Spain Notes, Nov 21: arrests in Vidal Quadras case + new govt + amnesty + protests
1/ Three people, two men and a woman, have been arrested in Andalusia in relation to the shooting of the Vox founder and former PP leader in Catalonia, Alejo Vidal Quadras, in Madrid ten days ago. All Spanish nationality, none the shooter, according to the TVE report.
2/ Sánchez’s new cabinet ministers swore their oaths before the King.
3/ Sánchez is off on a trip to Israel on Thursday, alongside the Belgian PM, De Croo. They will meet Herzog, Netanyahu and Abbas.
4/ Podemos reacted to being kicked out of government. Belarra sent a letter to party members. After going over recent left-wing political history for a few paragraphs, she announces that Podemos will now act independently with its votes in parliament.
5/ Outgoing Equality Minister, Irene Montero, gave a short speech, which she wished the new minister “the courage to stand up to the Prime Minister’s 40- and 50-year old friends”.
6/ Feijóo (PP) announced yet another demonstration against the amnesty deal, to take place at the beginning of December.
7/ Vox is trying to call a general strike for Friday.
8/ A report that the first new PM’s questions for Sánchez will not be until December 13. The formal opening of parliament will probably be next week.
9/ Are South-American investors starting to pull their money from Spain after Sánchez’s reappointment? This suggests they are.
10/ ABC hates the new cabinet: "Sánchez puts up a wall”, ditching some of the technocrats in favour of more political ministers.
11/ El Mundo doesn’t like Bolaños getting to be Minister of Justice, Minister of the PM’s Office and Minister for Parliament all at once, clearly part of his strategy for dealing with the upcoming amnesty bill for Puigdemont.
12/ The National High Court in Madrid still wants to talk to Puigdemont about Tsunami Democratic and terrorism. The judge in that case has sent more arguments today to the Supreme Court and wants to look at if the death of a man at a protest at El Prat airport in 2019 could have been avoided.
13/ Other trial processes, for other senior but lower level people related to the events of 2017, are still slowly going ahead. Will the amnesty bill stop them?
14/ With Sánchez now reappointed as PM, the top news anchor at Spanish state broadcaster RTVE (BBC equivalent), Carlos Franganillo, has jumped ship to Mediaset and Telecinco.
15/ Police arrested the alt-right influencer/journalist (he has a press pass in parliament) Vito Quiles at the Madrid protest last night.
16/ He was released this morning after a night in the cells, and said he didn’t do anything and that he was just protesting peacefully.
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Whilst it IS accurate to say the judge wishes to continue pressing charges (his political background and "previous" go a long way to explain why) the "fiscal" has told him to fuck off in no uncertain terms. The main arguments being that the airport demonstrations were at Terminal 1, the unfortunate incident took place at Terminal 2 and the deceased was very speedily evacuated in helicopter.