Fernando G. Urbaneja | The leader of the PP, Pablo Casado, is floundering as head of the opposition between the harsh discourse (with one eye on VOX) and the responsible one, with the other eye on Moncloa. He wants to appear as a reliable leader to govern, but also as a tough guy in the face of his adversaries. And little by little, he is sliding more towards the latter…
Fernando González Urbaneja | Pedro Sánchez has completed three years at the head of the government after success in a no confidence vote and two general elections, with sufficient majorities following coalitions of varying intensity with other groups on the left. Over the course of 37 months he has appointed 38 people to ministerial portfolios, some with long and novel names. He has had ministers for days, months and just over a year. Of the initial seven he has seven left, and tomorrow he receives another seven newly appointed. There is no precedent for such ministerial combustion.
Fernando González Urbaneja | Nutrition, the correct and recommended nutrition to preserve health, deserves a debate and an ambitious, high-level strategy. Michelle Obama dedicated a good part of her activism as “second lady” to this cause, correct infant nutrition. It was not with an occasional video and a few colourful statements, but she also proposed a strategy and a policy of greater range and scope. And from international organisations, especially…
José Hervás (Capital Madrid) | The Spanish lobby in Washington still hopes the President of the United States will finally meet Pedro Sánchez. But for now, Joe Biden has no plans to meet the head of the Spanish Government at the White House on his first official trip to the United States, from the 20th to the 24th of this month. There will not even be a brief meeting in…
Congress made it clear on Tuesday that the President’s credibility is very low He has reduced the internal socialist opposition but his parliamentary and government allies, those who support him, have little appreciation for him. They support him out of necessity, to avoid worse evils and can leave him alone when it suits them. Without credibility, he will not get very far, not the day-to-day, beyond a minimal agreement on pensions that has the sole merit of pure agreement, the scenography in the Moncloa for show. Dialogue is an instrumental value, it serves to reach agreements and underpin credibility. And there is very little evidence of this.
A weak government that has to negotiate every decision and swallow more than a few demands from its partners, but at the same time an unbeatable government due to the absence of an alternative – something like a perpetually ill government that enjoys very good health – will today pardon the pro-independence politicians imprisoned for the Catalan insurrection of 2017.
Fernando González Urbaneja | How is it possible that, burdened by an unprecedented pandemic, an intense recession and historic EU aid, political groups with power or influence are incapable of reaching a minimum of hopeful consensus? A reasonable explanation would be the mediocrity and selfishness of the leaders. There are data and trajectories that support this explanation. The absence of clear, firm, reasoned strategies for most of the known problems that hinder growth is obvious.
The Spanish press is full of jokes and laughs about the half-minute walk that US President Joe Biden had with Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez after the family photo at the NATO summit. A more than brief meeting that Sánchez’s advisers – always predisposed to propaganda – had ‘sold’ as a sign of the good relationship between the two countries. The most critical newspapers talk of contempt for Spain. They…
The Minister for Social Rights, Ione Belarra, has been elected as the new secretary general of Podemos, replacing Pablo Iglesias, with 88.69 percent of the votes cast in the party’s primaries. Of the 139,000 registered Podemos members with the right to vote in the IV Citizens’ Assembly held in Alcorcón (Madrid), 53,443 took part in the vote, of whom 45,753 opted for Belarra. Belarra competed with two other aspirants for…
On the rights and freedoms of all Spaniards, on whether or not they can leave their homes, until what time, with how many people… On all of this, let the Supreme Court decide. On the 12 prisoners of the ‘procés’ who, from prison, support the Government, on whether they enter or leave, how and when… The Supreme Court can say mass, and the Government, in other words Sánchez, will decide.