Spain
IMAGO/Europa Press
In his opening speech at the COP29 global climate summit, UN Secretary General António Guterres stated that 2024 was turning into “a masterclass in climate destruction”. A good example of this is the DANA, an acronym to describe the meteorological phenomenon of a high-altitude isolated depression that hit Spain, especially the province of Valencia, at the end of October. It turned into the twenty-first century’s deadliest climate-related catastrophe ever in Spain, and ...
read more "Climate Denial, Fake News and Anti-Politics – How the Flooding in Valencia was followed by a Torrent of Hate"
read more "Climate Denial, Fake News and Anti-Politics – How the Flooding in Valencia was followed by a Torrent of Hate"
IMAGO/ZUMA Press Wire
The EU elections in Spain saw a narrow victory for the centrist People's Party, which beat the Socialist Party by two seats. The clear victory goes to the political tradition of the bipartitism, with the two major parties winning a total of 64.37% of the vote. The far-right party VOX received 9.62%, comparable to its Portuguese counterpart CHEGA, which achieved 9.79%, but a far cry from the 15.60% of the Alternative for Germany, the 28.59% of the Fratelli d'Italia and the 31.36% of the Rassemblement National.
read more "Yolanda Díaz steps down from leadership of Sumar and Izquierda Unida fails to enter the European Parliament"
read more "Yolanda Díaz steps down from leadership of Sumar and Izquierda Unida fails to enter the European Parliament"
IMAGO/Alberto Gardin
In the Spanish State, all indicators seem to point in the same direction: we are coming to the end of a cycle, in which what has been called the “Space for Change” is in retreat and even disappearing in many regions. Significant internal disagreements within the Left, right-wing and far-right parties committed to propagating fake news and stoking tensions, and a social democracy that has been neglected for years have all come together to create a society divided by media and discursive polarization, and the disaffection of the majority of citizens.
read more "Low Expectations for Spain’s Divided Left"
read more "Low Expectations for Spain’s Divided Left"
Spain’s far right has lagged behind its counterparts in other European countries in gaining a foothold in Spanish political institutions. After the death of the dictator Francisco Franco, far-right platforms experienced failure after failure, and only starting in 2011 did they begin to gain representation in small town councils. Academics like Xavier Casals described this anomaly as an 'absent presence', meaning that the extreme right existed with a subset of voters just like in the other countries, but these were mostly encompassed within ...
read more "The international alliances of the Spanish far right"
read more "The international alliances of the Spanish far right"
The amnesty for politicians and activists prosecuted for the independence referendum held in Catalonia on 1 October 2017 mobilizes far-right groups around the slogan "Spain is breaking up".
Nazi, fascist and ultra-Catholic groups rally against Spain's new government.
Spain's right-wing has promised a legislature fraught with action against the government.
In October 2023, the Spanish extreme right saw its biggest popular mobilizations for years, coinciding with the pacts between social democrats and ...
read more "The Spanish far right mobilizes against the new progressive coalition government"
read more "The Spanish far right mobilizes against the new progressive coalition government"
Spain's Extreme Right first months in regional and municipal governmentsAfter the extreme right-wing party Vox entered the regional government of Castilla y León alongside the conservative Partido Popular (PP) in April 2022, the party gained more representation in the local and regional elections of 28 May 2023, allowing the PP-VOX coalition to be replicated in other autonomous communities previously run by progressive coalition governments. This has been the case in Extremadura, Aragon, Valencia and the Balearic Islands. Vox also entered the government of Murcia, ...
read more "Vox’s Public Policy"
read more "Vox’s Public Policy"
The Left recently caused quite a surprise in Spain. On 23 July 2023, early elections were held to elect a new parliament (congress of deputies and senate) and while the polls predicted a clear victory for the right and the far right, the social-democratic left and the radical left managed to beat the forecasts. The left- and right-wing blocs were very close in terms of voting percentages and it is not yet clear if a government will be successfully formed or whether new elections will have to be called. On 22 August, King Felipe VI asked the ...
read more "What Can the Left Learn from the Spanish Elections?"
read more "What Can the Left Learn from the Spanish Elections?"
The struggle for women's rights has always generated reactionary waves from all those who refuse to question their privileges, relinquish power and unsettle the patriarchal structures on which capitalism is based. The far right, intent on reversing social policies and agreements on human rights as well as halting any progress being made, has put into action a whole raft of strategies being implemented across the globe.
In Spain, opposition to feminism used to be rooted mainly in a religious and ...
read more "The Spanish far-right’s strategies to oppose women’s rights and social advances"
read more "The Spanish far-right’s strategies to oppose women’s rights and social advances"
An analysis of the Spanish government’s response to the cost-of-living crisis
Just as the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic finally seemed to be behind us, the war in Ukraine that began in February 2022 sent the world economy into another tailspin. With Russian gas now tainted by Putin’s invasion, Europe acted quickly to abandon what had until then been its most important source of cheap fuel — with skyrocketing prices as the result.
Since then, European consumers have found themselves paying energy bills that are two, three, or even four times higher than ...
read more "Capping Prices, Taxing Profits"
read more "Capping Prices, Taxing Profits"
Yolanda Díaz’s new coalition seeks to unite a broad front for transformational change
Abstract
On 8 July 2022, Yolanda Díaz, Second Deputy Prime Minister of the Government of Spain and Minister of Labour, announced the launch of a new political project, an electoral platform known as Sumar (Spanish for “to add”), with a clear message: Sumar is neither a political party nor a coalition; it is a “citizen movement” whose goals are to “expand democracy” and “build a country for the coming decade”.
The project was ...
read more "Building a Strong Democratic Left in the Spanish State"
read more "Building a Strong Democratic Left in the Spanish State"