The abstention promoted by radical sectors of the independence movement in Catalonia is considered the great danger for ERC in these general elections. In the municipal elections, this movement cost the Republicans more than 300,000 votes.. So Oriol Junqueras has jumped on the victim wave generated by the loss of the Barcelona mayorship by Xavier Trias. For this reason, he has chosen to ask Ernest Maragall to go number two in the formation on the Senate list as a way of mobilizing the reluctant electorate to return to supporting the party.

“I present myself to respond to the pact of the socialists for which they have taken away the mayoralty of Barcelona. I ask the public to go from vetoing to voting,” Maragall declared at the ceremony where his appointment was presented.. Pasqual Maragall's younger brother, at 80, continues like this with his open war against the PSC, taking it to another level and transferring it to Madrid. “I am going to Madrid to recover the key that Sumar has taken from Barcelona,” insisted Maragall. Before, the candidate had blamed Ada Colau for having “abandoned Barcelona to deliver it to Madrid”.

If Ernest Maragall intends to take revenge on the PSC, ERC proposes the same to its pro-independence voters: a revenge for the loss of the mayoralty of the Catalan capital, a pact that its leaders consider illegitimate. “A 155 for Barcelona”, as defined by Maragall himself. ERC sources explain that the decision was made this Monday, as a means of responding to what is considered an unjustifiable veto for Republicans to be present in the municipal government.

Maragall's appointment occurs the day after the ANC has activated what is called “the fourth space”. The ANC met in Girona this Sunday and approved the creation of a group of voters, which will require some 50,000 signatures —1% of the electoral roll— to be able to stand in the Parliamentary elections. Members of the secretariat will not be candidates. But the danger is there. And the organization is the spearhead of the abstentionist movement so that the pro-independence voter punishes ERC, JxCAT and the CUP by disregarding the polls on July 23. If the campaign is a success, the so-called “fourth space”, with Clara Ponsatí, Josep Costa and other figures at the helm, will have a free track.

I will be a candidate for @Esquerra_ERC on the Senate list without ceasing to be a councilor in #Barcelona.

ERC asks me and I present myself to respond to the State pact against the democratic will at BCN.
An unworthy show starring Collboni, Colau and Sirera as… pic.twitter.com/NTuOhXzsK1

— Ernest Maragall and Mira (@ernestmaragall) June 19, 2023

ERC had to move piece. It remains to be shown that an 80-year-old senator is capable of mobilizing that frustrated voter, because after the mobilizations that began in 2012, independence has not only not arrived, but is further away than ever.

economic bicoca

A senator has a base salary of 3,050 euros per month, 14 payments plus allowances, which raise it to 4,000 euros per month for those who do not live in Madrid. Ernest Maragall, since he disassociated himself from the PSC, has had great ability to continue attracting well-paid public positions. Its role will be rather that of a fetish to remind the voter what is considered an intolerable interference by Madrid in the appointment of the mayor of the Catalan capital.

The head of the list for Congress is Gabriel Rufián. ERC is clear that the objective is to block the way for a possible coalition of the PP and Vox, as the polls show. Xavier Trias is trying something similar, but he is not making a personal commitment. In fact, he has already said that at some point he will leave municipal politics, although he has not said when he will carry out this resignation from his position as councilor..

As number two in the Senate, Ernest Maragall will contribute little to the political direction of the Republicans in Madrid. The strategy will continue to revolve around Gabriel Rufián. But, once again, the independence policy lives on the symbols.

A lawyer, of one

ERC's number one for the Senate is Joan Queralt, a lawyer known as a public speaker in the Generalitat's public media. He is not the only opinion maker who has gone into politics in these general elections thanks to the Republicans. Number three for the Congress is the journalist Francesc Marc Alvaro. And Ruffian himself has a talk show on 8TV. But despite the search for familiar faces in the media, the polls look bad. Between eight and nine deputies for ERC, when it now has 13 in Congress.

In fact, one of Pedro Sánchez's problems is that a part of his natural partners is dwindling, as is the case with ERC, and others, such as the PNV, are already preparing to agree with the PP in the event of Alberto's victory. Núñez Feijóo.

Three weeks. That is the time that the parties have had to configure their lists for the general elections since Pedro Sánchez announced his decision to advance the elections to July 23. The term has closed this Monday and, during this record time, the formations have prepared their candidacies for Congress and the Senate combining electoral expectations, signings of other parties, the protection of the nuclei of confidence of the leaders and vetoes to specific figures.

The negotiations within the Sumar platform of Yolanda Díaz have been the loudest and have been marked by the exclusion of the Minister of Equality, Irene Montero, from the lists. Meanwhile, Pedro Sánchez has chosen to place senior Moncloa officials on the socialist lists given the prospect of defeat. Meanwhile, Alberto Núñez Feijóo has chosen Marta Rivera de la Cruz, formerly of Ciudadanos and former advisor to the Government of Isabel Díaz Ayuso as his number two for Madrid, while Nacho Martín Blanco, another former member of Inés Arrimadas's party, will occupy the position departure in Barcelona. Vox has parked the surprises to repeat with the majority of its hard core in Congress.

PSOE lists

The main obstacle that the Socialists have encountered to fit all the pieces in their lists has been the prospect of a diminishing result on 23-J. The polls suggest that the PSOE will have around 100 deputies, below the 120 it currently has, and that it will not be able to re-edit the coalition government. This not only means that the starting positions that could secure a seat are fewer, but also that those figures who could be left without positions in the Executive have to find a place.

Following this premise, the President of the Government has placed the current Government delegate in Galicia, José Ramón Gómez Besteiro, as head of the list for Lugo; the deputy director of the Cabinet of the Presidency, Antonio Hernando, leading the candidacy of Almería, and the general director of the Civil Guard and general secretary of the party in the capital, Mercedes González, on the Madrid list. All of them have had to resign before their candidacies were registered due to incompatibility.

As number two, he has selected the third vice president, Teresa Ribera, after Nadia Calviño has decided not to compete on the lists, despite having a strong role in the socialist campaign, by establishing herself as the great economic figure of Pedro Sánchez. The Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, will be number four, with a system of zipper lists, which leads the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, to occupy third place and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, to fifth, followed by the vice president of the Senate, Cristina Narbona, and by Sánchez's chief of staff in Moncloa, Óscar López, in positions six and seven, respectively.

It has also been necessary to give space to those defeated in the regional and municipal elections on May 28, such as the still acting president of the Balearic Islands, Francina Armengol, or the former mayor of Valladolid Óscar Puente. These impositions have led to some clash. This is the case of Javier Lambán, who has had to see how the Minister of Education, Pilar Alegría, has been imposed as head of the list for Zaragoza against her criteria, in addition to the entire list of Teruel.

Ferraz also imposed last-minute modifications to the lists that arrived from Castilla y León and the Valencian Community. In this last territory, the management rectified the changes that the leadership of Ximo Puig had made in the constituencies led by Carlos Fernández Bielsa in Valencia and Alejandro Soler in Alicante. Among them, Alfred Boix, one of the closest collaborators of Morella in the Presidency of the Generalitat, regional secretary for Institutional Promotion, Communication and Foresight, and former secretary of Organization of the PSPV.

PP lists

The formation of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, clear favorite to win the 23-J, has chosen to reveal all his candidacies days before the deadline to register the lists with the Central Electoral Board. In this composition, the Galician politician has decided that his dome occupy the starting positions of numerous provinces, while in Madrid he has surprised by choosing as number two Marta Rivera de la Cruz, former Citizens and Ayuso's Minister of Culture during the last legislature, accompanied by other faithful of the Madrid leader. This is the case of the former president of the Assembly of Madrid, Eugenia Carballedo, and of the previous popular speaker in the Chamber of Vallecas, Pedro Muñoz Abrines. Iran four and eight, respectively. Borja Sémper will be number three and Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo will occupy the sixth position.

Around Feijóo, Cuca Gamarra leads the candidacy of Logroño; Elías Bendodo, from Malaga; Esteban González Pons, from Valencia; Juan Bravo, from Seville, and Miguel Tellado, from A Coruña. The leader of the PP has changed 75% of the names that occupy starting positions, renewing 39 of the 52 heads of the list.

From other parties, it has also incorporated Pere Lluís Huget, former spokesperson for Ciudadanos in the Salou City Council, to lead the list for Tarragona; while he has opted for Sergio Sayas, former UPN deputy, to lead the ballot in Navarra, where the PP has not been able to close an agreement with the regionalist formation to compete in alliance.

To focus on the economic sphere, Feijóo has placed several members of the team of the PP Deputy Secretary of Economy, Juan Bravo, as heads of the provincial list. This is the case of Luis Alberto Marín, Minister of Economy in the Region of Murcia, who is running as number one in this territory, or José Vicente Marí, current Secretary of Industry, Tourism and Commerce in Genoa, and who passes from the Senate to Congress as top of the list of the Balearic Islands.

Vox Lists

Santiago Abascal has not given any big surprises and has opted for his hard core in Congress, although he has opted for a change of number two in Madrid. While the one chosen for the position in 2019 was Javier Ortega Smith, who falls to number four, this position will now be held by María de la Cabeza Ruiz Solás, who was already a deputy in the previous legislature and is a councilor in Villaviciosa de Odón. Iván Espinosa de los Monteros, economic spokesman in Congress, will repeat in the three.

In addition to Ortega Smith, another current councilor in the Madrid City Council, Carla Toscano, will occupy a place on the lists of the formation, which suggests that the capital is taking a backseat for Vox given its loss of influence after the absolute majority of Jose Luis Martinez-Almeida. Rocio Monasterio, spokesperson for the party in the Assembly, has not had any position and faces an uncertain future.

The Vox leader has included other like-minded people such as David García, head of the list for Alicante and a member of the affiliated union Solidaridad; Ignacio Hoces, institutional vice-secretary and who is now running as number one for Badajoz, or Jorge Martín Frías for Madrid, very close to Abascal and director of the Disenso Foundation, the think tank of the ultra-conservative party. He has also opted for other faithful such as Rocío de Meer in Almería, José María Figaredo in Asturias and Manuel Mariscal in Toledo.

In Malaga, Patricia Rueda repeats as head of the list. In Murcia, Lourdes Méndez Monasterio —sister of Santiago Abascal's main adviser, Kiko Méndez Monasterio— attends, and in Las Palmas Andrés Alberto Rodríguez does the same. A curious case is that of Granada, whose list is led by the former spokesperson in the Senate, Jacobo González-Robatto, who left the Upper House to coordinate Macarena Olona's campaign in Andalusia..

Vox is also using the lists as an outlet for its regional leaders with the aim of unblocking negotiations with the PP and forming autonomous governments.. This is the case of Carlos Flores Juberías, whose departure was demanded by Carlos Mazón in the Valencian Community to incorporate those of Santiago Abascal into the regional Executive. Flores, convicted of mistreatment, will be number one for Valencia. In the same way, Jorge Campos will lead the candidacy in the Balearic Islands, instead of taking possession of his minutes in the Balearic Parliament, which could facilitate conversations with Marga Prohens.

The most notable absence is that of deputy Víctor Manuel Sánchez del Real in Badajoz, present in the party's activities from the beginning. His disappearance from the lists, together with that of Rubén Manso, feeds the theory that the liberal current has lost weight in the structure compared to the more conservative and nationalist sector..

The line to follow is continuity in general terms. In Barcelona, repeat Juan José Aizcorbe, and in Viscay, Nerea Alzola, who coincided with Abascal in the Basque PP. The provinces of this territory are completed by Andrés Paramio (Guipúzcoa) and María Teresa Jiménez (Álava). In Zaragoza, Pedro Fernández aspires to repeat, who was in charge of the accusation of the process together with Javier Ortega Smith and served as a councilor in Madrid for the last four years. Until now Senator Francisco José Alcaraz, a victim of ETA and president of the Voices Against Terrorism association, will lead the ballot in Jaén.

Add Lists

Yolanda Díaz's intention was not to wait until the last minute to conclude the negotiations that articulated the confluence of 15 parties around Sumar, but she finally hurried up just over three hours before the registry closed.. With the lists, again, the process has been agonizing. In trying to make them official on Friday, the Sumar leadership gave the order to do so on Saturday, but in a good part of the provinces they have had to wait until Monday afternoon to close this process..

The starting positions were known —Podemos has eight—, as well as the order of the first positions in Madrid. Díaz places the diplomat Agustín Santos Maraver as number two, the Sahrawi activist Tesh Sidi as three (Más Madrid) and Íñigo Errejón just before the purple secretary general, Ione Belarra, in fifth place. The sixth is for his economic guru, Carlos Martín, who will share the limelight with Nacho Álvarez, economic manager of the purple ones, during the campaign. Álvarez will not go on the lists.

Eighth place goes to Isa Serra, leader of the hard core of Podemos and very close to the banned Irene Montero. Like Montero, prominent purple leaders such as Pablo Echenique, Ángela Rodríguez Pam or Rafa Mayoral do not appear on the lists, and Díaz has dispensed with figures such as Antón Gómez Reino and Jaume Asens, who bet everything on the letter of the vice president. It has also placed in Guipúzcoa the former purple secretary general and today a close collaborator of Díaz, Lander Martínez, who is not liked in Podemos, and has forced the Navarrese leadership to assume the presence of MEP Idoia Villanueva, from the executive of Podemos.

Txema Guijarro, a fundamental figure in the parliamentary group, has managed to head the list for Alicante despite reluctance, in lists whose final configuration, this Monday, has not brought any great surprises. The battle took place in the previous days, the presences and absences had already had their impact.

Pedro Sánchez's criticisms of the speech and management of the Minister for Equality, Irene Montero, have irritated Podemos, which has chosen not to confront as on previous occasions, but has replied to his words. In the middle of the campaign, and once the decision was made to adopt a “modest” profile, “behind Yolanda Díaz”, the Minister of Equality responded by uploading an image to her Twitter profile, in which a banner reads “sorry for the inconvenience, but they are killing us”. He did it hours after the head of the Executive made his “confrontation” speech ugly, and that he appealed to “integrative feminism” as a “pending task” of “progressive Spain”. The dispute over the feminist flag has been constant throughout the coalition government, and the differences between the two partners have been at the epicenter of a good part of their high-voltage discussions..

pic.twitter.com/yuzPucd4zR

— Irene Montero (@IreneMontero) June 19, 2023

For his part, the former second vice president, Pablo Iglesias, was ironic from one of his programs on his television, Canal Red: “You know girls. Feminism? A little bit, okay, but don't bother us gentlemen”. “It is that you are very annoying. If I told you, Pedro. I wish I had vice presidents like yours, and not these three harpies” [referring to her collaborators on set], “and at home the Minister of Equality, I am cornered”. Among them was Dina Bousselham, former home leader, who also resorted to irony. “Policies that denounce inequalities and try to correct them cannot be done since the conflict,” he replied, stating that these statements could also have been made by the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo.

Along the same lines, the former head of Argumentario and deputy of Unidas Podemos, Pedro Honrrubia, accused Sánchez of “publicly throwing the entire Ministry of Equality and its policies into the public bonfire.”. Also to “publicly deny” laws “such as the reform of the abortion law”, “the trans law and the law of the only yes is yes”. “Sánchez will later go around the world and poke his chest out of those policies when they congratulate him for it, but today here he has assumed all the frames of reaction as his own”. “He'll regret it. And we will all pay the consequences, all of us. Huge sadness,” he said on his Twitter profile..

Sánchez with Alsina has just publicly renounced policies such as the reform of the abortion law, the trans law and the law of the only yes is yes that is still in force except in the part of consent that was reformed by the PP. To those who have not been able to put…

— Pedro Honrubia 🔻 (@Eselkaos) June 19, 2023

“I think there is an impression that, above all, there is a citizen, men between 40 and 50 years old, who has seen on some occasions that some speeches have been uncomfortable towards them, and I think that is a mistake”. In an interview on Onda Cero, the Prime Minister acknowledged on Monday his “public and notorious” discrepancies with Montero, to which his party has already amended the plan by unilaterally modifying the yes is yes law, the star measure of his Ministry, to try to stop the reduction of sentences for sexual offenders benefited by this rule. The PSOE leader appeals to his party as a useful vote in the next general elections, and today he has taken another step to wrest from Montero and Podemos a flag that the PSOE always wanted to fly alone.

The withdrawal of assets that the Franco del Pazo de Meirás family was going to carry out starting next Monday has been suspended this Monday by court order. The court of first instance number 1 of A Coruña had issued an ordering procedure in April in which it set at 9:30 a.m. on June 26 the delivery to the Franco family of the only assets of the Pazo de Meirás that the Provincial Court de A Coruña has allowed him to retire.

However, in a new procedure on Monday, at the request of the family and in view of the pending legal cases, the process has been suspended, with the consent of the State.. The withdrawal, when it occurs, will only be related to those elements that, within the execution phase of the 2020 judgment that declared the property property of the State, the Justice understands that they are not necessarily included in the set.

Specifically, they are the bronze putti in the chapel, a stone sculpture of a virgin with a child, a lamp on a pilaster of a staircase and three metallic wall sconces, in addition to the corridor rugs that were already recognized, all of them in the interior of the pazo. For this reason, visits to the Pazo de Meirás are currently suspended, a measure that was scheduled to continue until July.

The judicial proceeding of the suspended delivery complies with the ruling that concluded, on the other hand, that all the elements existing outside the pazo have the nature of immovable property by destination, since they emphasize that “the garden of the Meirás pazo would be a simple garden ” without those furniture elements, “losing its own idiosyncrasy and content”.

The court highlighted at the time that “there is no record that such assets were introduced into the pazo after the death of Francisco Franco”, while indicating that “many of them were during the life of Emilia Pardo Bazán”, therefore those they cannot be withdrawn by the Franco family. The Court stressed that “an altarpiece without images is unthinkable, when it is also historically accredited that it is from the 17th or early 18th century, placed in the time of the Countess of Pardo Bazán.”

On the other hand, the State Attorney maintains the claim, in addition, of another 564 assets in a Madrid court that are in the property on a precautionary basis. These are grouped into three categories: national heritage assets, Spanish documentary heritage assets and assets that are in the public domain in case they affect the use of the Pazo de Meirás as the official residence of the head of state and, in addition, are part of the Spanish historical heritage. for its historical and artistic interest linked to the figure of Pardo Bazán.

The Supreme Court (TS) has ruled in favor of a man who underwent emergency surgery for severe septicemia in the United States and who was demanding that his insurer reimburse him for almost 30,000 euros of medical expenses, something to which the company He refused for not notifying in time.

In a sentence, to which Europa Press has had access, the Civil Chamber of the TS partially accepts the man's appeal, confirming the sentence handed down in 2017 by the Court of First Instance Number 38 of Barcelona, which condemned the insurer to pay the invoice of 31,586.31 dollars up to the limit of 30,000 euros established by the contracted insurance.

The facts date back to November 15, 2015, when the man, while traveling in Boston, “had to be admitted to the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) for presenting a serious septic condition, where he remained until the 19th of November. November when he was discharged, to continue treatment in Spain”.

Months later, on April 25, 2016, the MHG informed the patient that he had to pay him $31,586.31, which he “immediately claimed” from his insurer.. This, however, refused to pay because “the incident had not been communicated to it”.

Given the insurer's refusal, the man filed a claim in the aforementioned court of first instance, which agreed with him, although the company appealed and the Barcelona Court supported his thesis, so the insured went to the Supreme Court, which aligns with the first of the sentences.

The insurer claimed, first of all, that “there was no insurance contract between the parties”, but that it simply “offered its partners, due to their status as such, a series of benefits”, including “coverage up to 30,000 euros for 'medical, surgical, pharmaceutical and hospitalization expenses abroad'”.

Likewise, it argued that “the plaintiff failed to meet the requirements to benefit from the benefit, since he did not notify the alarm center” in advance and, “in the event that an insurance relationship was recognized, that the plaintiff did not respect the deadline either of seven days for the communication of the sinister”.

“Contracts are what they are”

The Supreme begins by establishing that “it is settled jurisprudence that contracts are what they are and not what the parties call”.

Thus, it indicates that, “if we find that an insurance company from the same group” of which the man was a member “committed to cover the expenses of medical assistance abroad, up to a quantitative limit, and the document spoke of expressly covering benefits and communication and occurrence of the accident, it is clear that this legal relationship fits the definition of insurance contract”.

Moreover, the First Chamber emphasizes that “the defendant's own acts reveal the existence of an insurance relationship, since upon receiving the first communication” from the man “he did not deny the existence of insurance, but rather denied the benefit for an alleged exclusion of coverage, for not having made the communication in the following 24 hours”.

From there, the Supreme Court resolved that “the initial delay in reporting the claim was justified by the seriousness of the insured's state of health, who had to undergo emergency surgery to treat sepsis”.

“While the subsequent delay (not concealment of information) there is no evidence that it caused economic damages to the insurer, or at least, nor have they been justified by it, nor has it claimed them by way of counterclaim or compensation,” he concludes..

The UPN councilor in the Etxarri Aranatz Town Hall, Juan Frommknecht, has submitted a letter addressed to the Mayor's Office (EH Bildu) in which he requests “the immediate placement of the Spanish flag and the portrait of King Felipe VI in compliance with the current regulations, after verifying the legal breach” consisting of the absence of both symbols in the plenary hall.

In addition, “in order to be able to attend to the residents of Etxarri Aranatz who want to address the municipal group and in compliance with the provisions of article 27 of the Regulations for Organization, Operation and Legal Regime of local entities”, the regionalist mayor has requested to be assigned a place for said tasks.

Frommknecht stated in a statement that “UPN has come to work for Etxarri Aranatz on municipal issues, attend to residents who so wish and ensure compliance with the legal system, while trying to improve coexistence in the town”.

For this reason, he has announced that the regionalist formation has already requested access to all available information “regarding the problems that the rupture of a pipe is causing to a building on Malkarramendi street and that has generated logical concern in the neighbors about the security problems that it can pose for its inhabitants”.

King Felipe VI has accepted the honorary presidency of the IV Ibero-American Congress of Naval Engineering, organized by the Ghenova Chair of the University of A Coruña (UDC) and to be held in October in the cities of Seville and Ferrol.

This has been confirmed by the UDC in a statement detailing that this event, which will take place on October 3, 4 and 5 in the Andalusian capital and 6 and 7 in the departmental city, will be conceived as a “maritime bridge”. between Europe and America. It will address the future of the naval sector and its impact on society and the planet through various meetings, conferences and forums.

Specifically, the honorary committee of the congress, apart from the monarch as president, has the participation of the Minister of Transport, Mobility and the Urban Agenda, Raquel Sánchez; the chief admiral of the Defense Staff (Jemad), the chief admiral of the Navy Staff (Ajema) and the rector of the University of A Coruña, Julio Abalde, among other authorities.

The IV Ibero-American Congress of Naval Engineering will be held in Spain thanks to the proposal of the Ghenova Chair, after the assembly of the Pan-American Institute of Naval Engineering (IPIN) approved it unanimously.

The mayor of Badalona (Barcelona), Xavier García Albiol (PP), will testify as a witness on Tuesday in the trial where the former city councilor David Gómez – who was part of the City Council in 2011, in Albiol's first term – is accused together to 10 businessmen of alleged prevarication and fraud to the Administration by, allegedly, commissioning works in municipal premises without bidding, for a total of 953,781.03 euros, which the City Council did not pay.

The trial began this Monday in section 7 of the Barcelona Court with the preliminary questions, in which, among other procedures, the lawyer Josep Riba, who represents the private prosecution of the Badalona City Council and at the same time also Albiol —who exercised the private prosecution also on an individual basis – has asked to withdraw the representation of the mayor stating that the prosecution is already ensured by the Consistory.

In this way, in the rest of the trial, Albiol will not exercise the private prosecution individually, and on Tuesday morning he will testify as current mayor after taking office for the third time last Saturday..

This Monday it has also been agreed that the defendants declare at the end of the trial, as their defenses have requested, and in the processing of previous questions it has also been verified that an expert report on the works on trial cannot be exposed in court because the expert who wrote it has died, but the court will take his writing into account to deliberate the sentence.

In this case, the Prosecutor's Office requests for the defendants a sentence of two years and three months in prison and disqualifications of up to 17 years for the alleged crimes of prevarication and fraud against the Administration, according to the indictment consulted by Europa Press.

After the 2011 municipal elections, Gómez became councilor for Social Services and Health, and also vice-president of the Municipal Institute of Personnel Services (IMSP), vice-president of Badalona Serveis Socials, member of the administration council of Marina Badalona and district councilor 6 of the city, which integrated the Artigues, Sant Roc and El Remei neighborhoods, and held these positions until October 2012.

Verbal contracts without report

During that time, Gómez had powers to award contracts and concessions that did not exceed 120,202.42 euros, and the prosecutor points out that, presumably knowing that he contravened the regulations on administrative contracting, “he contracted verbally, without technical reports justifying the need of its realization and in any case without following any procedure”, to four companies to carry out works in municipal premises, with several that in total amounted to 953,781.03 euros and that the City Council did not pay.

The prosecutor believes that Gómez acted in concert with the other 10 defendants, who were part of these companies as administrators, representatives or attorneys, and that “at all times they tried to obtain unjust enrichment” at the expense of the City Council, and awarded them directly works that due to their amount required bidding or public contracting according to the regulations.

The prosecutor's brief adds that the defendants delivered the invoices by hand or by email with “a concept that did not always correspond to the reality of the works carried out and always indicating a cost above the market price or deliberately dividing the object of the contract” to simulate that it could be awarded as a minor contract.

In addition, in some cases, the commissioned works were not carried out or were not finished, and to avoid leaving documentary traces in the City Council they did not carry out feasibility studies, they did not have an endowment in the budgets, they did not process the processing file or process the mandatory reports or economic-financial feasibility studies.

José Luis Martínez-Almeida has already entrusted the first duties to his team at the inaugural Governing Board of the new term. The mayor of Madrid has given absolute priority to the approval of the urban planning regulations blocked by Vox during the last legislature, which will be piloted by the new delegate of the Urban Planning, Mobility and Environment macro-area, Borja Carabante, with the first 10 days of july on the horizon. “There is a firm and unequivocal desire for it to be as soon as possible,” declared the popular councilor at a press conference, given the urgency of adapting the 1997 General Urban Planning Plan to the reality of the city.

The mayor of the capital, who has appeared together with his deputy mayor, Inmaculada Sanz, has transferred one task per area. The Department of Security and Emergencies, which Sanz also holds, will begin to form the anti-graffiti patrol in the coming weeks, in charge of solving vandalism and dirt on the streets, one of the main concerns of the people of Madrid. Regarding Urban Planning and the pending regulations, the intention is to convene a commission and an extraordinary plenary session after the formalization of the municipal groups, which will be held in plenary session next week.

The Economy, Innovation and Finance area, controlled by Engracia Hidalgo, is already working on preparing the 2024 budget, after the extension forced by the Vox blockade at the end of last year. Almeida, however, has detailed that the City Council will immediately address a series of modifications and credit supplements to address some actions that were pending budget, such as the reform of the Puerta de Alcalá. “Let's get to work from now on.. We don't have a minute to lose”, the mayor pointed out about what was discussed in this first Governing Board.

Housing and large projects

Social Policies, Family and Equality, managed by José Fernández, has the task of creating a birth plan for the first leg of the legislature; while the Department of Housing, in the hands of Álvaro González, will soon take out seven public plots in surface rights for the construction of houses in the city. The goal, as the councilor added, is to build a total of 12,000 in the next four years. Two of the most ambitious plans in which the Consistory is already working are the burying of the north of the Castellana and the section of the M-30 as it passes through Ventas. The Works and Equipment area, directed by Paloma García Romero, will prepare both preliminary projects. Although the transformation of the A-5 is a priority for the new government team, it does not require immediate action because the project has already been drafted, as Almeida explained to the media..

Marta Rivera de la Cruz, head of Culture, Tourism and Sport, has been commissioned to organize with the Community of Madrid the activities of Hispanic Heritage Day, a festival that she already led when she was advisor to Isabel Díaz Ayuso. This and other events will mark her first steps as a delegate in Cibeles.

José Luis Martínez-Almeida, who has insisted on the need to start working, has also advanced that the Madrid City Council will shortly transfer a proposal for the reform of the Capital Law, an action that he considers unavoidable to provide the city with more and better tools to face the future. The forecast is that this will be transferred to the central government and the Community of Madrid, although it has not given any date.

The long-awaited interview of Carlos Alsina with the President of the Government was enormously disappointing. Despite the fact that both managed well within their frameworks, the irrelevance of the vast majority of the issues that were discussed in it indicates a clear distance from the political sphere, and from the media, of the needs of our country..

The interview was raised from an axis that Alsina put on the table from her initial question, and that she did not abandon throughout the approximately 50 minutes of conversation: “Why have you lied to us so much, President?”.

💬 Alsina: Why have you lied to us so much, President?

💬 Sánchez: Tell me what

👇 Follow the interview live https://t.co/PGeaea1cxV pic.twitter.com/exezs5FDlc

– Onda Cero (@OndaCero_es) June 19, 2023

It is likely that this starting point was celebrated by voters hostile to Sánchez, who must have understood that, finally, someone was standing up to the socialist leader on one of the issues that they understand to be most relevant to the elections, the character and personality of the president.. If we pay attention to the polls, one of the biggest weaknesses of the Socialists in the face of the general elections is that their leader is perceived as unfriendly and false by a large part of the voters.

The question that the PSOE continues to ask

This framework has a long way to go, because it has been and is decisive when proposing the electoral tactics of 23-J from the dominant parties. In Moncloa, they understood that Sánchez's personality weighed down the results of 28-M, and that, therefore, this perception had to be combated decisively in the following elections. The discursive position was made clear by Sánchez himself from the day after: media pressure and the lies of the right had built a way of seeing the socialists, anti-Sanchism, which was damaging them. That was the main explanation they found for the dilemma that tormented them on election night: if the measures that had been taken were good, if the macroeconomic figures were objectively verifiable, if the economy was going after two deep crises, how was it possible that the electorate would not have repaid satisfactorily?

This punishment, which went more to the left than to the PSOE, reinforced the conviction that the effectiveness of the measures that had been adopted, whether on the economy or on Catalonia, was ineffective in the face of the anti-Sanchismo that the media and the right had diffused. The government's action had been positive, but the partners on which they had relied, the president's fluctuating and arrogant attitude, and the slippages in laws promoted by Podemos, such as yes is yes, had led them to lose power.

Once the diagnosis was made, it was time for the counterattack. From there arises the insistence on Vox, on its agreements with the PP, on the motto of The best Spain, that of modernity against reaction. Since the management did not give revenues, it was necessary to insist on issues related to customs and progress: that is where his sympathizers could be mobilized again.

📻💬 The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, admits having had disagreements with Irene Montero regarding the 'only yes is yes' law and assures that he tried to persuade him of the mistake that had been madehttps://t.co/s4R0ATew9L

— More Than One (@MasDeUno) June 19, 2023

From the right, the diagnosis did not change either: the anti-sanchismo was working, it was not the time to change the framework. It was necessary to insist on Bildu, in Catalonia, on the excesses of the partners and on the character of the president. The two main contenders agreed on the key points of the campaign.

what he said and what he did

The interview with Alsina moved along these lines, which tried to highlight Sánchez's different twists, to emphasize his person (“How do you think you will be remembered, President?”) and the distance between what he said and what he did. The director of Más de uno was percussing that line over and over again, and Sánchez defended himself with ease, with a soft tone, without seeking confrontation and without an iota of arrogance or haughtiness; rather he tried to adopt a reasonable and calm stance in the face of criticism.

The problem with all this is that it is fruitless, banal, lacking in perspective. The way of being of the president cannot be the first electoral element at a time like the present. And it is not that the trust generated by a leader is irrelevant, which it is not, but that, at this point, we all have a clear impression of who Pedro Sánchez is and what his way of acting is.. Returning to the subject may be satisfying as a show, but politically uninteresting.

life of common people

And this is so for reasons of depth. One of them was highlighted by Javier Jorrín in this newspaper when pointing out the divergence between the macroeconomic and micro discourse: the recovery has not reached the lower classes or a large part of the media, who are suffering from the crisis. It usually happens, but this time it is special, because there are several recessions in a row that have been enduring. Perhaps one of the reasons why left-wing voters did not mobilize for 28-M, and that they appear behind in the polls for 23-J, also has to do with this distance between the large numbers and the daily ones. Perhaps these measures have come in handy for a part of the population, but they have not had an effect on classes that are especially stressed, and hence the distancing when it comes to voting; Perhaps it is that management has not been as effective as we are told.

🔴💬 Pedro Sánchez explains how he would like to be rememberedhttps://t.co/BJo2bmT7Tx

— More Than One (@MasDeUno) June 19, 2023

Undoubtedly, the bad moment of the left has several causes, but this is one of them, and it is not usually mentioned, because we are entangled with anti-Sanchism. And it is relevant because, beyond the fact that it has many or few electoral effects, it constitutes the reality of many Spanish citizens, so it would be expected that the political sphere would take it into consideration for the future.. There is a general phenomenon of loss of resources and vital options among a large part of the Spanish population that demands a response to match, and no party is providing it.

This general trend is very relevant, to the extent that it points to the urgency of changes in the political mentality: new projects are needed in Spain that can place us in a future that seems complicated.. We very often forget the existential moment that we are living as Europeans: the war in Ukraine is hitting us seriously, and not only due to temporary weakness, but also due to structural. Germany, the center of Europe and the benchmark for Spain, has come to a screeching halt, and has been thrown into a new world in which it lacks Russian energy, its industry stalls, it must invest in a military it lacks, and relations global trade, especially with China, appear much more dubious than a few years ago. In this new tension between the US and China, Europe appears as the weak giant, and Spain is in the most fragile part of the EU.

The French reaction, on the contrary, seems imbued with urgency, and is seeking to reposition itself based on a determined boost to the industry, through new global ties and a European reconfiguration. In Spain we are not even thinking about how to act in this new world, just the one that throws us to a secondary place. It is not a minor problem, it is an existential challenge, and the formulas that had been thought of before the pandemic and the war in Ukraine to strengthen our country, such as the green reinvention, are now insufficient. It is urgent to think about Spain, and here we are thinking about gender terminology and whether or not the president is nice.

The shelter in the past

In this situation, the main parties, but also the rest, show a special fondness for the past. All we know about the PP is that, if it governs, it will repeal some of the rules issued by Sánchez and his partners and that it will lower taxes. The first implies being more aware of yesterday than of tomorrow; the second is a simple toast to the sun: if Europe decides that it is time for fiscal consolidation, for the reduction of the public deficit and the repayment of the debt, Feijóo will raise taxes on the popular and middle classes, as Rajoy already did because there will be no other. All we have known about the PP is that they have a clear idea, that of removing Sánchez from power, but we do not know what his government actions will be. A party with options to govern should have a State project that goes beyond sanchismo or freedom, and much more at a time like this.

Nor is the PSOE giving answers to those questions. His campaign is focused on preventing the advance of the extreme right (a position that is hardly successful, it needs a lot more) and his recipes for the future consist of deepening the path that has already begun in the coalition government.. The times demand other approaches, more ambitious and far-reaching, but that vision is not on the table, because we continue to discuss whether or not Sánchez is a liar. It is part of that flattened Spain, without ideas and thrown into commonplaces, that we need to leave behind..