disturbs, imposes, bothers.

Perhaps he himself felt self-conscious before his own portrait.

“Troppo vero!” They say that Innocent X exclaimed when confronted with the portrait that Velázquez had made of him. too real. In any case, the result must have pleased the pontiff since he ended up giving the painter a gold medal with his effigy in half relief and, in addition, he gave instructions to the apostolic nuncio in Madrid to support Velázquez's request for admission to the Order. of Santiago, a desire of the artist, who had always sought public recognition of his nobility.

For many, Velázquez's portrait of Innocent X is the best in the history of art. The realism of a face with a scrutinizing look that is difficult to hold its own and the fantasy of reds in a brave combination only within the reach of a genius like him, make this work a milestone in the portraiture genre that captivated artists like him centuries later. Giacometti or Francis Bacon.

Ortega y Gasset said in The Papers of Velázquez and Goya that it seemed that those portrayed were looking at us from inside the space created by Velázquez, with an outward projection that seeks expressive communication on the other side..

When reality assaults you with news that bears names and surnames, I always wonder how Velázquez would paint the politician involved in a corruption case, the judge in a media case, the footballer who signs an obscenely millionaire contract. Or the philosopher who made an apology for the Humanities.

Nuccio Order has died.

Democritus (or The Geographer), the philosopher who laughs at the extravagances and absurdities of the world, interpreted by the brushes of a young Velázquez who has met Rubens, illustrates the cover of The Usefulness of the Useless, the manifesto in which Ordine defends that “knowledge constitutes by itself an obstacle against the delusion of omnipotence of money and utilitarianism”.

A half-length portrait, a white shirt with subtle gray brushstrokes, a noble forehead, a sensitive, seductive, intelligent look, the look of someone who knows how to cross the line of the artificial and plunge into the depths of what sublimates us as living beings.. Yes, I am convinced that Velázquez would portray Ordine, managing to capture the psychological depth of the philosopher with that exceptional love for the world, the love for the men and women whom he portrayed with the truth of his painting..

I reread the pages of Ordine's manifesto in one of the courtyards of the place where this love for the beautifully useless was forged.. Faculty of Philosophy and Letters, a golden plaque, a porticoed gallery, a fountain and knowing that you are in the right place, justifying love and knowledge. The place where we learned to write with indelible ink the names of Raphael, Michelangelo or Titian, and where we should have written those of Morisot, Cassatt, Artemisia or Delaunay. Oel by Françoise Gilot.

A black dress, a slender neck under white lace and a Velázquez portrait of the Infanta Margarita to copy a hairstyle that seduces Picasso. This is how Gilot began his life with the minotaur. Ten years, two children, the dazzle before the colossus, the dark face of the man, the courage to leave and to tell it, and a shadow too long. “But do you think that people are going to be interested in you?” Vomited the wounded pride of the abandoned giant. yes paul. After one hundred and one years of life, the French artist leaves her works hanging in the Pompidou in Paris, in the Metropolitan in New York or in the MoMA and the portraits that the man from Malaga made of her, in the times of wine and roses, became immortal the beautiful eyes of Françoise.

Because a portrait is buying a passport to eternity. This is what Valeriano Domínguez Bécquer did when portraying his brother, turning the poet into an idealized icon of romantic love of his essential rhymes. Not for being more reproduced and idealized, the superb work of Valeriano has less value. Impeccably executed, the portrait is a psychological study of someone moved by melancholy, but at the same time determination is glimpsed in an irresistible look due to pure magnetism.. The concise color palette, mainly ocher and white, the elegant and aristocratic demeanor, remind Velázquez who, without a doubt, must have been in Valeriano's subconscious when it came to giving his brother that one-way ticket to eternity..

A display of vanity, a symbol of power, a diplomatic instrument, a declaration of love, a psychoanalysis session, renting a piece of collective memory..

And he did.

Standing, looking at the viewer, making clear his presence in the most universal work in the history of painting, with the cross of Santiago on his chest and an entire Art History manual on the fingers turned into brushes of the hand that painted. the truth of useful things.

Judging by the turn that the electoral campaign has taken since the express pacts of the PP with Vox in the Generalitat Valenciana and the rest of the municipalities, Feijóo has gone from promising to repeal sanchismo to testing its limits and even copying some excuses. Anti-Sanchismo was a good campaign slogan, but it's getting old fast. That there is no choice but to agree with the only ones who want to agree with you, swallowing every principle or scruple to agree with extremes, sums up a good part of sanchismo. Sánchez waited until after the elections to contradict himself. As the municipalities were in a hurry, Feijóo has not had time.

Repealing sanchismo was a good slogan. He hoped to capture even the socialist voter disappointed with Pedro Sánchez and some orphan of Cs that was left out there. But that was before, last week, when anti-Sanchismo was still a diffuse claim. The lack of qualms in the pacts with Vox sets a clear limit to anti-Sanchism and is making many of those moderate and undecided voters doubt. Those to whom the president disliked, those to whom Feijóo neither was nor fa, but Sánchez fatal, have come to wonder how badly. Bad enough to risk having Santiago Abascal as vice president? There are many anti-Sanchistas, without objections to Vox, many fewer.

There are also many voters surprised by the surprise that Vox has taken from Carlos Mazón the vice presidency of the Valencian Generalitat, the Ministry of Culture, Agriculture and the Interior; or seeing that in that first coalition agreement the expression macho violence disappears and the parental pin appears; or that, when the agreement is known, Mazón says he is more focused on how much the PP unites him with Vox than on what differentiates them. Many took it for granted.

Those who have not been surprised at all to see how soon it took Mazón to agree with the Vox candidate convicted of mistreatment to win the presidency of the Generalitat are the voters who have been saying for some time that PP and Vox are very similar.

The pact may or may not surprise, but it must be recognized that the campaign this week has taken a turn when seeing PP barons saying the same thing that Sánchez was saying to try to mobilize the socialist voter after months of boasting of moderation. Emphasizing how much the PP and Vox are alike was an argument of the left-wing campaign. Now Mazón says it.

Among those who see it as perfectly normal for PP and Vox to agree to the first, there are both left and right. For those who had already decided to vote for the right, because they don't dislike Vox, and those who had already decided to vote for the left, because they dislike the PP as much as Vox, this week does not make any difference. But it has surprised other types of voters. And it is precisely those voters for whom an electoral campaign is relevant when it comes to deciding their vote, which by the way are becoming more and more.

The PP and Vox pacts are revealing for those who were thinking of voting for the PP, but who had never done so before, for example. Or to those who were thinking of abstaining from voting for the left and the idea of Abascal in the government does mobilize them.

Come on, Feijóo had not put an effort into emphasizing that he wanted to govern alone to attract the vote of the center. Or to win the support of feminists disappointed with the release of rapists by the Yes is Yes law and the trans law that internally divides the PSOE. Sanchismo had disappointed all of them, but would they vote for a party that makes an agreement with someone convicted of abuse and denies the existence of gender violence?

The spell of moderation has been broken. And something must be worrying in the PP because of how Feijóo is trying to fix it. As soon as the Valencian deputy for Vox, José María Llanos, one of those who sound like a possible president of the Valencian Parliament, came out affirming on Friday that violence against women does not exist, Feijóo tweeted that gender violence does exist and affirming that his party won't take a step back.

A tweet does not counteract a coalition agreement that excludes the very denomination of gender violence from the agreement as required by those of Abascal. “We are not going to give up our principles, whatever it costs us,” Feijóo wrote in that tweet. Unless what it costs them is to reach the government.

“Now I will need some time to assimilate this new situation and let you help me to place myself where I always have, but in a different way”. José Cobo, the new archbishop of Madrid, has barely been able to put on the suit of maximum authority of the Catholic Church in the archdiocese that covers the capital, the most decisive and influential in Spain. Since his appointment was made public, on June 12, he has entered into a maelstrom about the expectations and fears that this tiny, short bishop has generated and whose Andalusian accent escapes him every time he picks up the phone to talk to his parents. , immigrants on the outskirts of Madrid, where he arrived at the age of seven.

A fear that, in reality, is of Pope Francis and of what he has seen in Cobo. So much so, that His Holiness personally made the decision that it was he and not another candidate who would assume command in a see in which Cardinal Rouco still continues to command a lot, to the point of having short-circuited the nine years of the now outgoing archbishop, the Cardinal Carlos Osoro.

That periphery —a concept so pleasing to Pope Francis— has shaped Cobo (Sabiote, Jaén, 1965) inside and out. It is a physical and ecclesiological place to which he will return to establish himself again, but now from the epicenter of the power of a Church with almost 500 temples, more than 2,000 priests and thousands of religious men and women. Promoter of the slum priests of the shantytowns of Buenos Aires, Pope Bergoglio discovered similar qualities in Cobo when he, accompanying Osoro in his capacity as auxiliary bishop, went to render an account to him personally, with the folder under his arm, of the scandal caused. for the Fundaciones case, a real estate network that brought the Madrid Church to the front pages of today for evicting families and selling the apartments it managed through a board of trustees.

It is not the case of Cobo. Graduated in Law from the Complutense University of Madrid before entering the Vistillas Seminary, those close to him underline his management and organizational skills. And those skills allowed him to frame in its rightful place the origin of an economic scandal that has been about to put Cardinal Osoro on the bench.

Like those priests to whom Bergoglio gave carte blanche in the Argentine peripheries, Francisco saw (and was also told) the taste for the social aspect of that auxiliary bishop, an issue that has earned him a label, that of progressive, in the that he does not feel comfortable, above all because it is mercilessly thrown in his face as a way of confronting him within the Church with those (and there are not a few) who feel the opposite. “José is a calm man with common sense. Those who know him know that he is not a revolutionary. He always acts with discretion, serenity and good work”, they point out from their closest environment. But its “social” aspect is undeniable, in contrast to that of other pastors where the “legal” prevails, the canonical, as in many priests, nostalgic for a national-Catholicism who believe it is necessary to make the Church green again and refractory to a more open to the world like the one championed by Francisco, who is accused of having desacralized the institution.

A priest against the CIE

One of Cobo's first assignments after his priestly ordination was to be vice-consiliary of the Brotherhood of Labor, together with the Hoac, the closest thing that remains to the Church of the union and worker spirit that was born in the shadow of the parishes in the 50's and 60's. He combined that task with that of a priest in several parishes, including Aluche, a Madrid neighborhood where hunger lined up to wait for some bags of food with which to navigate successive crises, recessions and pandemics.. Cobo helped resist those moments, shared sleeplessness of drug addicts, hopelessness of prostitutes and fear of those without papers, and in that neighborhood he went to request the dismantling of the Center for the Internment of Foreigners (CIE), denouncing the criminalization of immigrants and warning of the discourse of the hatred that comes with it, now as president of the Migration Department of the Spanish Episcopal Conference (CEE).

As an auxiliary bishop —appointed at the end of 2017— he was the first to participate two years later in a public meeting with victims of sexual abuse, when the vast majority of the Spanish Episcopate continued to side with this drama.. He himself recognized a few months ago in an academic conference on this matter, organized by the Comillas Pontifical University, that in the EEC, “after a period of dilettantism”, “several steps have been taken, but with a very diverse acceptance”. As a subway user, he knows what it feels like to be called a pedophile for being dressed as a clergyman, but he also knows, because he has accompanied them —he even confirmed one of them recently—, the pain that comes from the victims when someone listen, all heartbreaking experiences that allow him to warn of the danger of “ecclesiopathy”, where “the Church becomes the center of attention and only deals with saving its skin, it closes itself and only tries to defend itself”.

None of this earns him points with many bishops (although they appreciate his training and conciliatory character) and turns him into a kind of foreign body, even though what he says, does and preaches is in tune with what he says, does and preaches. pope francis. And hence the fear in a Spanish Episcopate that has not quite digested this pontiff and the campaign that Cobo and Osoro have had to endure when the rumors about his appointment to jump from simple auxiliary to archbishop of Madrid began to take shape.. A position that, by itself, gives the right to be a member of the Executive Commission of the EEC. In fact, the last few weeks have been very intense, after the relations between the two were intoxicated through ultra and traditionalist blogs, even going so far as to accuse Cobo (in a very un-Christian way, by the way) of intriguing in the Vatican. against the cardinal (with whom they were merciless with questions about his health) and forced the direct involvement of the Pope, accentuating the mistrust among a sector of the Madrid clergy.

“Cobo is going to find a problem not only with the priests. The stage of Cardinal Rouco ended with disappointment among the priests. Osoro generated expectations that in the end have been deflated. Now, what there is is a pastoral discouragement and different sensibilities. Those who know Cobo know that he builds trust. But there is a sector that does not know him, it is polarized and creates fronts, although this polarization is not against Cobo, it is against the Pope,” say those close to the new archbishop.

It is once again the Madrid of they will not pass, but the other way around, where priests and some movements that support them are digging trenches in parishes to resist Bergoglio's heretical pontificate, where initiatives that go along the lines of “culture” are boycotted. of the meeting” sponsored by this Pope, for example, with the LGTBI collective, where some priests act as thugs in the courtyard of social networks against theologians who embrace Francis' road map, against women who claim their place in the Church or against priests who accompany homosexual groups, who are intimidated by the silence of a large part of the bishops, some of them also fearful of this new digital inquisition.

“Rouquismo is not dismantled yet in Madrid or in the Church in Spain. From his attic, the Galician cardinal has continued to pull his strings, although his influence has diminished in Rome, as evidenced by the appointment of Cobo. But it still has a lot of influence among a sector of the clergy and the ecclesiastical movements in the Madrid Church,” the sources add..

After the inauguration ceremony, on July 8 in the Almudena Cathedral, José Cobo will go to officiate his first mass as Archbishop of Madrid in the smallest town in the archdiocese, Aoslos, a rural parish with 76 registered people.. The second will be in the south of Madrid, in the clustered periphery where he grew up. Places where it will begin to be located “where always, but in a different way”, the first bars of a revolution, but calm, of who is called (by the Pope) to outline the kinder face of a Church in Spain still in a bad mood.

The Roman Theater of Sagunto is a poetic geography of the Valencian territory. Throughout the centuries, its Roman ruins served as inspiration for Andalusian writers, such as Benmohamed Ar-Razi or Al-Munim AlHimyari, and Christians, such as Lope de Vega or Gaspar Escolano, until in the 19th century the romantic cultural hegemony took precedence. the Iberian resistance of Sagunto to the classicist loas. The Saguntine immolation before the Carthaginian Hannibal was incorporated into the resistance myths of the Spanish identity narrative. The fight against Napoleon in the French War began the process of national creation.

Myth is the dung of history. Its political use was the ferment for the legitimization of all the European nations created in the 19th century.. This falsification has resurfaced with the intention of exalting a new Spanish nationalism in the face of shared sovereignty with the European Union, the multiculturalism recognized by the United Nations and other peninsular nationalisms (also doped with foundational fictions).. The Saguntine resistance, the Numantine defense, Covadonga, Pelayo, Santiago el Mayor, Viriato and the use of the verb to enter in reference to the Visigoths and invade for the Muslims shaped a Christian discourse on origins, which the historiography of Modesto Lafuente and the painting of the 19th century transmitted to the collective heritage, and that the military dictatorships of the 20th century seasoned with imperial epic and a monolithically national-Catholic education after the Civil War.

On August 26, 1896, during the government of Cánovas del Castillo, the Roman Theater of Sagunto was the first Valencian space declared a National Monument, but it would not be until the second third of the 20th century when the first consolidation and addition actions were carried out to restore the place. These focused on imitating the existing ruin and lacked an adequate archaeological methodology, which is why the picturesque character was accentuated until its distortion as architecture. In 1986, the Generalitat Valenciana, chaired by Joan Lerma, commissioned the architects Giorgio Grassi and Manuel Portaceli to rehabilitate the theater.

One of the criteria followed was the repair of the artistic space by recovering the scene, as it was conceived, and replacing the ruin with a new contemporary use.. The arts would return to the theater. The architectural work suffered almost twenty years of litigation, and remained in the face of the impossibility of reversal, despite the order of the Superior Court of Justice, confirmed by the Supreme Court, to demolish the wall and raise the stands.

For 40 years, Sagunt a Escena has housed the classical theater of the most important companies. A summer festival that year after year brings together thousands of spectators in its stands. Inma Expósito has been its director since 2021. “As artistic director, I maintained the plural and heterogeneous dynamics of the festival, creating a connection with the heritage space through the Greco-Latin programming and classical theater, as well as giving voice to new avant-garde artistic forms.. We try to collect all the concerns by hiring accredited names in the direction, authorship and interpretation”.

To celebrate these four decades, in the edition that will take place between August 3 and 27, authors such as Aristophanes, William Shakespere and Sophocles stand out, as well as the directions of Magüi Mira, Jaume Policarpo, Andrés Lima and Eva Zapico, and actors and actresses with a consolidated career such as Belén Rueda, Cayetana Guillén Cuervo and Pepe Viyuela. “We have also opted for international proposals by Josef Nadj, Christina Pluhar and Vinzenzo Capezzuto”, comments Expósito, “looking for a program that generates stimuli among the public, that arouses concerns, that explores the relationship between theater, memory and history”.

The artistic transversality is another of the bets of the dean festival in the Valencian summer environment. From those first musical performances by Silvio Rodríguez, Franco Battiato, Raimon, Pablo Milanés and Aute in the eighties, to the presence in the next edition of María José Llergo, Maria del Mar Bonet and Sandra Monfort, composers and groups of persuasion have dotted the roman scene. “We want to show the role of theatre, dance and music as a necessary discursive practice in our day to day. Community health goes through a lively cultural debate, to confront different visions of the world and contemplate the wealth of nuances of the human condition”, concludes the director.

The slogan of giving autonomy to the barons to decide in their territories has had a boomerang effect for Alberto Núñez Feijóo. Genoa did not calculate the damage that the agreement with Vox in the Valencian Community would entail, in terms of credibility, for the speech of the leader of the PP. The alarms went off yesterday when the number two of the Santiago Abascal formation in the region, José Manuel Llanos, declared that “gender violence does not exist”. The response was not long in coming and in the PP it did not leave anyone indifferent that the one who gave the reply was Feijóo himself: “Gender violence exists and each murder of a woman shocks us as a society. We are not going to give up our principles, whatever it costs us,” he broke into Twitter.

In the national leadership there has been debate since Carlos Mazón broke the strategy by accelerating negotiations with Vox. Feijóo was suspicious of the agreement, but ended up giving the green light. The future president of the Generalitat informed him the same morning that he signed it and since then the Galician has tried to pace his speech without success. Yesterday the strategy turned. “Let's hit the table. No matter what happens,” said a member of the executive, who did not hide the boss's “anger and concern” about the consequences in the face of the 23-J elections.

Feijóo is willing to reestablish the “red lines” that the text signed by his Valencian baron has crossed by endorsing expressions such as “domestic violence”. Despite the fact that his team has been defending that coalitions with Vox do not penalize electorally, the Galician has realized that what is at stake is his political capital. From the party they have been warning that it was an “error” to join those of Abascal in the middle of the campaign. They also do not like that they have been assigned ministries such as Justice and Interior or Agriculture. “How are we going to get this leg out now?” ask the popular.

Among the options they propose is to convene an executive committee in which the bases of future agreements are discussed with the barons.. This collides head-on with the “free hands” to the territorial leaders with which the president of the PP tried to mark differences with the previous leadership. Feijóo was one of those who defended before Pablo Casado and the former secretary general, Teodoro García Egea, that it was the president of Castilla y León, Alfonso Fernández Mañueco, who decided. Casado had delivered a harsh speech against Vox minutes before.

Now what is at stake is the Moncloa. From the PP they lament that “we have done the same thing that we criticized Pedro Sánchez: say one thing and do the opposite”. Feijóo has been defending that his aspiration is to govern alone and raised coalitions with Vox as the last possible option. The speed with which Mazón has acted largely refutes these approaches. Genoa had not only asked to slow down the negotiations with those of Abascal as much as possible, but also designed a plan in which the popular ones would appear as a party capable of agreeing with all.

Breaking the blocks is another of the hallmarks of the Feijóo project. Not only by offering pacts to the PSOE, but also through alliances with the regionalists, as has been seen in Cantabria or the Canary Islands, where there has been an understanding with the party of Miguel Ángel Revilla and the Canary Islands Coalition, respectively.. The message to convey is that Vox is not a preferred partner. The alliances after the 28-M should open the range for the day after the generals. Feijóo has come to consider letting the Junts candidate, Xavier Trias, become mayor of Barcelona with a PP that would vote for itself in today's investiture. Businessmen have been pressing for days on the assumption that Carles Puigdemont will stop commanding and the times of CiU will return. The Catalan right could again be a support for the popular in Congress in specific votes.

The earthquake of the hug to Vox in the Valencian Community has also had its aftershock in Barcelona. The leader of the PP in the regional city, Daniel Sirera, yesterday offered his councilors to Jaume Collboni's PSC if he leaves Ada Colau out of the Consistory. The movement responds to the need to quell criticism after the Mazón “disaster”. Favoring a separatist to take the baton without offering an alternative would have been more ammunition for political opponents.

In the town halls, dozens of alliances will be forged with those of Abascal and although it is assumed that it is contradictory to “fighting” Vox, Genoa focuses on the autonomies. Extremadura, Murcia, Aragon or the Balearic Islands cannot follow in the footsteps of the Valencian Community. The mandate is to put up with Vox's ordeals, even if this implies scenarios of blockade and electoral repetition. Retake command of the negotiations and that it is the extreme right that remains before the citizens as a party capable of destabilizing parliaments for “a few armchairs”.

In the next few days, Feijóo will try to recover the image of centrality, even if it means amending his Valencian baron, who for the moment seems “delighted” with his partners. “Carlos only cares about Valencia”, say those who know him. They explain that Vox imposed that, in order to remove Carlos Flores, convicted of psychological abuse, a “dignified exit” had to be found for him on the lists that should be closed before the 19th. The demand precipitated everything, justify the same sources. From Genoa they insist that “whatever happens”, credibility must be recovered.

The rojiblanco feeling has marked the steps of José Luis Martínez-Almeida in the Madrid City Council. Lose, suffer, endure, dream and win. The last four years have been a kind of roller coaster for him, a continuous going up and down from the clouds, as Sabina would say, which ends this Saturday with his particular double in Cibeles. Almeida, except for a last-minute surprise, will be sworn in for the second consecutive time as mayor of the capital with the support of his 28 councillors, this time with an absolute majority, after a complicated mandate peppered with scandals.

The session has nothing to do with that of 2019. Almeida, although he reaped the worst results for the PP in Madrid at the time, took the baton of command from Manuela Carmena thanks to a last-minute pact with Vox to support the coalition of the popular and Ciudadanos. He governed almost by rebound, like someone who raises an Intercontinental without having been European champion.

The last legislature could well justify the legend of the pupas linked to Atlético de Madrid. The pandemic, as in the rest of the world, swept away all the plans in Madrid and the expectations of the Almeida government. In his case, however, it meant a turning point on a personal level that skyrocketed his popularity after the signing of the so-called Acuerdos de la Villa. When the population demanded great consensus to face the crisis due to the covid, the councilor exploited his transversal profile to the maximum and agreed with all the opposition, without exception. When he was interviewed on the street, onlookers crowded around him and interrupted the connection with applause.. There was still a lot left, but it was already impossible not to talk about the majority.

The reality is that the road to this Saturday's plenary session has not been easy. The mayor's embrace on May 28 with two of his closest collaborators, Inmaculada Sanz and Borja Carabante, is a sample of how much this legislature has cried and laughed. Like the two banks of the river on a derby night.

A roller coaster

José Luis Martínez-Almeida went from completely to nothing, from an enormous national projection to his popularity and recognition being diluted like a sugar cube. The position of national spokesman for his party took its toll on him and critics soon arose due to the incompatibility of both positions, both in the government team and in the opposition.. The shared reflection is that the PP had gained a spokesperson, but Madrid had lost a mayor. The city projects, reiterated these sources, remained in the background.

And then came the first scandal. The mayor was trapped in the fratricidal war between Pablo Casado and Isabel Díaz Ayuso, in no man's land and as a collateral victim of friendly fire. The Madrid City Council exploded after learning about the espionage plot of the national leadership of the PP against the brother of the regional president, supposedly with municipal resources. Re-election was already a utopia. What was on everyone's lips was the motion of censure, with Begoña Villacís as a possible ally of the left.

The mayor of Madrid had barely recovered from the coup when a second episode dynamited the consistory just over a year before the regional and municipal elections. The management of the pandemic returned like a boomerang with the Masks case and the investigation of an alleged scam of 6 million euros for the purchase of material that involved his cousin. The coalition government between the PP and Ciudadanos, as the sources consulted recognized at the time, was on the brink of collapse.

But politics, like football, always gives an opportunity for revenge.. And party by party, the popular leader recomposed his figure. The investigation into the masks exempted the City Council of the capital and any official or person linked to the mayor from all responsibility, while Isabel Díaz Ayuso pardoned her partner and trusted him to reinstate popular absolutism in Madrid more than a decade later. In the councilor's environment they sighted the target again just a few weeks before the appointment with the polls, calm because their boss had recovered his form. And so it was, again up and down, from hell to heaven. The “win and win again” coined by a wise man as a source of inspiration. The rojiblanco recipe that became big in Cibeles.

They were on their way to becoming the third largest city in Extremadura, only behind Cáceres and Badajoz.. In total, they would add about 60,000 inhabitants. But the municipal elections have turned everything upside down, and now the union between Don Benito (37,010 registered) and Villanueva de la Serena (25,759) is experiencing new turbulence. Both towns approved joining last year. There was even a name, Vegas Altas, and a date, 2027, for the inauguration of the future enclave. However, a denialist party –created solely to paralyze the merger– has entered the first of these municipalities with no less than seven councillors, three more than the PP and two seats equal to the PSOE, which led the Consistory.

The socialist mayor, José Luis Quintana, has lost the absolute majority with which he managed to promote, along with his Villanovense counterpart, the referendum that said yes to marriage. One day after the new city councils are constituted, it is not clear what can happen and almost everything seems to depend on what the final government pact is..

Controversies in Don Benito

In February 2022, when the referendum was held, the result was much more controversial and adjusted in Don Benito than in Villanueva: it was barely accepted by 0.27% of the votes. The opposite was true among their next-door neighbors, with more than 90% voting in favor of the change.. With the new distribution of forces left by 28-M, there are now two options on the table that could determine the future of the merger. On the one hand, the Popular Party has extended its hand to Siempre Don Benito, the newly created group that wants to paralyze it: it offers its support to repeat the consultation in exchange for forming a government together and dividing up the mayoralty, two years each.

“Any change in the city council passes through us, and for this reason we demand the formation of a joint government with a mayor of the PP in the last two years of the legislature”, thus stated their position. With this formula, nothing could guarantee that Vegas Altas would come into existence.. So, to save the furniture and not stop the merger, it was the socialists who first picked up this glove. That same day, they proposed to the popular candidate, Pedro Noblejas, to apply this same formula with them and not with the detractors of the consultation.. That is to say, that he is a councilor in the second half of the legislature and the PSOE holds the Mayor's Office at the beginning.

Negotiations against the clock

In the midst of this crossover of proposals, Siempre Don Benito made it clear that they also have their own conditions. The second most powerful party after the elections accepted the PP's invitation, but only halfway. Its leader, María Fernanda Sánchez, asked the popular for an imminent meeting –because there was one day left to form new city councils and an agreement had to be reached– to renegotiate. She wanted to be mayor for all four years of the legislature, and not just half. In exchange, he would grant them several councilors. In the countdown to decide the government, the situation in Don Benito is, to say the least, convulsed.

The reality in Villanueva de la Serena is totally different. Its mayor, Miguel Ángel Gallardo, also a socialist, has managed to revalidate the absolute majority he had and support for the merger was the majority from the beginning. But after the results and the scenario left by the elections in the neighboring municipality – which they had already decided to join after decades of claims – he was “disappointed” at the political situation in Don Benito. In his opinion, he had given in to the “pressure” exerted by groups opposed to the creation of Vegas Altas. He even equated it with the pro-independence process in Catalonia: “We are with Villanueva robbing us, which sounds like Spain robbing us”.

few precedents

That two municipalities unite is something that in Spain has few precedents. The process is also complicated.. Since the mid-1980s and as far as the record is known, there have only been two popular consultations to merge localities, both in Galicia. The central government must first approve them, as was done in the Council of Ministers with the recent case of Don Benito and Villanueva, having previously obtained the go-ahead in the plenary session of each locality.. The Galician precedents were successful. So, in case the political situation or other circumstances don't frustrate the process, this may be the third municipal union in memory..

The main argument among the defenders of the union is that a big city would attract more investment and better infrastructure to their territories.. In addition, by having more inhabitants together than separately, they can qualify for other subsidies. Or boost its main economic engine, the agri-food industry. The two towns have 16,000 irrigated hectares and there are many companies, mostly SMEs, that are linked to the sector.

The life of Bárbara Rey has been crumbling in prime time for decades, but when everything seemed counted, the Provincial Prosecutor's Office of Madrid entered the scene this Friday. The last chapter comes in the form of an indictment, with five pages detailing how the star has tried to avoid her debts with the Tax Agency through alleged fraudulent operations since 2011. The Prosecutor's Office maintains that Bárbara Rey caused an “insolvency situation” to avoid payments and asks for three and a half years in prison.

Along with María García García, which is what the actress is called, six other people will sit in the dock: her children Sofía and Ángel Cristo, her sister Petra, her nephew Fernando Santos, her friend Mishell Jannin Hurtado and the businesswoman Monica Lozano. The Prosecutor's Office asks for two and a half years in prison for them for the same crime of seizure of assets, but places them one step below, as co-authors of the framework that the actress launched.

The tax bill

The Superior Court of Justice of Madrid explains the origin of the battle of Bárbara Rey with the Tax Agency in two sentences to which El Confidencial has had access. The facts date back to 2011, when the Treasury carried out an inspection for the years 2006, 2007 and 2008. The vedette was registered under heading 13, which corresponds to “film and theater actors”, but they suspected that she was using two companies —Producciones Rey and Imagen Porla— to pay less taxes.

The underlying debate is similar to the one that has affected various actors who, instead of paying personal income tax for their salary, collected through companies and paid Corporate Tax. Recommended for years by a multitude of tax advisers, they managed to pay around half, but the system began to break down in 2009. The Treasury then focused on this practice and it was Bárbara Rey's turn: in 2013, after two years of inspection, the Tax Agency concluded that she had to pay more than 370,000 euros for the periods between 2006 and 2008.

For this, the Treasury stressed that the income of the companies corresponded almost entirely to the work carried out by the vedette herself.. In 2008, for example, 99% of the operating income of the Imagen Porla company came from “his artistic activity”: appearances on the television programs La Noria, Dónde Estás Corazón, Temporada Alta….

Bárbara Rey appealed these settlement agreements and, in 2017, the case ended up in the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid. In the first sentence, of July 7, the magistrates did not question the arguments of the Tax Agency, but they threw out their 2006 claim because the inspection action “was greater than the legal maximum” and exceeded the statute of limitations. In the second, on October 18, the court followed the same line to overthrow the 2007 settlement agreement, but maintained the 2008 one..

Of the initial more than 370,000 euros, the Prosecutor's Office explains that, in December 2017, the outstanding debt stood at 143,902, but at that point, the amount was already the least of it: by maintaining the settlement and sanction agreements of 2008, still Bárbara Rey could be accused of a crime of confiscation of property.

Prosecutor's invoice

The Prosecutor's investigation is based on what happened from May 10, 2011, when Bárbara Rey was notified of the inspection proceedings at her home. She did not know how much the bill could amount to at that time, but she launched an ordeal and began to carry out a series of operations that, according to the accusation document, pursued a clear objective: “To cause a situation of patrimonial insufficiency that would make it impossible to satisfy the credits claimed”.

The Prosecutor's Office points to 13 operations in just 30 months: the donation of a farm he had in Boadilla del Monte to his daughter Sofía, the “fictitious recognition of a debt” in favor of his sister Petra, the transfer of 99% of the shares de Producciones Rey to her friend Mishell, the constitution of a new company that absorbed the Totana farm with her nephew Fernando as administrator…

The indictment considers that all these movements were “executed in collusion” by the seven defendants, in such a way that, in July 2013, when Bárbara Rey learned that she had to pay more than 370,000 euros, there were no longer “sufficient assets ” to satisfy the debt: “Insolvency situation created”, sums up the Prosecutor's Office.

If the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid manages to knock down the 2008 liquidation, as it did with those of 2006 and 2007, all these operations would have remained an anecdote. However, having escaped the statute of limitations for just a few months, Bárbara Rey will have to sit in the dock with her relatives.

The trial was to be held this Monday at the Provincial Court of Madrid, but legal sources suggest that it had to be postponed because one of the defendants is “whereabouts unknown”.. The outcome will still take several months and, instead of circus tamers, actors or monarchs, it will revolve around a much more mundane issue: attempts to avoid Personal Income Tax (IRPF)..

Brazil is beauty, it is art and it is culture. And if we refer to its gastronomy, it is a country of diversity and contrasts. In the last edition of Salón Gourmets, where he participated as a guest country, more than twenty companies were in charge of championing the wealth of the vast Brazilian territory.

With a gastronomy that takes advantage of all its natural resources, Brazil has an enormous heritage of products and cuisines that want to make themselves known to the world.. And in Madrid there is a good sample of it. Today, Brazilian gastronomy in Madrid.

Ibero-American Capital of the Gastronomy of Contrasts

Brazilian cuisine has European, indigenous and, especially, African influences. With well-known dishes such as feijoada, picaña, churrasco, moqueca or sweet brigadeiro, and creative cuisine that is booming. Here we must highlight the world-renowned chef Alex Atala who, with his restaurant DOM, was one of the first to appear on The World's 50 Best Restaurants list.

One of the greatest hallmarks of Brazilian gastronomy is the great diversity of food and beverages, cuisines, and cultures that vary between different regions, giving rise to a rich and unique gastronomic heritage..

With fruits and vegetables like corn or açaí, drinks like cachaça or wines and sparkling wines, which are getting better and better, meats, sugar, spices… Brazil has products from the land, the sea and rivers from different ecosystems that vary across the country.

It stands out as the largest coffee producer in the world, with some high-quality varieties. It is also one of the largest producers of pork, a food that the restaurant A Casa do Porco, in São Paulo, wanted to honor (number 7 in 50 Best)..

Now, the Ibero-American Academy of Gastronomy is evaluating the possibility of holding, in the city of São Paulo, the Ibero-American Capital of Contrast Gastronomy.

Traditional Brazilian restaurants in Madrid

Ibero-American gastronomy has an increasing presence in the world, and Madrid is its great showcase. Among the most traditional Brazilian restaurants that can be found in the capital, is O Boteco Brasil, a bar-restaurant serving homemade food, with traditional dishes and portions, as well as caipirinhas and other cocktails and drinks..

Tropicalista is a gastrobar with a modern and cosmopolitan design, which offers Brazilian cuisine with creative touches, with dishes such as a croquette-shaped feijoada or the “super x-picanha sandwich”..

There are also other places like Sabor Gaucho or Sabor Brasil. And a restaurant that is not purely Brazilian, but that has dishes from its gastronomy, is Amazónico. Its chef, Sandro Silva, is Brazilian and is inspired by tropical, Asian and Mediterranean cuisine, with clear nods to his native country.. There are already Amazonicos in London and Dubai and, soon, another will open in Monaco.

Chispa Bistró isn't a Brazilian restaurant either, but its international cuisine draws influences from chef Gabriel Sodré's home country (also from Argentina, by chef Juan D'Onofrio)..

Rodizios in Madrid

There are other types of restaurants that are typical of Brazil (and also of Portugal), where the waiters offer different types of meat on the sword at the table, accompanied by garnishes, for a fixed price.. This type of service is called rodizio, and in Madrid we can find some specialized places, or churrascarías, such as Brasa y Leña, a Brazilian cuisine chain at affordable prices.

Another restaurant specializing in rodizio and, in general, in grilled meat and fish, is Rubaiyat, which also has an extensive national and international wine list.. Vila Brasil or Los Espetinhos are also steakhouses.

liquid cooking

Although there are other drinks, the quintessential Brazilian cocktail is the Caipirinha (or Caipirinha) and its main ingredient is cachaça.. In addition to the restaurants already mentioned, in Madrid it can be tasted in some places such as La Trocha, on the terrace of the San Antón market, in the Mix & Me cocktail bar, where you can taste “the authentic caipirinha”, or in Savas, located in Lavapies neighborhood.

And, of course, in Diego Cabrera's cocktail bars, who have just renewed their Salmón Gurú after several weeks of reform, and come up with a new proposal: Reset. Here old and new cocktails coexist, like a Brazilian smoothie with carrot and chipotle.

Food stores

And if you want to reproduce typical Brazilian dishes at home, there are stores like Kibom or Productos do Brasil, where you can find food and drinks like tapioca or farofa, typical Brazilian sweets or kits to make a good feijoada.

The Andalusian PP will again have full mayoralties, an achievement that already occurred in 1995 and in 2011, the two previous milestones in the race for municipal power of the popular Andalusians. The success of Juanma Moreno on the night of May 28 had a stain in Jaén, but two weeks of negotiations have ended up unbalancing the balance towards the popular, who have reached an agreement with the Jaén Deserves More formation despite aggressive offers of the PSOE. The Socialists, with the still mayor Julio Millán at the helm, have come to offer an agreement for the provincialist party to govern the city in order to avoid the arrival of the PP to power.

José Agustín González Romo will be the new councilor from Jaen this Saturday. PP and PSOE tied 11 councilors on 28-M, with the Socialists ahead at a slight distance of 297 votes. The three ediles of Jaén Deserves More allow the popular candidate, who is still General Director of Consumption of the Junta de Andalucía, to tie the investiture without depending on Vox, which achieved two representatives. The two parties report this Friday on the agreement, which has been negotiated very discreetly between the almost desperate attempts of the Socialists.

Millán began by proposing an agreement of 40 programmatic points, then offered the provincial party a year as mayor and this Thursday, with the pact almost closed, he resigned from the baton to hand it over to Jaén Deserves More to form a “sanitary cordon” against the PP. Provincial and Andalusian PSOE sources privately admitted the difficulties they would have in convincing the provincial formation, which abandoned the platform of Empty Spain a few weeks ago due to a conflict with Teruel Exists. The unwritten law of this current goes through supporting the most voted list, but popular pressure has had its effect. The differential fact is that the PP controls the Junta and many projects in the capital of Jaen depend on the regional Administration. The fact that the PSOE has the Provincial Council of Jaén, has not convinced the provincial party.

The third plenary session of the PP

The Jaén agreement dyes the eight capitals of Andalusia blue after weeks of discreet negotiations led by the provincial president of the PP, Érik Dominguez, and the general secretary of the popular Andalusians, Antonio Repullo. The PP thus takes advantage of the wave in which it rose on June 19, 2022, with the absolute majority of Juanma Moreno. The absorption of Ciudadanos and the bad moment of the Andalusian PSOE are the other two ingredients that complete the recipe for success of the man from Malaga, who opted for profiles similar to his for the eight capitals.

The PP has an absolute majority in Córdoba, Málaga, Almería, Granada and Cádiz. In the first three, the councilors who were in charge repeat: José María Bellido, the veteran Francisco de la Torre and María del Mar Vázquez, mayor since last summer, when the previous councilor from Almería, Ramón Fernández-Pacheco, left the City Council to Be a Sustainability Minister of the Government of Juanma Moreno.

In Granada and Cádiz, success corresponds to two bets from the President of the Board. The Nasrid capital remains in the hands of Marifrán Carazo, who has been Minister of Development between 2019 and last April, and was the most valued member of the Andalusian cabinet of Juanma Moreno. The landing in Granada deactivated the good moment of the socialist mayor, Francisco Cuenca, who still has not fully understood his defeat. In Cádiz, Bruno García recovers what Teófila Martínez lost after prevailing over the left in a heart-stopping recount: councilor number 14 won at 98% of the vote to the detriment of Adelante Izquierda Gaditana, the party of the still mayor, José María González, Kichi who was not running for re-election.

In addition to Granada and Cádiz, the PP recovered the largest city in Andalusia and the capital of the community, after eight years of PSOE governments. José Luis Sanz will be mayor of the city of Seville and, thanks to the 14 councilors that 28-M achieved, he will not need Vox. PSOE and the left add up to those same 14 councilors, but, being the list with the most votes, Sanz does not need the votes of Santiago Abascal's party for the investiture. Yes, he will need them to carry out local budgets and other projects, but the popular senator has already advanced even in the formation of his Government and his greatest challenge is cleaning.

The popular ones do not need Vox in Huelva either, where Pilar Miranda achieved a turnaround that has left the Huelva PSOE knocked out. The socialist Gabriel Cruz governed with an absolute majority in recent years, but a very successful campaign by the popular candidate and a problem when it comes to testing his support have left him out of the game, although he will head the PSOE list for Congress on July 23. This defeat has been key to the loss of the Diputación de Huelva for the first time in democratic history for the Socialists.

Agreement for the Provincial Council of Cádiz

The extension of the municipal power of the PP is not limited to the capitals. The absolute majorities have been repeated in Jerez, Algeciras, Marbella and Roquetas de Mar, which leaves Dos Hermanas as the only city of 100,000 inhabitants in Andalusia in the hands of the PSOE. And the reversal is repeated in the councils, since, in addition to Huelva, the PP has also safely recovered that of Córdoba and Granada. This Friday it has also been made public, according to Diario de Cádiz and this newspaper has confirmed, that the popular will recover the Cadiz provincial institution after 8 years under socialist control.

The change of color occurs thanks to the agreement between the PP and La Línea 100×100, the party led by Juan Franco in this town in Campo de Gibraltar and which achieved 75% of the support on 28-M. What is striking is that the PSOE governed the Diputación until now thanks to an agreement with this independent formation. Sources familiar with the negotiation point to the bad relationship between the linense councilor and the provincial leader of the PSOE, Juan Carlos Ruiz Boix, still president of the Provincial Council and mayor of San Roque. As in Jaén, the weight of the institutional power of the PP, which controls the Junta, has also weighed on these negotiations.