The Catalan regional government’s determination to push ahead with a referendum on independence on 1st October that has been ruled illegal by the conservative government of the Spanish state has put the two authorities on collision course. With no sign of negotiated agreement or climb-down by either side, things look set to polarise very quickly. […]
Posts Tagged ‘Spain’
In Spain, election results are good news
May 27th, 2015 by Mike Phipps.Spains indignados made the move from city squares to the halls of power on Sunday in municipal and regional elections that saw an anti-poverty activist elected as mayor of Barcelona and the ruling Peoples Party (PP) battered at the ballot box, reports the Guardian. Elections in thirteen regions and more than 8,000 municipalities saw sweeping […]
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Podemos is 3rd force Spanish elections – radical left triumphs in Barcelona
May 25th, 2015 by Tom Gill.The upstart left party Podemos has claimed it is a “lever for change”, as it broke through in eight regions of Spain to become the third force in eight of the 13 regional parliaments contested. “We would have liked to see a more rapid erosion of the large parties“, according to Podemos leader Pablo Iglesias, […]
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The great Spanish corporate tax dodge
Mar 12th, 2015 by Tom Gill.Spain’s biggest companies have greatly increased their presence in tax havens, with the number of subsidiaries established in these tax-lite territories up 44% during 2013, the worst year in the country’s economic crisis. The IBEX35 companies upped the number of branches in tax havens from 561 to 810 during that year, new research finds. Financial […]
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Spain’s jobs crisis will last as long as it is in the euro
Mar 10th, 2015 by Tom Gill.By Juan Torres López and translated from the original Spanish by Tom Gill A crucial question for the Spanish economy is why it suffers a level of unemployment that is much higher than the rest of the economies that surround it. Obviously, it is a question with no simple unequivocal answer, for surely there are many factors […]
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“We are the vote for hope”: Interview with Pablo Iglesias of Podemos
Nov 27th, 2014 by Tom Gill.He’s MEP of the European Left in the GUE-NGL grouping “that defends the dignity of the people and democracy”. He’s also leader of Spain’s Podemos movement, which to general surprise won 8% in the Continent-wide elections in May and is accredited in opinion polls today as the leading political force in the country with a […]
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The rise and rise of Podemos: a movement for popular empowerment
Nov 16th, 2014 by Mike Phipps.One of the highlights of the recent AGM of the Labour Representation Committee was the address from Leticia Bernues Caudillo from Podemos which took 8% of the vote in the European elections and won five MEPs just three months after being founded. Podemos (“We can!”) was inspired by the radical left force in Greece, Syriza. It grew […]
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Fear is changing sides in Spain
Sep 16th, 2014 by Mike Phipps.Hundreds attended a meeting packed to overflowing – mainly young people, many Spanish – in London this weekend to hear a three-way debate between Owen Jones, Ken Loach and leaders of the new Spanish organisation Podemos, which took five seats in the European Parliament in May just three months after being formed. One of the new […]
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Spain’s socialists pick new leader on road to nowhere
Jul 12th, 2014 by Tom Gill.Spain’s opposition Socialists will elect a new leader on Sunday, in a an effort to reverse the party’s dramatic electoral decline and head off the challenge from new and existing parties to its left. After seven years in government, the Socialists were ousted by the right wing Popular Party in a landslide general election in […]
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The abdication of the king ends Spain’s imperfect transition
Jun 3rd, 2014 by Tom Gill.Translated from the original by Vicenç Navarro The message that the Spanish establishment – the power structure for the financial, economic, political and media elite – has been promoting 24 hours a day, three hundred sixty five days a year and through thirty- six years of democracy, is that, as result of a model Transition, […]
