“If I had to choose just three words to sum up my conversations in this area, they would be: 'space is existential'. From the future of the planet to the future of commerce”. It is not said by a science fiction geek, but Adam Jonas, say
All posts by Carmen Gomaro
The elections of the past 23-J had a winner in votes and seats, the PP, which will not have sufficient support to articulate a majority in the Congress of Deputies that will allow it to form a Government. This is the logic of all parliamentary democracies except those with majority electoral systems that lead to a two-party model.
Consequently, an Executive elected by Parliament, even if it is articulated around a formation that has lost the elections, enjoys perfect legitimacy of origin. This is essential to remember.
The electoral results have been a surprise since a wide victory for the PP was discounted and, therefore, its possibility of governing, as well as a resounding defeat for the coalition that has led the country for the last five years. This has not happened and, a priori, the current President of the Executive could obtain the necessary support to continue in power. The alternative option is a new call to the polls. Those are the two alternatives because there are no others available.
The economy has had little relevance in the citizens' decision to vote, either because the opposition has failed to convey the seriousness of the moment and, above all, its evolution in the short-medium term, or because the Cabinet has managed to transfer to broad layers of society that the economic situation is improving and the crisis is well behind us because the polarization of the country gives priority to ideological considerations over any other. At this point, that is already irrelevant and you have to look to the future.
Once the heat of the battle is over, the facts will prevail even if there is a temptation to deny them. The slowdown in the Spanish economy is already underway and will worsen over the next few quarters; the deficit-public debt pairing is at very large and dangerous levels for the economic and financial stability of Spain; core inflation is high, higher than the euro zone average; the unemployment rate doubles the existing average for the EU; the percentage of Spaniards at risk of poverty and social exclusion is the third highest in the EU, a position shared with Greece; productivity is stagnant etc, etc, etc.
This scenario is part of a context defined by the reintroduction of fiscal rules in the Eurozone, the rise in interest rates carried out by the ECB and the disappearance of public debt programs by the institution led by Ms.. Lagarde and the probable extension of the recession in the monetary union. This set of circumstances, along with those mentioned above, define quite clearly the context that the economic policy of the leftist government will face if the PSOE leader wins the inauguration. In this case, he will have to address the situation with a Cabinet whose support will depend on parties with little interest in macro discipline, with a considerable allergy to structural reforms and confronted with each other in their respective territories.
The reintroduction of budgetary rules in the euro zone will force the implementation of a budgetary consolidation plan that is incompatible with the spending promises made during the campaign, and with a non-existent real margin to redirect public finances to a sustainable path through new tax increases that have a significant tax collection impact without making them fall on the middle classes or on companies. This would exacerbate the downward trend in consumption and private investment, intensifying the slowdown in the economy and the increase in interest rates.
On the other hand, many or some of the structural spending measures adopted and tax increases, read Social Security contributions, have not had an immediate impact but will begin to show their budgetary and employment consequences throughout the present. Legislature. The first translates into additional pressure on public spending; the second in an increase in labor costs borne by companies that will make hiring more expensive and therefore reduce the demand for labor.
The declining trajectory of employment will not be reversed, no matter how much statistical engineering and work distribution, in a context of slowdown in the rate of GDP growth and with a labor market whose pre-existing rigidities were strengthened by the counter-reform of Mrs.. Diaz. It is always forgotten that a regulatory change manifests its full positive or negative effects two to three years after its implementation.. In other words, the negative impact of the counter-reform has not yet been full.
The only variable to alleviate this dynamic, given the philosophy of the Government, would be the NextGeneration Funds whose implementation to date has been scarce, deficient and not very transparent, as multiple national and international organizations have pointed out.. Hopefully this drift is corrected and the resources provided by the EU serve to mitigate the decline of the economy and help modernize the Spanish productive fabric. This would be fundamental and a very important countercyclical mechanism.
Spain needed and needs a radically different policy from the one applied by the government coalition. The citizens with their vote have opted for continuity and have given their confidence to the parties championing the expansion of spending, taxes, regulations. In turn, the opposition has not been able or has not wanted to put forward an attractive program for real economic change, perhaps for fear of losing. It does not matter, the results are what they are and we hope that the national economy does not enter into a process of Argentineization. Ultimately, the prosperity of a country is not maintained or increased when more and more people live from the State and less from the market.
Income tax collection is close to 50,000 million so far this year and points to a new record
The Tax Agency has collected 49,931 million euros for personal income tax in the first six months of the year, 11.1% more than in the same period of the previous year, and a figure that sets a new record for the year as a whole.
This tax is the one that is contributing to the public coffers the most amount of income, due to the improvement of employment, since the more people are working, the more the State collects through personal income tax; and to wage increases, which have been around 5% in the first half of the year. When a worker's salary rises, the effective rate of personal income tax increases, since the tax rate is structured in brackets and is progressive (the higher the salary, the higher the tax rate).
This increase in collections is influenced by the fact that the Government has refused to deflate personal income tax to prevent wage increases that have been equal to or less than inflation from being exposed to higher rates, since in practice this implies that the worker does not experience a gain in purchasing power but does have to pay more to the Treasury. Economists and experts, as well as the opposition, have asked the Executive to deflate the rate and the sections, even if it was in the first layers of income (up to around 40,000 euros), but it did not want to do so, so it has produced “an increase in the effective rate” that is applied to personal income tax. By paying taxes at a higher rate, on average, the amount collected grows.
About 2,100 million euros less per year could be entered if the personal income tax scale had been deflated
“Withholdings linked to wages continue to grow above 9%, with an increase in the wage bill of more than 7% (with wage increases around 5.5% and employment growth close to 2%) and a rise in the rate greater than 2% in cash”, explains the body attached to the Ministry of María Jesús Montero.
The Treasury Technicians union (Gestha) has calculated for EL MUNDO that the Tax Agency could enter 2,114 million euros less per year for personal income tax if it had deflated the tax scale according to the average inflation used to revalue pensions (from 8, 5%), based solely on the impact on employees -with salary data from 2021- and without taking into account the effect of the measure on pensioners; with what the reduction (and savings for taxpayers) would be in practice higher.
The Tax Agency has also collected more due to the increase in pensions, which have increased in value this year by 8.4%, which also implies more tax payments: “Withholdings linked to pensions increased by slightly more than 19%, with an increase in the mass of pensions of 11.4% (as a result of the increase in the average pension) and a rise in the rate of around 7%, a high figure taking into account the reduction in the tax on smaller pensions”.
For these reasons, the AEAT has collected 4,983 million more this year than in the first six months of 2022 for this tax, being the one that has contributed the most to public coffers, despite “having stopped entering 306 million euros for the increase in the reduction for income from work for low incomes”, less than 21,000 euros, as Luis del Amo, technical secretary of the Registry of Fiscal Advisors, reminds this medium.
For the whole of 2023, the Ministry of Finance had estimated that income tax collection would reach 113,123 million, 7.7% more than in 2022, but this rate of increase has been exceeded to date, since the increase year-on-year of the accumulated in the first six months of the year is 11.1%.
In 2022, income tax collection was 109,485 million euros and in total the State entered 255,463 million. For this year, the total collection will reach 262,781 million, 7.7% more, according to the Treasury forecasts. To date, tax revenues accumulate an increase of 3.8% year-on-year, half.
VAT loses steam
Although personal income tax is contributing more than expected to this increase in expected collection, VAT is not giving the stature as expected. Last year on these same dates, this tax accumulated an increase of 20.6% in collection, boosted by the good dynamism of consumption and, above all, by inflation, which by raising prices increased what the State collected for each sale.
However, in this first half of the year, the increase in VAT collection is limited to 0.1%, up to 42,458 million euros. The Treasury explains that this evolution is due, on the one hand, to the comparison with some months of the previous year in which the collection grew a lot driven by prices (last year average inflation was 8.4% year-on-year and this year, in So far this year, it stands at 3.8%) and, on the other, because the Government has approved VAT reductions on various foods, hence the effective rate of monthly declarations has decreased by 14%.
In fact, the Executive calculates that the reduction in the VAT rate on food will mean a reduction in collection and savings for consumers of 626 million euros for the year as a whole.
For all of 2023, the Government expected an increase in VAT collection of 5.9%, but given the evolution so far this year, this increase should occur entirely in the second half of the year.
In addition to VAT and personal income tax, the Tax Agency has collected 2,788 million euros for Corporate Tax in the first half of the year (10% more in homogeneous terms). The AEAT indicates that the collection linked to business profits has grown by 24.9% up to June, an increase that was observed above all in large companies, especially in the banking and energy sectors. 9,961 million were also entered for Special Taxes (practically the same as last year) and 5,905 million for the rest of the taxes.
Rafael Curruchiche: the relentless prosecutor in Guatemala who leads judges, prosecutors and journalists into 'exile' or jail
The headquarters of the Prosecutor's Office has become the epicenter of protests in Guatemala in recent weeks in defense of democracy. The protesters label the Attorney General of the Public Ministry, Consuelo Porras, and the head of the Special Prosecutor's Office Against Impunity (FECI), Rafael Curruchiche, as “coup plotters”.. The people who attend the marches do not forgive Curruchiche for being about to ruin the 653,000 votes that catapulted the Seed Movement to second place in the first round of the Guatemalan elections held on June 25. From his office came the request to the judge of the Seventh Court, Fredy Orellana, to order the suspension of the legal personality of Semilla. The judge accepted the petition and hours before the results of the elections were made official, he gave the Supreme Electoral Tribunal a period of 24 hours to cancel the party, whose candidate, Bernardo Arévalo de León, aspires to the Presidency of the country in the second round. August 20. However, the Constitutional Court brought order and granted an injunction to Semilla, preventing the prosecutor's request from coming true as it went against the Electoral and Political Parties Law.
Specifically, the head of the FECI has launched a case called 'Seed Corruption', since he considers that “there are indications that possibly more than 5,000 citizens were illegally adhered to this political party by forging their handwriting and signature”. It also indicates that “12 deceased persons” were enrolled in the training. The US, the European Union and the Organization of American States have already rejected the intention to jeopardize democracy and the rule of law, although the prosecutor has not been intimidated and his Prosecutor's Office has twice raided the TSE's Registry of Citizens , while on July 23, he searched the headquarters of Semilla from where documentation was taken on its constitution process in 2018.
Since Consuelo Porras was appointed head of the Prosecutor's Office in 2018, some thirty prosecutors, judges and journalists have left the country after being investigated and persecuted, for which they denounce that they are in “exile”.. Among them, the former head of the FECI, Juan Francisco Sandoval, who, at the time of his removal from office in July 2021, was investigating the alleged link between a Russian plot and the president of Guatemala, Alejandro Giammattei with an alleged full carpet. of money in exchange for being able to control a seaport. Five arrest warrants have already been issued against Sandoval for Curruchiche investigations. One of them, for which a judge has even requested his extradition from the US, is related to the case that affects the president and founder of El Periódico, José Rubén Zamora, who has been in prison for a year and was sentenced to six years imprisonment. jail on June 14 for laundering money and other assets. The FECI appealed the sentence, since it requested against Zamora 40 years in prison for trying to dispose of 300,000 quetzales (37,500 euros) whose origin was illegal.
'EXILE' OR JAIL
Curruchiche and her boss Consuelo Porras have also attacked the former attorney general, Thelma Aldana, who has been in “exile” from the US for more than three years, having five arrest warrants against her.. Aldana denounces that she is fleeing “persecution” by the institution that she herself directed between 2014 and 2018, during which she investigated a multitude of corruption cases that affected, among others, the former president of Guatemala Otto Pérez Molina, in prison since September 2015. Aldana uncovered these cases at the hands of the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), a UN body that operated in the country from 2007 to 2019 when former President Jimmy Morales decided not to renew his mandate, due to several investigations against him for illegal electoral financing of his party FCN-Nación in the 2015 elections that he won.
Precisely, Curruchiche was directing the Electoral Crimes Prosecutor at that time, which was to investigate the formation of the former president, although the investigations stalled and the process came to nothing.. This caused the then judge of Higher Risk D, Erika Aifán, to denounce him in 2019 for breach of duty, usurpation of functions and abuse of authority.. This did not prevent Consuelo Porras from promoting him to head of the FECI and even Aifán resigned in March 2021 as a judge after 19 years of work and also went into “exile” from the US fleeing “persecutions, threats and harassment”.. The digital newspaper El Faro published that the judge had a complaint in her office that revealed that, in 2009, when the current president of the country, Alejandro Giammattei, aspired to the Presidency, he negotiated with the then Minister of Communications, José Luis Benito, a contribution of 2.6 million dollars for his electoral campaign, in exchange for leaving the official in his position.
Meanwhile, several former prosecutors who worked with Sandoval and the CICIG have ended up in jail.. Among them, the former head of the FECI in the Department of Quetzaltenango, Virginia Laparra, imprisoned since February 2022 for having denounced on four occasions in 2018 the bad practices of a judge whom she accused of leaking information to a lawyer.. The case against the judge was closed and Congress even elected him Rapporteur Against Torture, while she was sentenced in December last year to four years in prison for abuse of authority, despite the fact that the UN has labeled it “arbitrary”. his detention for “exercising his fundamental rights and freedoms”.
Curruchiche, who assumed the leadership of the FECI in August 2021, was included last year in the US Engel List of corrupt and undemocratic actors. The State Department accused him of “obstructing investigations of acts of corruption by disrupting high-profile corruption cases against government officials and filing apparently spurious complaints against FECI prosecutors, private lawyers, and CICIG members.”. Likewise, Consuelo Porras was included in the same List in 2021 and the US accuses her of “corrupt acts that undermine democracy in Guatemala” by dismissing prosecutors who were investigating corruption. Despite this, Giammattei re-elected her for four more years and her term ends in 2026.
Legal offensive gives wings to Donald Trump
If there is something difficult to find in the United States in August 2023, it is a Republican who does not support Donald Trump's candidacy for the White House.. The former president has seen how the charges against him for the retention of d
Bukele closes with 7,000 soldiers and 1,000 police officers an apartment in El Salvador in search of gang members
The department of Cabañas, in El Salvador, woke up this Tuesday surrounded by 7,000 soldiers and 1,000 police officers who have fenced off the entrances and exits to “prevent gang members from leaving and cut off all supply lines of terrorist groups.”. This was reported on his social networks by the Salvadoran president, Nayib Bukele, who explained that in recent weeks and as a result of his 'war' against gangs, Cabañas, located 75 kilometers from the capital, “has become the place with the largest number of terrorist cells, who have come there looking for their rural areas to hide”.
For this reason, the president has warned that the military and police siege will continue as long as the operatives “can extract all the gang members”, although he has indicated that visitors and tourists in this department can be “calm and carry out their activities normally”.. Bukele has remarked that this massive fence “guarantees the security of the area even more” and has insisted that “we will not lift it until we find all the criminals”.
The president has accompanied his message with several photos in which hundreds of soldiers and police officers lined up and heavily armed are seen patrolling through the forest and urban areas.. This great deployment occurs after last Sunday, two agents of the National Civil Police were injured in the Maquilishuat canton, of Ilobasco, in a supposed ambush with an armed group. The Police itself was in charge of reporting the attack: “two of our agents were injured after an illegitimate attack committed by terrorists in Ilobasco, Cabañas”. This caused a strong device to be deployed to find the whereabouts of the attackers, while the Minister of National Defense, René Merino, reported that the two injured agents were taken by helicopter to San Salvador to receive medical attention..
The military and police siege is part of phase five of the Territorial Control Plan, which Bukele launched on November 23, 2022 and whose objective is to “extract the plague” of gang members in the large cities of the Central American country.. Thus, he accuses these groups of being part of “international terrorist organizations”, in reference to the Mara Salvatrucha and Barrio 18, which have 70,000 members, according to government estimates.. Specifically, the president has called this fifth phase “Extraction” in which a total of 14,000 troops participate.
Since it was implemented, it is the fifth siege that has been carried out, after the deployment of 5,500 soldiers and policemen in Nueva Concepción, Chalatenango last May, after the murder of a policeman by alleged gang members. The first test of the fifth phase of the Territorial Control Plan was on October 2, 2022 when a military fence was installed in Comasagua, after a 36-year-old man was murdered the day before in this municipality of 14,000 inhabitants located 100 kilometers from the capital. Police and military searched, interrogated, and searched for tattoos alluding to gangs.
Ten days later, a fence was established in Soyapango, where 8,500 soldiers and 1,500 police officers participated.. On December 24 of last year, Bukele also surrounded the Tutunichapa community, in San Salvador, with 1,000 soldiers and 130 police officers, while that same day he extended this measure to the La Granjita community, also in the country's capital, with 1,000 soldiers. and 100 agents.
One of the alleged gang members, frisked. Government of El Salvador / EFE
Since he began his term in June 2019, the Salvadoran president launched the aforementioned Territorial Control Plan, which resulted in a militarization of the streets, especially from phase four, which consisted of an “incursion into the territories”. Since then, more than 71,000 people have been detained after the constitutional guarantees of freedom of association and assembly, right to defense, term of administrative detention and inviolability of correspondence and telecommunications were suspended..
In this context, Bukele implemented the military sieges by acknowledging that “there are still few gang members in the cities and in the countryside and we have to go and extract them” to prevent criminals from fleeing to the mountains or to other communities or cities.. In this sense, he defends that “practically, they have to stay inside waiting for us to go for them”. The day this measure was implemented, he already warned that “we are not going to give them the chance to escape because the military will have them surrounded and, if someone wants to supply them with weapons, ammunition, food, telephones or everything they use to intimidate the population, there they will intercept both the criminals and those who collaborate with them to put them under the authority's order and be prosecuted”.
SUMMARY TRIALS AND INCREASED PENALTIES
All these repressive measures have been accompanied by judicial reforms in the Legislative Assembly, where Bukele's party, Nuevas Ideas, has had a majority since May 1, 2021.. The last great package of legislative modifications was approved last Wednesday by the Assembly, with the votes of 67 of the 84 parliamentarians, so that summary trials can be held in El Salvador in groups of up to 900 people..
Thus, those who are arrested within the framework of the Exception Regime, may be grouped into one of the gang groups or cells to be subjected to a single criminal process.. With this measure, as defended by the decree sent by the Salvadoran government, “it seeks to make it easier for judges to pass sentence on criminals more quickly and prevent members of these criminal structures from being released.”.
For their part, human rights organizations have already warned of the risk of not individualizing judicial cases, since innocent people who are not related to gangs could be sentenced.. These entities estimate at least 5,490 “direct victims” of human rights violations under the emergency regime.
Another of the reforms approved in the Assembly establishes that those who are detained during this regime may remain in prison for up to 24 months before the Prosecutor's Office takes them to trial or decides their release, while prison sentences have also been increased to 60 years. for gang leaders or ringleaders, compared to the current 45.
War Ukraine – Russia, last minute | Moscow attacks with drones the Ukrainian region of Odessa and the capital kyiv
At the end of 525 days of the war in Ukraine, groups of Shahed aircraft from different directions penetrated the airspace of kyiv.
More than 10 drones were destroyed and the downed aircraft fell on the Solomyansky, Golosiivsky and Svyatoshynsky neighborhoods, causing damage to non-residential buildings and road surfaces, but no human injury.
Russian forces also launched Iranian-made Shahed explosive drones from the Black Sea into the Odessa region, a recurring target of attacks by Moscow troops since the grain deal expired on July 17.
The drones arrived from the Black Sea and then headed west up the Danube River toward Izmail, a key port from which Ukrainian grain is brought by barge to the Romanian Black Sea port of Constanta for onward shipment.
The attack caused fires in the industrial and port facilities as well as a freight elevator was damaged.
update narration
08.01
The drones headed towards Izmail, a key port for grain barges
Ukrainian media reported that the drones arrived from the Black Sea and then headed west up the Danube River towards Izmail, a key port from which Ukrainian grain is brought by barge to the Romanian port of Constanta, in the Black Sea, for further shipment, reports Reuters.
In addition, for the first time since the expiration of the grain deal, several foreign cargo ships arrived at the port of Izmail via the Black Sea on Sunday, Ukrainian media reported.
07.24
Attacks on kyiv respond to drones against Moscow
The attacks come a day after Russia announced that it had neutralized several Ukrainian drones directed against Moscow, the annexed Crimean peninsula and its ships in the Black Sea, reports Afp.
A skyscraper in a business district of the Russian capital was damaged in the attack for the second time since the weekend.
On Monday, Russia said it would step up its actions against the Ukrainian military infrastructure in response to drone attacks on its territory, which it blames on Kiev.
07.20
Overnight, kyiv also suffered from an explosive drone attack
Groups of Shahed aircraft coming from different directions penetrated the city's airspace, according to the head of the capital's military administration, Sergiy Popko.
“All the targets – more than 10 drones – were detected and destroyed in time,” he said on Telegram.
The downed aircraft fell on the Solomyansky, Golosiivsky and Svyatoshynsky neighborhoods, causing damage to non-residential buildings and road surfaces.
The mayor of kyiv, Vitali Klitschko, confirmed the fall of the remains of the drones in several neighborhoods that caused material damage.
“There are no deaths or injuries in the capital,” he said.
An Afp correspondent heard three explosions in the city around 03:00 (00:00 GMT).
In the Golosiivsky district, “parts of a drone fell into a children's playground” and a fire started in a non-residential building, the Kiev military administration said.
Previously, this administration had issued an alert for drone attacks and recommended that citizens hide in shelters.
07.15
Russian gifts leave material but not human damage
Russian drones attacked port infrastructures in the Odessa region, in southern Ukraine, and the capital Kiev early Wednesday morning, causing material but no human damage, authorities said, reports Afp.
Russian forces launched Iranian-made Shahed explosive drones from the Black Sea into the Odessa region, a frequent target of attacks by Moscow troops, the Ukrainian military said.
“The obvious objective of the enemy was the port and industrial infrastructure of the region. The air defense forces worked non-stop for almost three hours,” he explained.
“The attack caused fires at industrial and port facilities and a forklift was damaged,” the army said, not immediately reporting any injuries.
Russian forces have multiplied attacks against Ukraine's port infrastructure on the Black Sea, especially in Odessa, from where shipments of Ukrainian grain used to set sail to sell to the entire world.
These bombardments gained in intensity when Russia on July 17 ended an agreement sponsored a year ago by the UN and Turkey that allowed the export of almost 33 million tons of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea.
Since then, these products have transited through the small river ports on the Danube of Reni and Izmail, although these too have become targets for Russian troops.
Canary Coalition offers to invest Sánchez even if he agrees with Junts: "We are not going to take into account who supports one thing or another"
After the recount of the foreign vote that has left the blocks of the right and left tied at 171 seats in Congress, the Canary Islands Coalition (CC) could have the key to the next Government. Its only representative, Cristina Valido, is willing to reach a “specific investiture agreement” with both the PP and the PSOE and draws legislature pacts that include Vox or Sumar as red lines.
Have you already set a date for a formal conversation with the two majority parties? We have had very brief telephone contacts, but no negotiations have started with either party. They should be the ones in a hurry and, in any case, I understand that they will be trying to close all the seats they need before reaching us. Are they going to give priority to the PSOE since it is the one with the best chance of adding a greater number? of support? We will sit down to talk with whoever is going to present himself to the investiture with the affairs of the Canary Islands on the table and our organization will decide based on who is most committed to the affairs of the Canary Islands. For you the legislature pacts with the ” extreme right” and with the “extreme left” are a 'red line'. Would it also be with Junts? No, in principle we only spoke of the extreme left and extreme right because it is the discourse that we have maintained since the regional elections and it is what we have said to our voters. And, in this sense, as long as there are no news important enough to internally reconsider our position, we maintain our speech. Not reaching a legislature agreement for not sharing governments participated by the extreme right or the extreme left does not mean that it prevents us from being able to speak or reach specific agreements, in this case for an investiture. We understand that it is a position of responsibility if it is in our hands to unlock a situation that is not beneficial for the country to go to new elections (…). Different is a legislature agreement. So, once the government is formed, if that government is participated by the parties that we have already expressed with whom we are not going to agree on anything or negotiate anything, then we would remain on the sidelines and, when the time came, If they need us to draw up some Budgets or to approve a law or for any question, it would be necessary to negotiate from scratch, of course. If in the end they support the PSOE in Congress, could there be a change of alliances in the Government of the Canary Islands, where they have a coalition with the PP? It wouldn't have to. We have already been governing the Canary Islands with the PP negotiating and reaching important agreements with the PSOE in Madrid and vice versa (…). We have always reached out to one another, we have supported governments of both colors. Within the differences, they have been closer to Sumar than to Vox. Would it be the same situation if it was Podemos who continued to lead that space on the left? Our proximity is not with the initials, but with some ideas. We do not share any ideas with Vox and in the case of Sumar we have supported the increase in the Minimum Wage, the updating of pensions and even in the first instance the law of only yes is yes, although later the deputy Ana Oramas apologized when she saw what had supposed and supported the PSOE in the modification. As for acronyms, in the case of the Canary Islands it was Podemos that in 2019 put the red line with CC and allied and supported all possible coalitions in all administrations to get CC out of the institutions. We don't share anything with the ultra-right, to begin with they don't respect autonomies, they want a centralized state. From there we have nothing more to talk about. Do you think that Sánchez has winked at them by saying that his majority “can also be extended to people who distanced themselves from the progressive government due to the fatigue of these hard years or as a consequence of the intense propaganda displayed by the duo PP and Vox”? Winks are not worth it to us, written agreements are worth it with matters that are important to the Canaries. What are they going to ask for in particular in exchange for Your support? Regardless of the Economic and Fiscal Regime, which is not being complied with and which means that the shopping cart is much more expensive in the Canary Islands than in the Peninsula (…), we have the right to co-manage and participate in the planning of our ports and airports (…); we continue without reviewing regional financing while our population has grown significantly, with 12 million tourists a year who make use of our public services (…); and the immigration situation must be addressed with clear agreements and important endowments to work in the face of the increasing arrival of cayucos. His predecessor, Ana Oramas, skipped her party's decision and voted against the investiture of Pedro Sánchez in 2020 instead of refrain. Could you do the same? I am going to do what my organization decides and what I vote by majority. I think that is what I have to do: respect the will of the bases and the affiliates who express themselves through their governing bodies.
The PSOE uses Feijóo's meeting with Vox to justify its sit-in against the PP: "It appears more posturing than willingness to dialogue"
The PSOE has used this Tuesday the “secret meeting” between Alberto Núñez Feijóo and Santiago Abascal to attack the winner of the elections for his attempt to get closer to Pedro Sánchez and slam a possible agreement between the two majority parties that has never reached to consider. In a letter sent on Sunday to the acting Prime Minister, the PP leader requested a meeting this week to facilitate his investiture.
“It is powerfully striking because that letter addressed by Mr. Feijóo appears more like a posturing than really a desire for dialogue, as we already guessed, since it hides or at least does not mention that there were contacts, conversations with other environments that make any kind of activity absolutely incompatible. joint proposal,” said María Jesús Montero, deputy secretary general in Ferraz's leadership, to justify Sánchez's resounding refusal to hold that meeting.
In an interview on TVE, the acting Finance Minister also called it a “paradox” that the president of the popular “airs a letter” and at the same time “hides the secret meeting he had with Vox” in which, according to He has inferred, “they would approximate a diagnosis of the electoral situation and also the framework of alliances that are being developed throughout the territory, whether they are autonomous communities or city councils”: “It seemed more like a position expensive to the gallery than a real proposal”.
“The president was very clear in his response letter: first it is time to [negotiate] the Table of Congress and, once the King designates who has to go to the investiture, from there contacts will be established with all the political groups, including the PP, to explore the margins of support and the margins of confidence that each candidate has. But it is striking that one of the letters goes to the press and we still do not know what they talked about in the meeting with Vox and why they did not give an account to their electorate and citizens,” Montero added.
Talks
In the PSOE they are “working” with “discretion” for the constitution of that Table in the Lower House on August 17, which is “the first milestone”, but they do not hide that their objective is “to occupy positions that have an institutional rank important” in allusion to the Presidency of said body. In this sense, he has also warned the potential partner to relaunch a coalition, Sumar, that the one who has to lead the talks and “make all the efforts” is the main party in the “progressive bloc.”
“The PP has not made a reflection regarding what has happened in these elections, regarding what happens when one lies to all the citizens and Mr. Feijóo made many mistakes during the campaign, that more than missteps is the culture of the lie that the PP has been bringing us in recent times, and, on the other hand, it has not given explanations about elements that were very important and that it is necessary to clarify, such as friendships and their relations with the drug trafficker Marcial Dorado”, has concluded the number two of the PSOE.
The PP does not lower its arms despite Sánchez's maneuvers: Feijóo "is going to work for an investiture" with the necessary support
The post-electoral path is not being easy for Alberto Núñez Feijóo, but the popular leader does not lower his arms. The Popular Party continues trying to articulate the necessary support so that, as the formation with the most votes on 23-J, it forms a government and puts an end to four years of Sanchismo, despite the new strategy launched by the Socialists and the leaks of Vox.
“We are going to work for an investiture of Feijóo and that this support is produced,” said the general coordinator of the PP, Elías Bendodo, who refuses, like the rest of the hard core of Genoa, to give up the battle for the investiture despite the divergences shown by the PNV and CC -two fundamental parties for the PP to reach the necessary numbers- to share an equation with Vox.
Neither of the two main parties will give in, which adds pressure to Felipe VI, who is the one who should commission the formation of the next Government. In Genoa they cling to the historical tradition of our politics that the candidate with the most votes at the polls should do it; in Ferraz they argue that Feijóo does not have support and that article 99 of the Constitution is clear: if you have a parliamentary majority you can go to the investiture.
Pedro Sánchez's refusal to meet with Feijóo, they believe in the PP, entrenches the situation of “ungovernability” in which our policy finds itself: “Speaking between the main parties is always good, but that Sánchez refuses to accept Feijóo's victory complicates the situation”, admitted Bendodo this Tuesday in an interview on Telecinco.
A “normal” date with Abascal
In fact, Ferraz is already using Feijóo's secret appointment with Santiago Abascal -revealed by Vox to drag the PP to his right- to justify his slamming of the popular leader. In this regard, the general coordinator of the PP stressed the “normality” of the meeting, since Feijóo has been meeting with leaders of different parties for a long time.
The rarity, they think in the PP, is that the socialist general secretary refuses to speak with the president of the most voted party. What's more, as detailed by Bendodo, Sánchez has not yet congratulated Feijóo for winning the elections
The Ukrainian Air Force intercepted 23 Shahed drones over Ukraine overnight, according to its morning update, mostly in the Odessa region and in the capital Kiev.. Ten of the drones were directed to the capital.
Russian troops struck port infrastructure in Ukraine's Odessa region with Shaded drones overnight, the Ukrainian military reported, damaging a grain elevator and causing a fire at facilities that transport the country's crucial grain exports, according to the update. of Ap.
“The enemy's target was clearly the port facilities and industrial infrastructure of the region,” the South Ukraine operational command wrote in a Facebook update.. As a result of the attack, a fire broke out in industrial and port facilities, and a grain elevator was damaged.
All 10 drones fired at kyiv were intercepted, said Serhii Popko, head of the kyiv Municipal Administration.. During the night numerous explosions were heard when the anti-aircraft defense systems were activated. Drone debris hit three districts of the capital, damaging a non-residential building, Popko said.