Spain Notes, Dec 16: sexual assault figures + Catalan separatists + Sánchez in Europe
1/ Amazon has decided to NOT USE a new €70 million, 140,000 m2 logistics centre it has built in Zaragoza (Aragón). 1,500 jobs that are now not going to happen. Article cites a general downturn in European consumer demand as the reason. Amazon will try to rent the premises out.
2/ The Spanish Home Office published the sexual assault statistics for 2016-2022 (download pdf). Many more rapes are being reported, vs. seven or eight years ago. More than double.
3/ Abacal (Vox) wasted no time in laying blame: “Sánchez is the main person responsible”, the far-right leader tweeted: “He is the leader of the pack that releases them”.
4/ Having a quick look at the pdf, the big headline we’re seeing “More gang rapes in Spain”, is…true to a point. In absolute numbers, yes, but not as a percentage of all rapes. The number of rapes has gone up across the board.
5/ Catalan First Minister Pere Aragonés (Esquerra) wrote an op-ed in the FT defending, you guessed it…a referendum on Catalan independence.
6/ Sánchez made some more foreign policy waves, making remarks in the European Parliament.
7/ He defended the amnesty bill and was critical of the right in Europe: “Would you put the street names dedicated to the Third Reich back up in Berlin, like Vox has done with Francoist ones [in Spain]?”
8/ Feijóo met other EPP leaders to talk about the rule of law in Spain, the European stability pact and the situation in Ukraine: “Pedro Sánchez is today the person who most disparages Spanish institutions in Europe. He chairs a government that is contrary to European values”.
9/ Muresan (EPP, Romania): “We saw the weakening of PM Sánchez in the #EPlenary today. Puigdemont threatened to withdraw his support for Sánchez’s government unless Catalan became an official EU language. This has shown us that Mr Sánchez is Puigdemont’s puppet”.
10/ The right has been calling Sánchez “Sánchez Dog” all year in its, Sánchez himself embraced the challenge during the campaign and while he was at the European Parliament…a dog started barking. Sniggering ensued.
11/ Sánchez was booed by the right at the end of his remarks.
12/ Nogueras (Junts, Puigdemont’s party) named judges they don’t like in parliament and said they should be sacked and tried. The names were the Supreme Court and National High Court judges who have investigated the crimes related to the Catalan separatist process.
13/ Judges’ associations immediately issued a statement condemning that: “it is tremendously irresponsible to tell people that judges are acting for reasons other than the application of the law”.
14/ The Judicial Council also put out a statement that said Nogeuras’ words in parliament were not consistent with the separation of powers.
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