Spain Unveils Economic Recovery Plan Amid Pandemic

Spain’s prime minister unveiled a major plan Wednesday to boost his country out of recession by spending 140 billion euros ($162 billion) of European Union aid to reshape the economy, with the aim of creating 800,000 jobs over the next three years.

The program is a response to the sharp downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic and its worldwide disruption of economies. The plan focuses primarily on getting Spain to transition to green energy and a digital economy, which will take up about 70% of the financing.

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Spain Is Moving To Establish Permanent Basic Income

Spain is moving to implement a permanent basic income as a measure to help workers and families battered by the coronavirus pandemic.

Nadia Calviño, the country’s minister for economic affairs, told the Spanish broadcaster La Sexta on Sunday evening that the government was planning to introduce the cash handouts as part of a barrage of policies meant to help people get back on their feet.

She said enacting basic income was “mostly aimed at families, but differentiating between their circumstances.”

Calviño didn’t offer a specific date as to when basic income could be rolled out in the country. But she said the government hoped it would become “a permanent instrument.”

“We’re going to do it as soon as possible,” she said. “So it can be useful, not just for this extraordinary situation, and that it remains forever.”

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Spain’s New Left-Wing Socialist Government Offers Hope In Dark Political Times

“Corbynism has come to Spain” leaving business leaders “trembling,” wrote the Telegraph last week in response to news that the Mediterranean country had elected its first truly left-wing government in decades. Following months of political deadlock, nearly a year without a government and four general elections in as many years, January 7, 2020, saw Spanish Parliament swear a Socialist Party (PSOE) and Unidas Podemos (UP) coalition into power.

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Sustainability In A Small Place: The Spanish Basque Country As A 21st Century Model

Things aren’t working out the way many of us hoped. But we could learn something from this small entrepreneurial nation. The 21st Century is not working out the way many of us hoped: we witness the failure of nations and politicians to address the climate crisis, as well as social unrest in many countries over the failure of a neoliberal economic model that has neglected social equity and environmental sustainability. The Financial Times has even called for “a more sustainable and inclusive form of capitalism.”

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What Is Happening In Spain?

The transition from dictatorship to democracy in Spain (1978) was carried out under conditions very favorable to the profoundly conservative forces that controlled the Spanish state and the majority of the media. The democratic forces (lead by the clandestine left wing parties) were institutionally weak. It is true that popular resistance against the dictatorship had been strong primarily among the working class, the base of these parties. Spain had the largest number of political strikes in Europe during the transition period (1975-1979)…

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Over 5,000 Police Deployed To Monitor Climate Summit In Spain

Spain’s authorities have deployed over 5,000 officers to monitor the 2019 United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP25) to be held in Madrid from Monday. While the Civil Guard will control vehicular traffic and airport security, the Defense Ministry will supervise air safety. For its part, Madrid’s Municipal Police will control urban mobility and support government delegations in their movements. This special surveillance reinforcement device, which is part of a level-4 alert, will remain until Dec. 14, as the Interior Minister reported.

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Thousands Of Catalan Activists Protest Spain’s Royal Visit

Thousands of demonstrators banged on kitchen pots and chanted “Catalonia has no king!” on Monday to protest a visit by the Spanish royal family to the capital of the region that has been rocked by weeks of pro-independence demonstrations. Attended by King Felipe, his wife Queen Letizia and two daughters, the venue of the Princess of Girona young talent awards ceremony in Barcelona were heavily guarded by police who had installed heavy fences and blocked one of the city’s main thoroughfares with vans.

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Barcelona Rocked By Violence On Fifth Day Of Separatist Protests

The violence followed a largely peaceful demonstration which drew more than half a million people onto the streets of the Catalan capital to denounce the lengthy jail terms that have sent a shockwave through Spanish politics. As night fell, masked youths blocked a broad boulevard close to the city’s police headquarters, setting fire to large garbage bins and throwing a hail of stones, cans and bottles toward massed lines of security forces in full riot gear. Blazing obstacles and metal barriers were thrown up across other streets in one of Europe’s tourist hotspots and a branch of the Banco Santander bank was ransacked.

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Police, Protesters Clash In Catalonia For 3rd Night

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Rioting raged in Barcelona and several other Catalan towns for a third straight night Wednesday, with police fighting running street battles with protesters angered by lengthy prison sentences for nine leaders of the wealthy region’s drive for independence from Spain. Tens of thousands of protesters faced off against police in Barcelona. Some set up flaming barricades in the streets, torching cars and trash cans. They chanted, “The streets will always be ours!”

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Spanish Police Attack Mass Protests Against Prison Terms For Catalan Nationalists

Protests erupted across Catalonia Monday after Spain’s Supreme Court handed down harsh jail sentences against 12 Catalan nationalists on trumped-up charges relating to the October 1, 2017 Catalan independence referendum. Within minutes of the Monday morning verdict, thousands of protesters descended into the streets to demand the release of the defendants, occupying public squares and blocking highways in cities across the region. In Barcelona, the regional capital, they shut down major arteries such as the Via Laietana and Passeig de Gràcia.

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Spanish Police Attack Mass Protests Against Prison Terms For Catalan Nationalists

Protests erupted across Catalonia Monday after Spain’s Supreme Court handed down harsh jail sentences against 12 Catalan nationalists on trumped-up charges relating to the October 1, 2017 Catalan independence referendum. Within minutes of the Monday morning verdict, thousands of protesters descended into the streets to demand the release of the defendants, occupying public squares and blocking highways in cities across the region. In Barcelona, the regional capital, they shut down major arteries such as the Via Laietana and Passeig de Gràcia. According to police figures…

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Letter From Catalonia: Barcelona’s Occupy Mayor Wins A Second Term

Colau narrowly lost the popular vote (21.3% to 20.7%) on May 26 to Ernest Maragall of the Republican Left party, which calls for Catalonia — Spain’s largest and wealthiest province and home to Barcelona — to secede and become its own country. Because Maragall fell short of winning an outright majority, the election went to the 41-member City Council where an alliance of three parties gave Colau the support she needed to win. In addition to receiving 10 votes from Barcelona en Comú, the party she leads, Colau cobbled together a majority by receiving eight votes from the Socialists and three from the conservative pro-European Union party of Manuel Valls.

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Can Barcelona Rekindle Its Radical Imagination?

The night of 26 May 2019 was a bad one for Spain’s so-called Fearless Cities. Four years after winning local elections, the left-wing municipal platforms that governed Madrid, Barcelona, Zaragoza, A Coruña, Santiago de Compostela and other key cities have suffered major losses. The only exceptions are Cádiz and Valencia. The former will certainly be governed by the anticapitalist Adelante Andalusia and the latter by the progressive Compromís.

Everywhere else, the municipalists will be replaced by either Pedro Sanchez’s resuscitated Socialist Party or a right-wing coalition that includes the disintegrating Popular Party, the technocratic Ciudadanos and the neo-fascist Vox.

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Independence Trial Protest Organizers Celebrate A “Historic” March In Madrid

Organizers of the protest against the Catalan trial have celebrated a “historic” march in Madrid in a “context of political repression”. For the Catalan National Assembly (ANC) president Elisenda Paluzie this demonstration showed the unity of “all the peoples of Spain” for the right to self-determination. The vicepresident of Omnium Cultural, Marcel Mauri, deemed the protest as a “wall” against intolerance and hate. Thousands of people rallied against the ongoing independence trial on Saturday through Paseo de Prado – the symbolic and geographical heart of the Spanish capital – under the banners “Self-determination is not a crime” and “Democracy is about deciding”.

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Spanish Elections Offer Another Lesson For The Left

In what seems a replay of recent German and Italian elections, an openly authoritarian and racist party made major electoral gains in Spain’s most populous province, Andalusia, helping to dethrone the Socialist Party that had dominated the southern region for 36 years. Vox, or “Voice” — a party that stands for “Spain First,” restrictions on women’s rights, ending abortion, stopping immigration, and dismantling the country’s regional governments — won almost 11 percent of the vote. The party is in negotiations to be part of a ruling right-wing coalition, while left parties are calling for an “anti-fascist front.”

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