Conference, Today, Europe celebrates the 10th Annual European Day of Languages, a European Union initiative to appreciate linguistic diversity in Europe and promote language learning. You might think it a bit of an anorak subject, and perhaps it is, but as a trainee interpreter of French and Spanish, it’s my anorak subject. Britain cannot afford [...]
The President of the Government of Spain, aka Prime Minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero today announced that Spain would hold the legislative elections on November 20th.These elections were originally going to take place in March 2012. The Socialist (PSOE) candidate is Alfredo Rubalcaba (left) and Conservative (PP) candidate is Mariano Rajoy. I’m going to write [...]
Tomorrow and Tuesday I shall be in Barcelona to attend a conference of the “Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists & Democrats in the European Parliament” (Press Release here). I was invited to participate in a round table discussion on Euroscepticism. Below is the abstract of my proposal: How can Social Democracy counter nationalism and [...]
Don’t be fooled by those that say the Spanish Government was a disaster. Over at the El País newspaper, we have an excellent analysis of the 20 most important (and sometimes controversial) pieces of legislation that has been introduced by Zapatero as President of the Government of Spain since 2004. Off you go! FacebookTwitter Wikio [...]
Though we have some more ‘exciting crisis news’ to report in Libya and Japan, I thought I’d write about something that I’ve been thinking about for a while. It’s next to Russia and it’s in the EU. In Latvia, 40,3% of workers receive a salary bellow 285 Euros, 27,3% between 285-428 Euros, and about 20% earn 428-714 Euros. That [...]
In response to the news that the government is to cede control of key airports in Spain, Controllers of the airports of Madrid-Barajas, Palma de Mallorca-Son Sant Joan and Canary Islands abandon their workplaces at 5PM, completely paralysing Spanish Civil aviation. The Ministry of Defence, taking emergency responsibilities awarded by the Government, is to replace [...]
As predicted, the conservative CiU (Convergence and Union) won the elections in Catalunya, with the worst bofetada (literally meaning a slap in the face) ever for the PSC (Catalan Socialist Party). Mas, leader of the CiU, is just 6 short of a majority in the Parliament of Catalunya. Probably the best option for him is [...]
German Chancellor Angela Merkel faces a tough test of her government today as the 1,244 elected representatives vote for a new President. The highly symbolic position thus comes with a highly symbolic price ticket, acting almost as a motion of confidence in Merkel, her government and her austerity measures. The European press has been peculiarly [...]
I’m typing this from a hostel in Lisbon, so allow me to be brief. As I mentioned in my previous post on the Spanish economy, the President of the Government Zapatero canceled all his appointments, meetings and visits in order to present himself to the Congress of Deputies (the Parliament). Congress met specifically to debate [...]
While the new Lib Tory (others prefer to call it Con Dem) government settles in and blames the outgoing government with ambiguous comparisons to Greece, I think I should draw attention to Spain. Over the last few months living in Madrid, I’ve been in the thick of Spanish economic news and though I’m not an economist, I [...]
