TODAY'S COLUMN
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NOTES
1—No PP motion of no confidence in Sánchez: “I wish we could table a motion of no confidence”, said Feijóo in the Senate. Technically, they could, tomorrow, but he prefers to wait until the elections next year.
2—The Popular Party blasted Sánchez in the Senate on Tuesday evening. Feijóo accused the PM of presiding over “a government in flames that has gone into shock” after a scandal broke last week over a new law that gets some convicted rapists less jail time. The PP leader said Sánchez was just marking time now, “for a few more months in Moncloa, you are dragging the whole nation down”.
3—Sánchez still hasn’t sacked his Equality Minister. He said this morning again that “Spain has the government with the most women in Europe”.
4—Vox has proposed its own reform of the Criminal Code. Spain’s right-wing populist nationalists want to introduce “crimes against the unity of the nation”. Their proposed text, as you might imagine, suggests 10-20 years in jail for any politician or civil servant who “carries out, collaborates, cooprerates, favours, facilitates, encourages or promotes” anything that looks like it might affect the territorial integrity of Spain. Anyone public officiales who “tolerate” anyone doing that should be jailed for 10-15 years, says Vox.
5—The government has agreed on some mortgage relief measures for some home owners with Spanish banks. The Economy Ministry claims a million families will benefit from being able to delay some interest payments over a five-year period if their low income and the percentage of the income they put towards mortgage payments qualify. The government says the measures will be in place by the new year to offset the risk of a rise in the Euribor reference rate, but the Economy Minister denied they were the result of “the risk of macroeconomic impact”.
6—Unions say it’s not enough. One of Spain’s bigger trade unions, Comisiones Obreros, said the mortgage aid wasn’t going to be enough to help people “ in a context of rate rises and higher average rates”.
7—The government has also agreed to freeze rent increases at 2% through to the end of 2023 in a deal with Basque nationalist party EH Bildu to ensure their vote for the 2023 budget. The deal also includes a 15% increase for some pensions and almost four millions euros for Basque historical projects, including the recently found Hand of Irulegi, inscribed with some ancient Basque words, and two memorials: one for an event in the 1970s and one from the Civil War.
8—Vozpópuli reported that former Ciudadanos MEP Luis Garicano had left the dying centre liberal party completely and was now fishing for a job with the Popular Party. Garicano wasn’t denying it on Twitter this evening. In June he claimed he was going back to teach at university. If he does take a job somewhere with a PP goverment, he will join other Ciudadanos figures who have previously done so like Toni Cantó and Juan Marín.
9—Spanish journalist Pablo González got a family visit after 267 days in Polish jail accused of spying for Russia. A support account on Twitter said his wife had managed to spend two hours with him at Radom jail after lawyers and the Spanish Consulate in Warsaw finally managed to arrange it: “He has lost a lot of weight but looks healthy”, she told a Basque radio station.
10—Pablo Iglesias has somehow managed to collect €185,000 in less than a day for his new media project, according to the Goteo page, after Podemos and related accounts began retweeting it. This reminds me of the crowdfunding the separatist who fled to Scotland, Clara Ponsatí, did back in 2018. She also somehow managed €200,000 in a day or so.
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