Following his speech delivered on Wedn...
Spain’s jobless top five million, highest in nearly 17 years
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Spain’s jobless queues stretched to over five million in the last quarter of 2011, underlining once again the failure of austerity policies in the country. The National Statistics Institute (INE) figures showed 5.3 million people were unemploye...
Spanish banker gets Euros 56 million pension
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Its misery for people in Spain these days. Well, most Spaniards, not the likes of Francisco Luzón, a senior executive at Santander bank. Luzón, it emerged this week, has left the country’s largest bank with a pension of Euros 56 million. His...
Catalans in fresh protests over spending cuts
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Public sector workers marched through Barcelona Wednesday to protest against spending cuts made by the regional government of Catalonia. The protestors marched behind a large black and white banner reading “No to the cuts. Save Public Services...
More than half a million Spanish families to lose homes by 2015
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IN BRIEF / SPAIN Rising unemployment and economic crisis will see more than 510,000 Spanish families lose their homes via foreclosure proceedings. These are the findings of the Association of People Affected by Foreclosure and Auctions (Asociación d...
Spain: Public Spending – Not Guilty
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Falling revenues, not excessive spending at root of deficit, a new report shows Excessive public spending is not responsible for the poor state of Spain’s public finances. Instead it is the fall in revenues that came amid cuts to spending in Sp...
The Rain In Spain Falls Mainly On The Journalists, It Seems
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Things in Spain are never exactly what they seem to be. This is a painful lesson that even Angela Merkel must have learnt in recent days, especially since she put her credibility so much on the line in backing the … Continue reading → No...
New Blog on European Politics
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My friend and colleague Trisha Craig has just launched a new blog on European politics. There only one post so far, on the Spanish elections, but check it out. There will be more to come, and you're sure to find it interesting.
A few brief thoughts on the Spanish election
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I do not follow Spanish politics closely, so I have been more of a consumer of news about it rather than a commentator in the past few days since Sunday’s election. A few dynamics strike me as important though. First, … Continue reading &...
The Rajoy head-clamp
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Spain’s general election campaign, which concludes next Sunday, has been a pretty dull affair. The Partido Popular, led by Mariano Rajoy, has maintained but failed to widen its substantial opinion poll lead over the governing (I use the word lo...
Buying an Apartment at Javea
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Considering of moving to Costa Blanca, Spain - the place that the sunlight normally shines along with your tan lasts year-round? Then you definitely may want to seek out apartments for sale in Costa Blanca. Actually, you should particularly consider...
Spain’s United Left unveils economic ‘shock’ plan
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Spain’s United Left, the third largest national party, has announced an economic “shock” plan to create more some 1.5 million jobs in two years by investing in greening the economy, protecting the environment, tackling the housing crisis and bo...
Set out a Cheap Travel to Barcelona
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It is not yet too late to include in your planner a special treat to get a taste of your accomplishment. A cheap travel to Barcelona may just be perfect for you. Grab this chance to savor the second largest city in Spain.
"Mariano Rajoy clears the path for a Spanish bailout" by David Lizoain
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We’re now in the midst of an electoral campaign in Spain. Last night we watched the one and only debate scheduled between the PSOE and PP candidates, Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba and Mariano Rajoy....
Barcelona – Encounter Spain’s Colorful And Traditional City
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Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain. Because of this, so much of the Spanish culture accumulates in this area: fashion, science, art, entertainment. Not only is Barcelona a bustling modern city, but it also has 2000 years of history under i...
Spain gets it right again
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Spain has proven once more adept at reading the signs of an attack and going on the offensive. As everyone closes around Greece and France, Spain has passed a balanced budget amendment to its constitution. I expect it will do better than otherwise po...
"Spain puts itself in Handcuffs" by David Lizoain
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George Irvin and Andrew Watt have already pointed out the folly of the debt brake for Europe in general and Spain in particular. We shall see if Spain’s proposal to limit its structural deficit...
"Inane in Spain: debate on terms of debt brake begins" by Andrew Watt
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As predicted, the debate about exactly what to write into the proposed constitutional amendment to institute a balanced budget/debt brake requirement in Spain has started and promises to be...
Pushing the limit
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In the early hours of this morning, Spain's ruling Socialist party, PSOE, and the conservative opposition, PP party, brokered a deal on amending the constitution to include limits on public deficit and debt. An idea that was pushed by Germany and Fra...
"Spain first in line to apply the debt brake: theatre of the absurd continues" by Andrew Watt
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Spain is the first to do Franco-German bidding and announce that it will introduce a debt brake/balanced budget rule into its constitution. There is broad centre-left/centre-right support ensuring...
Spain’s High Risk Election Process
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As Mr Zapatero put it on Saturday, when he announced the date of Spain’s general election, the decision “is in the country’s interest” since from now on there will be certainty, and “certainty is stability”. While...
Remember Spain?
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Until two weeks ago all eyes were on Spain as the country that, if it required a bailout, threatened to pull the eurozone apart at the seams. Events seem to have leap-frogged Spain and moved straight to Italy as the latter rushed to force an austerit...
Voice of America Reports on Spain Demonstrations as Inspired by Arab Protests:The Chains of Law and Order: Be Careful What You Wish For
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It is one thing to be for democracy but quite another to cope with what mass democratically-inspired civil unrest can actually mean.Law and order may be our chains, but they also protect us.Lauren Frayer at Voice of America News reports on the newest...
Federalism and the future of Spain
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By Joan Marc Simon Spain is a unitary state like France and Italy. Its constitution defines it as “one and indivisible”. Since 1978 Spain has structured itself as Estado de las Autonomias, a state with 17 Autonomous Communities with an asymmetric...
Spanish Town 'Reintroduces' Peseta
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A small town in northern Spain has decided to reintroduce the old Spanish currency - the peseta - alongside the euro to give the local economy a lift. Shopkeepers in Mugardos want anyone with forgotten pesetas to come and spend it. The BBC reports th...
WikiLeaks: A Spanish political earthquake
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Wikileaks is causing a political earthquake in Spain. In a country where Americans are already not very popular due to continued American support for Franco's dictatorship, seeing now (in writing)Read more…...
"If Spain falls, the Euro falls"
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Things are getting really scary in Euroland.Fears of contagion are spreading like a rash, replicating the patterns preceding the bail-out of Greece. An article in Der Spiegel has a very useful break-down of the challenges facing the key euro countrie...
Spain is different? Para bien, y para mal…
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Hace poco más de una semana tuve el placer y el privilegio de asistir a una clase en la universidad bastante especial y peculiar. El tema que se trataba era la memoria en la España post franquista. No tendría … Continue re...
Young thirtysomething joining ETA, a dying serpent
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Half a century and 839 killings later, the Basque separatist organisation summons international mediators to ‘fix’ the conflict; its cocky tone towards Brussels almost makes it sound like as a global actor whining to be listened to. What does an...
Mr Zapatero Said What……….?
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Spain’s Tinsa Price Index was out last week, and showed Spanish property prices fell again in September, and at an accelerating rate. As Tinsa point out in their report, both “Metropolitan Areas and municipalities on the Mediterranean Coa...
Spain: With a little help from our friends
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In the Basque hamlet of Beire, where the Spanish Greens interrupted their summer holidays to build the fundaments of a unified reappearance on the national stage, recent developments in France served as a shining example. The party-in-the make, still...
Naughty Naughty Spaniards...People might be watching
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If there is something that our betters hate is people just doing what they think is right, despite the certain knowledge that it will annoy. To this end Spain is taking the role of the little boy and the WHO the Red Queen,And with that she began nurs...
