Dividing Up the Territories

I made a little joke the other day and put it on Facebook. Contemplating my mortality, I noted that I was nevertheless younger than Trump, Bibi and Putin (at 79, 76 and 73 respectively), and with a bit of luck, would outlive the three of them. Although, it’s true that they probably enjoy better medical attention than I do.

None of the three above-mentioned gentlemen appear to have any love for Spain.

I’ll leave it to The Gentle Reader to agree or disagree about those three leaders – and perhaps a few others (Kim Jong Un springs to mind) who are jostling for position behind them for the Planetary Ogre Awards – and attempt instead to focus here on their enmity with Spain and indeed Europe.

Let’s see: Donald Trump is annoyed with Spain for not leading the re-armament of Nato, for failing to buy enough American military hardware and for letting in too many immigrants – particularly those of the coloured persuasion.

Bibi Netanyahu is crushed over our negative reaction to his country’s unwelcome presence in Eurovision, the issues over the Tour de España this past summer and also our unremitting anger against his genocidal activities in Palestine.

Vladimir Putin simply doesn’t like any country that backs Ukraine and he has threatened Europe with a ‘if you want war, I’ll give you war’. A nasty piece of work in my opinion.

As for his current occupation of as much of the Ukraine as he can obtain, it doesn’t appear that Donald Trump is as concerned as one might hope, as the recent American plan for the next two decades seems to suggest that they will be busy with their own back-yard, if one can so describe Venezuela and Columbia (and don’t forget Greenland), leaving Russia free to snaffle up bits of the old Soviet Union and presumably, allow Xi to absorb the lost province of Formosa, currently called Taiwan.

Meanwhile, the surviving bits of Europe can go play with our rigorously attached plastic bottle-caps.

Russia, too, is especially keen in manipulating the voting system in other countries to help the far-right, or (as in Catalonia in 2017) to divide the Europeans in any way that they can.

All these autocracies are actively trying to change our minds about this and that and they use fake-news, distortions, legions of preppy influencers, ample funding and false narratives to do so.

Europe, it would appear, has been having it too good, and we need to buckle down to the lofty ideals of our billionaires and pay more in taxes, take out private health insurance and keep working into our eighties.

We read that the Trump administration has just released its National Security Strategy, the blueprint for the next two decades.

That document announced the U.S. will back away from the global alliances formed in the wake of World War II and calls for making sure Nato, the organization that has opposed first Soviet and now Russian aggression since 1949, doesn’t continue to expand (so much for the Ukraine). The administration’s document calls for a world dominated not by a rules-based international order in which countries must respect each other’s sovereignty, but by a few major powers that control weaker nations in their sphere of influence.

The document also warns about Europe becoming less white, or as Trump says “Europe is facing the disappearance of its civilization” (unless we knuckle down).  The BBC adds: at the same time ‘…the document hails the growing influence of "patriotic European parties" and says "America encourages its political allies in Europe to promote this revival of spirit".

"We want Europe to remain European," says the American plan. In a sort of far-right, anti-immigrant way. Trump, it appears, is against the influence of multilateralism – whether the United Nations, Nato or the European Union. ‘In recent days, the level of aggression against Brussels has reached an unprecedented level. Before, there have been many veiled attacks and insults, with malicious and condescending remarks, but now we are facing a full-blown assault, without any attempt at retraction, on the leadership and unity of Europe, because a divided bloc, where Euroscepticism grows, is better for them, just as it is for Russia. This way, we will be weak, and that leads to capitulation’, says El Huff Post.

And then there’s Elon Musk who is currently calling to 'Abolish the EU', for his own commercial reasons.

Russian officials appear to be happy with this U.S. foreign policy, and we read that ‘The Kremlin on Sunday welcomed US President Donald Trump’s move to stop calling Russia a direct threat and said his new national security strategy, which portrays European powers as in decline, largely accorded with Russia’s own perceptions’.

In short, it appears that a still disunited Europe is either on its own or must cozy up to the Chinese.

As the aggressive foreign powers attack us through fake-news, manufactured guilt, the Internet and Hollywood, we can only reply with our softer version of spreading our own culture through the Instituto Cervantes, the British Institute, the Goethe-Institut and so on.  

Pedro Sánchez is one of our better statesmen, and he said in Los Cortes this Saturday during the celebrations of the anniversary of the Spanish Constitution that “Europe will never be under the tutelage of anyone, nor will it be a vassal of any political power or any national power from other geographical latitudes”. On Monday, the President of the European Council, António Costa, stated that the European Union would not accept any "threat of interference in European political life". He also referred to the U.S. document’s text which criticizes the "regulatory suffocation" of the European Commission.

Meanwhile, as Trump joyously received the FIFA’s peace prize, Pedro Sánchez was awarded the Mario Benedetti International Prize for the Fight for Human Rights and Solidarity 2025, an award he shares with the UN Special Rapporteur for the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese.

Now, if we could just resolve the Ukraine issue in a sensible way.

A Busy Time in Spain

It has been a hectic week here in Spain since I last put finger to keyboard.

On the fiftieth anniversary of Franco’s death, last November 20th, the Supreme Court (five ‘conservatives’ and two ‘progressives’) abruptly announced, five to two and according to inclination, that they had found the Attorney General Álvaro García Ortiz to be guilty of passing secrets (without any proof – the concept of innocent until proven otherwise having apparently failed its test). The written sentence to be published in due course (it would need to be creative). It turns out that, coincidence abounds, three of the five were imparting remunerative classes in jurisprudence at the same time to the Colegio de Abogados de Madrid: one of the private accusations against the unfortunate Attorney General.

The AG promptly fell on his sword and on November 25th, the (single) day when violence against women is remembered, prosecutor Teresa Peramato was chosen to take his place.

The word ‘lawfare’ might have appeared here and there in the lefty media in recent reports.

And so, on to the next crisis: The Government has been rocked by the accusations against two of their members of Saving Something for a Rainy Day: the previous Party Organisation Secretary José Luis Ábalos, and his successor in the same post Santos Cerdán. Ábalos is now in ‘preventative custody’ against a ‘risk of escape’, evidently having forgotten to nip outside the morning before to buy a packet of smokes, more fool he.

Indeed, since Ábalos is (still) a deputy, he must be tried by the Supreme Court, which is a lot faster – they have far fewer cases – than the usual National Audience (where Cerdán, having given up his parliamentary seat, and thus his ‘aforo’, will one day be tried – I mean, they are just starting now on Jordi Pujol -poor chap, he’s 95- eleven years down the line!) The problem for Pedro Sánchez is that he’s lost a deputy (Ábalos, while no longer in the PSOE, had remained loyal as an independent). This puts him in an even worse space than before with one less vote in the Chamber – unless Junts changes its mind (it hasn’t).

Since we last spoke, Carlos Mazón has quit his post, and a deal between the PP and Vox has given the presidency of the Valencian region to Juan Francisco Pérez Llorca (PP). Mazón, who still has his ‘aforamiento’ (about 250,000 people in Spain enjoy this parliamentary immunity), and most of his monthly income, is dancing around the current judicial enquiry into what he was doing (or not doing) that day last year when 229 of his loyal subjects were drowned. Perez Llorca in his acceptance speech said that he regretted the events following the Dana. "Nobody was up to the task", he said.

Over in Almería, while I was away, the president and vice-president of the provincial authority known as ‘la diputación’, in the hands of the PP, together with the PP mayor of Fines, were arrested, accused of corruption. ‘Pillowcases full of cash’ says one report. They have all now been chucked out of the party.

And this brings us to the Sunday demonstration in Madrid (to date, the seventh called by Feijóo), for all those who would like to see Sánchez throw in the towel and call for elections, prior, as Feijóo said in a speech to the Faithful, ‘to joining his pals Koldo, Cerdán and Ábalos in the (rather comfortable-looking) Soto de Real prison’.

What a time to be in the flag manufacturing business!

The error of the PP is to continually harp on bringing down the Government (without success) which breeds frustration for their supporters rather than confidence. They might be better advised in promoting their own program – if they have one.

The PP’s likely future leader, the increasingly eccentric Isabel Díaz Ayuso was there, and she warned in a speech, about the threat from ETA – the dead duck terror group who handed in their guns a number of years ago. Apparently, they're plotting something with Sánchez.

So far, the leader of the Opposition hasn’t found enough support for a parliamentary motion of censure, so he appears to be putting his faith in a popular uprising. Feijóo had been trying to get support from the Junts per Catalunya people – they have seven seats in the Cortes – but they think it unlikely that he truly wants Carles Puigdemont, the exiled party leader, to be forgiven for trying to remove Catalonia from Spanish control back in 2017.

The Guardian says that ‘Felix Bolaños, Spain’s justice minister, said the PP and the far-right Vox party – which did not take part in Sunday’s demonstration – were fundamentally the same and were competing to see which could say the most outrageous things about the prime minister’.

Meanwhile, we are still waiting for the written sentence – the full resolution – from the Supreme Court in the Attorney General case (these normally come with or before the conviction) to iron out a few remaining doubts.

 

 

The Attorney General is Canned.

The headline from Politico pretty much sums up the bombshell – practically up there with Franco’s infamous “bando de guerra’’ announcement as the beginning of Spain’s Civil War – ‘Spain’s top court ousts the Attorney General, escalating the prime minister’s feud with the judiciary’. 

This is all to do with the lack of the Constitutional presumption of innocence; plus the coincidence that the ruling came out precipitously on November 20th (the 50th anniversary of Franco’s death and – by chance – the very day when the Almería PP collapsed in yet another scandal). The announcement of ‘Guilty’ itself a filtration (of all ironies), since the ruling itself hadn’t been written: the five conservatives in the Supreme Court voting according (apparently) to their politics rather than their understanding of jurisprudence and furthermore without proof of guilt beyond accusations from various far-right groups including Vox and the hate groups Manos Limpias and Hazte Oir.

The court banned the Attorney General Álvaro García Ortiz from holding public office for two years for allegedly leaking details of a tax probe involving the partner of Madrid’s regional leader Isabel Díaz Ayuso, a rising star among the country’s conservative voters. It further fined him 7,500 euros and ordered him to pay ‘the boyfriend’ (‘el Novio de Ayuso’) as Ayuso’s companion Alberto González Amador is habitually called, 10,000 euros for his troubles.

An opinion piece from the director of elDiario.es begins: ‘The lies of Miguel Ángel Rodríguez (Ayuso’s adviser) and Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the far-right accusations, the hoaxes, and those who published those falsehoods have won. The fraudulent middleman has won. Journalism that verifies the news has lost, the Attorney General has lost, the truth has lost. And justice has lost as well. Its image in the eyes of the public is once again tarnished by a conviction that is very difficult to explain…’

To further quote Politico: ‘Justice Minister Félix Bolaños said that the government was obliged “to abide by the sentence” and appoint a new attorney general. But he stressed the executive’s disagreement with the conviction and reaffirmed its belief in García Ortiz’s innocence’.

Cadena Ser has: ‘The president of the Progressive Union of Prosecutors says that "The Supreme Court has convicted an innocent man, and this will have profound consequences for trust in the justice system"’.

José Antonio Martín Pallín, emeritus magistrate of the Supreme Court, says "The ruling is the closest thing to a coup d'état".

Pedro Sánchez, speaking from Johannesburg on Sunday, said he accepted the sentence of the Supreme Court, but profoundly disagreed with it.

Indeed, everyone on the left is equally sure of the Attorney General’s innocence. The Podemos far-left leader: ‘First they went for Podemos, then they went for the Catalonians and now they’ve gone for the PSOE in a further example of a judicial coup’.

The previous mayor of Madrid Manuela Carmena says that ‘the ruling is deeply unfair’.

The Minister for Public Administration, Óscar López, expressed feeling a sense of "desolation, weariness and disbelief in many things," and announced that the Government will activate whatever mechanisms are necessary.

Yolanda Díaz (Sumar) says that the sentence is a judicial resolution without any incriminating evidence and that the ruling is directed against the coalition government.

Gabriel Rufián from ERC said, “The message is clear: Ayuso is untouchable”.

The five-to-two ruling of the seven judges within the tribunal, says elDiario.es, shows that ‘the division within the court inevitably raises doubts about the independence of the judiciary or its politicization. The PP's methodical strategy with the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) has allowed it to control Supreme Court appointments for decades, giving the right wing an overwhelming majority in all its chambers’.

Finally, a legal opinion, made a day before the sentence was given: ‘This is the first time in Spanish history (this is truly historic, unlike the trivialities of Núñez Feijóo, for whom everything is historic) that a court has tried the Attorney General. And given that he is being tried, one would think it would be for a very serious crime. But we have become accustomed to trivializing crimes, always within the sphere of the Government and its President. We have become accustomed to victimless crimes fabricated from newspaper clippings that certain judges seize upon as if they were the most important professional matter of their lives, and which they investigate as if the Holy Inquisition would. The crime, if it exists, is insignificant, and only a diabolical mind could have transformed an official statement into a crime of revealing secrets. But that is the level of justice we have in Spain today, thanks to the alliance of judges and right-wing politicians…’

Let us not forget José Maria Aznar and his famous ‘Let him who can do something, do something!’

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On the other hand, the president of the Community of Madrid – Isabel Díaz Ayuso – says that it had all been an attempt by Pedro Sánchez to "undermine" the separation of powers and an "attack by the State apparatus" against her boyfriend Alberto González Amador. El Huff Post asks: ‘Do we need to be reminded of what happened to Pablo Casado (the previous leader of the Partido Popular) when he accused Isabel Díaz Ayuso of bribery? Does anyone even know what has become of Pablo Casado? Do we also need to be reminded of what just happened to the Attorney General, who was accused by Ayuso's boyfriend?’

An opinion piece from La Sexta says that ‘According to Ayuso, the Supreme Court's ruling demonstrates that things typical of a "dictatorship" happen in Spain. A dictatorship in which she can freely spout whatever nonsense she pleases; her partner has been able to take an Attorney General to court and win; and the government has said it will abide by the ruling.

Indeed, it would appear that Ayuso's boyfriend decided on sober reflection neither to commit suicide nor to leave Spain (as he had threatened while speaking as a witness during the court case); on the contrary, he buys a luxury penthouse in the toniest part of Madrid (with, and excuse the joke, the AG providing the down-payment).

And what says the leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal? On Twitter he writes: “Álvaro García Ortiz is the first Attorney General to be convicted in the history of Spain. Pedro Sánchez will also be the first president in the history of Spain to end up in prison”.

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On Sunday, hundreds of people demonstrated in front of the Palacio de Justicia in Madrid shouting ‘golpistas con toga’ (something like: ‘treacherous judges’).

On Monday, García Ortiz sent his letter of resignation to the Minister of Justice Félix Bolaños. It said in part: “Though my decision stems directly from the ruling, I’m convinced that I’ve faithfully served the institution to which I am honoured to belong, with an unequivocal vocation for public service, a sense of duty and institutional loyalty.”

Tuesday began with the proposal of a new attorney general: Teresa Peramato.

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President Sánchez is becoming used to the lawfare by the judiciary against his wife, without any wrongdoing discovered after eighteen months despite a judge’s mediatic and continuous fishing attempts, and his brother, who obtained his rather unimpressive job as a music teacher in Badajoz before Sánchez was voted in as president.

The questions ordinary people might be considering include – If the Attorney General is convicted before the person who billed millions for masks with false invoices… what message does that send to anyone who investigates those in power? González Amador – a mere health technician – allegedly earned two million euros selling face masks at the height of the pandemic and attempted to avoid paying any tax on the profits.

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What is lawfare – I’m glad you asked: From Google IA: ‘Lawfare is "war through the courts," that is, the instrumental use of legal procedures to persecute, weaken, or harm political adversaries’.

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The theory is that Franco may be fifty years dead, but Francoism is still a runner.

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We are beginning to enter into election territory.

While Feijóo and Abascal, the leaders of the right and the far-right, need each other in a partnership (one which with Vox as the junior member no doubt wagging the tail of the dog), an alternative and vastly more attractive and bombproof leader waits in the wings: Ayuso.

This is what all the fuss is about. Ayuso is commendably far to the right, while still within the Partido Popular. She’s pretty and – unlike the inept Feijóo – she’s a vote-catcher.