The maintenance of the Rota naval base will be carried out until 2030 by the North American firm J&J Worldwide Services Inc.. thus definitively displacing Newimar from Cádiz, who has provided this service for the last 32 years.

The Federal Court of the United States has finally rejected this week the appeal presented by the Cádiz company owned by Antonio Marcos, which had denounced a series of irregularities in this award, the main of which was that the firm based in Austin (Texas) It could not operate in Spain as it was not registered in any commercial registry in this country..

The Cádiz company has been denouncing for two years a clear intention of the North American Navy to take away the contract from the historic Spanish contractor and award it to J&J, which helps maintain North American government bases and facilities in Germany, the Philippines, South Korea, Guantánamo Bay and other countries. The American company, which turned 50 in 2020, has a global workforce of more than 3,200 employees in more than 270 locations in 10 countries..

The contract in question amounts to 132.9 million dollars, since the North American company presented an aggressive offer 23 million dollars below the starting price, which amounted to 156.4 million dollars (about 130 million euros). for the contract until June 2030.

Newimar presented a first appeal against that award, initially before the US Navy that had awarded that tender and, later, before the US Federal Court itself, which initially ruled in favor of the Cádiz firm and annulled the contract.

However, the North American Navy decided not to put it out to tender again and simply review the bidding of the bidding companies, offering J&J the possibility of competing again.. After that, the North American Department of Defense once again awarded the contract to this multinational, which must substitute the contract of the 180 current employees, although the 300 indirect jobs of local suppliers remain up in the air..

The owner of Newimar, Antonio Marcos, assures El Confidencial that “what has occurred is a complete attack by the US Government against a small Spanish company.”. This change of company also occurs after the agreement between the Governments of Spain and the United States to expand the presence of the North American army in this joint use base in the coming years..

The Cádiz businessman has brought the detected irregularities – especially the one referring to the lack of a Spanish CIF to be able to do business “in or with” our country – to the attention of the Government, the Embassy, the Spanish-North American Permanent Committee, and several institutions. more, but has received silence in response. “We feel totally disappointed, and totally unprotected by our authorities,” he explains..

It has only found the support of the Cádiz Business Federation, some of whose companies are also being harmed by this new contract with the North American company.. “We are defenseless against the arbitrariness that the US Administration is now showing, which had always maintained exemplary behavior at the Rota base,” insists Marcos..

According to Newimar, the US Navy attempted to justify J&J's non-compliance based on inadequate advice from the US section of the Permanent Committee between the United States and Spain created to coordinate the shared use of the Rota base under the terms of a Defense agreement..

The claims court had also previously ruled that it lacked jurisdiction over liability challenges as it depended on the Spain-U.S. alliance..

However, Newimar argued that his protest was not based on the Defense Agreement, but rather on Spanish trade laws that establish requirements for foreign companies doing business with Spain..

Despite this, the ruling of the Federal Circuit approved this past Monday supports the claims court thanks to the support of the three judges who were part of the Federal Court for this trial: Alan D. Lourie, Raymond T. Chen y Kara F. Stoll. Newimar was represented by Laurence Schor of Asmar Schor & McKenna PLLC; while the US Government had Tanya Koenig, Brian M. Boynton, Steven John Gillingham and Patricia M. McCarthy, from the Commercial Litigation Branch of the Civil Division of the US Department of Justice, and Seth M. Eddy, from the Naval Facilities Engineering Systems Command Mid-Atlantic Advisor Office. For its part, J&J was represented by Adam Kamlot Lasky, Erica Bakies, Stephanie B. Magnell and Bret Marfut of Seyfarth Shaw LLP.

The vice president and leader of the party has just reinforced him, entrusting him with drafting the political document that will establish the objectives of the party.. Marta Lois, parliamentary spokesperson, personal friend and figure of maximum confidence for Díaz, will work with him..

Different sources from his political space have been betting for weeks on Errejón taking over from Lois, in the event that she changes her mind and wants to run as a candidate in the Galician elections, which today are going to be difficult due to the break with Podemos in Madrid. and the difficult union for the appointment with the polls. There are others who suggest that the premature political divorce with the purple ones paves the way for him to monopolize more spotlights. And then there are those who maintain that Errejón, whose worth they recognize throughout the space, is waiting for his moment to claim more weight.

Be it organically, with the construction of Sumar (Más País has already approved diluting itself into Sumar in several territories), as well as in what has to do with the institutional and its public exhibition.. Without ceasing to have presence, but without burning. And always close to Díaz.

Those around the former Podemos leader assure that he is dedicating himself to what he has “always” done: political-ideological work, serving as political spokesperson for Sumar and the tasks that he will soon have to face as a member of the Constitutional Commission of the Chamber. Baja, where he was spokesperson in the previous legislature. It intervenes in the discursive part, in the short and medium term strategy, and has an important but limited role in the media.. He also played a prominent role in the general campaign. But they understand that there will be no changes in their status immediately..

It was he who responded on behalf of his people to the president, Pedro Sánchez, that it is necessary to maintain taxes on the banking sector and energy companies, this Thursday. Who had also disfigured the criticized appointment of Miguel Ángel Oliver, former Secretary of State for Communication, as the new president of the EFE Agency.

Maintaining extraordinary taxes on banks and large energy companies, which have had record profits in the hardest years for Spaniards, is a fundamental policy that we must make permanent.

In the dispute of values for equality, in…

— Íñigo Errejón (@ierrejon) December 7, 2023

As with Lois or Ernest Urtasun, both officially considered spokespersons (of Congress and the party, respectively), their public and media interventions are more than calculated and valued, whether or not they have a label or position beyond the institutional one.. And now, also in the game.

It is this lack of labels that confuses different agents in the space, who point out that the tension in his relationship with Mónica García and Más Madrid explains why he does not have more spotlights today.. “More Madrid is their space and it is up to them to decide what role they play in the puzzle of matches,” their ranks abound..

He intervenes in the media at least one day a week – a scheme very similar to the one adopted in the campaign -, he is active on Twitter and from there he also acts as spokesperson for his party.. For a part of the space, he is the figure with the most dialectical, pedagogical and political capacity, and it does not make much sense that he does not gain more weight. Given that Podemos tends to assimilate him with Díaz, before this scheme could be understood. Today it even baffles parties like the PSOE, which do not understand that it does not have more space on the front line..

On Monday, asked about Errejón's role, the new Minister of Culture and party spokesperson was full of praise: “He is going to have a very important role”; is “very involved” in the deployment of the project, “just as happened in the electoral campaign”; “contributes a lot”. At Sumar, they are aware of the unknowns posed by the future of Errejón. Even in the official responses they praise his political and parliamentary experience, his “ability for analysis” and his role in developing a campaign “in useful politics, away from the noise.”. “It is an important voice in space,” they abound, without going any further..

However, in the description that other figures in his space make of him, they already outline where they consider him to have greater value: “He is a good thinking head, he has intuition and the ability to synthesize.”. It is a good support in terms of story or communication,” they add.. It is precisely this “support” work, with valued stellar interventions – it is expected that he will soon return to the speaker's rostrum of Congress – that generates greater suspicions among the internal.

Urtasun himself focused his “very important” role “on the executive”, as well as on the “design of the assembly”. Today, they already have the three deputy spokespersons whom they can name, and there are no indications that Díaz is going to alter the balance of forces that once angered Podemos and Izquierda Unida.. It is precisely the purple ones who had the least appreciation for him, but they were also the ones who participated the least in the life of the group.. And today they are out.

Officially, in Sumar they do not clarify when the deputy who a year ago received the Emilio Castelar Award for the best speaker of the Chambers, awarded by the Association of Parliamentary Journalists, will have more weight on the platform.. Today he has gained weight internally, remains in Díaz's orbit and leaves his mark on the positions and speeches of his people.. Meanwhile, in his political space it is assumed that he will end up taking on a greater role.

The story of Finca Loma Verde is a story of brothers-in-law. But of in-laws “not in a pejorative sense”. It is the hope of turning a Christmas Eve dish with which the Cantero sisters entertain their family every December 24 into a business.. A delicatessen that has one main ingredient: capon. A small castrated chicken that reaches five kilos in weight and on which an “honest” business project based on “sustainable poultry farming” gravitates..

Their breeding on a farm in the mountains of Cadiz has become a media phenomenon, in part, due to the unique diet that the birds receive.. And those already known as black-legged chickens or 5J chickens have acorns, olives, asparagus, pomegranates or quinces in their diet.. Food that turns this delicacy into an “enjoyment” that, thanks to the digital economy, has customers in many parts of the country: “Madrid, Asturias, Cantabria, Albacete, Barcelona, all of Andalusia…”.

But Finca Loma Verde is also a new life stage for an executive of a large multinational who left behind his time on the boards of directors to work as a salesperson.. Vicente Moreno, former president and CEO of Accenture, now visits chicken shops and restaurant businesses to offer capons and pulardas.

The poultry farm bears the surname Cantero and the names of Marisa and Maite. These sisters are the heart of a business in which their husbands are partners. “We accompany them,” says Vicente, who defines himself as one of the brothers-in-law.

Each marriage adds 50% in a company with just over a year and a half of life, where other family members have their functions.. And his brother Eduardo is the one who practically runs the farm. Well, to be honest, it's something else.. It's your soul. A twenty-something passionate about the countryside, a student of Agricultural Engineering and with a technical degree in livestock and animal health care, who “dragged” the rest towards an exciting project, but conditioned by the uncertainty that currently stalks the primary sector..

The largest investment was to buy the four-hectare farm that the partners acquired between the Cádiz municipalities of Algodonales and El Gastor. A “beautiful” place, surrounded by nature, “perfect” to develop sustainable poultry farming in which chickens are raised “in total freedom”. With the company of Argos and Vigía, two mastiffs with a certain pachora in their walks, but with a resonant bark, who act as bodyguards against the birds of prey that lurk in the area..

It is one of the few noises heard on the farm, because the chickens stop singing when they are capped.. “They say that this is the reason for the origin of the capons, in Ancient Rome, because the morning crowing of the roosters bothered them”.

This quasi-idyllic setting, where the rain is regular and where the flora makes its way, provides a natural diet that leaves its mark on the flavor.. And we have planted pomegranate and quince trees,” says Vicente, who explains to El Confidencial that the products they are marketing are “a joy” for the palate and lend themselves to the liturgy of those passionate about gastronomy..

“Our capons and pulardas are for those who want to dedicate time to cooking,” and that “the product is an incentive to spend time with friends and family,” the businessman explains, before confessing that “I have learned to appreciate food more.” “.

The once great executive emphasizes that this project wants to be, above all, “honest”. And that happens, in large part, by being careful with the environment, avoiding the intensive exploitation model and treating birds respectfully until the end of their days..

The sacrifice is carried out in an “artisanal” slaughterhouse in Conil de la Frontera. “One by one, by hand, and dry”, so the removal of the feathers is not done by putting them in boiling water, which preserves the taste of the meat.

“They accumulate an infiltrated fat that gives them a special flavor”. “It is exquisite, juicy, tasty,” highlights Vicente Moreno, while putting his sales skills into practice.. Because this bet has not only led him to enter a new life experience, but also to embark on an unknown professional path..

From president to commercial

In 2016, when he left the presidency of Accenture for Spain, Portugal, Africa and Israel, the boards of directors of the multinational gave way to enriching work in different foundations. But possibly he did not imagine that over time he would end up visiting chicken shops and other businesses in the food sector to offer Finca Loma Verde products..

“My role in the company is to be in charge of marketing, but also to act as a salesperson”. Something that “I like” because “it is very different” from what I had done until that moment. “I meet in the market” with potential clients, “I explain to them how much a kilo costs”, “the peculiarities of our birds”…. “It's fun,” confesses someone who spent 30 years in a large company and who now enjoys “a fun adventure with his family.”.

Vicente acknowledges that “he didn't know anything about this industry” and that “it has been a radical change,” but he has found in poultry farming the satisfaction of “doing something different.”.

He relates that word of mouth and the positive interaction of the first clients have been very important for the gradual growth of the project, especially because “no one knew us, nor did we know how to make ourselves known.”.

“It is a difficult world, with several established brands that offer the cooked product,” but that did not stop them from selling the 300 capons they raised last Christmas.. For this year, following the advice of some experts, they decided to change breed and opted for the Las Landes label strain.. The lot was expanded to 500: 200 pulardas —which have already been sold— and 300 capons —of which only 50 remain—.

Currently, they are using half of the farm — which contains three warehouses, a complementary natural feed silo and a sanitation room — and up to 1,500 chickens could be raised on this surface.. The room for growth is evident. Although the family does not want to risk death due to success, so an increase in production will be highly planned so that it does not entail a loss of quality..

Vicente affirms that the media impact they are having has boosted sales through electronic commerce and that the company's next step is to penetrate the restaurant industry, supplying restaurants that want to include the product in their menu.. For now, they are savoring the joys of a small success that they want to continue. “This is a joy.”

For several months, Madrid commuter trains have been accumulating delays and incidents in crescendo. There is now a bottleneck that is very difficult to manage for ADIF and Renfe. On the one hand, there is the need to replace a large part of the train fleets (old and with frequent breakdowns), and, on the other, the chronic disinvestment that has historically led us to spend money on very expensive high-speed infrastructure and not on medium distance and metropolitan trains. This lack of investment means that it is now necessary to undertake too many reforms at the same time.

In Madrid, it is its elites who benefit the most from the AVE. After all, the flow of business increases from the coast to the capital and the holiday areas are also reached sooner.. On the other hand, the rentiers of Oviedo and Gijón, like those of Valencia, Seville or Malaga, also benefit from the weddings, bachelor parties and getaways of many Madrid residents when the good weather begins.. It is a win-win for the wealthy classes on the coast and on the plateau that the governments of the right and left have targeted for decades.. The problem is that there are many workers who do not have 500 or 1,000 euros to go on a long weekend, but who must take the suburban train in the capital every day.. The point is that a good part of them do not live in the 15-minute city, nor do they travel by Uber, nor can they properly balance their personal and work lives.. On the contrary, they must put up with few frequencies at peak times, overcrowded trains, long waits and lately an endless number of breakdowns and delays that they then have to justify in their jobs..

Normally, a journey between Atocha and the Ramón y Cajal Hospital (four stations) should last between 15 and 20 minutes, but to those who read this in a car stopped ad aeternum at some point along the way and without public address information, it will seem like a macabre joke. , because they know from experience that it will take at least an hour.

And mobility is essential to guarantee social cohesion in metropolitan areas. Without good communications and transportation, imbalances between the center and the periphery of cities, and the system in general, increase.. Housing and coffee prices, but also mental and environmental health (through traffic jams), have a direct correlation with mobility.

The fact is that in Madrid there is an abysmal difference between the quality of service of the metro – managed by the Community of Madrid -, its coverage and frequencies, and those of a Cercanías network – managed by the Ministry of Transport – which is not has adapted to the growth of the metropolitan area. To put the magnitude of the problem in context, the following comparison is enough: with almost six million inhabitants (one less than Madrid), the metropolitan area of Barcelona has 228 stations and a network of 615 kilometers and 108 million users per year.. On the other hand, the Madrid network, with 160 million annual users, has only 90 stations spread throughout a 370-kilometer network.. If these numbers were the other way around, more than one in Barcelona would say that it is cruel punishment.

We have, therefore, a systemic problem that cannot be fixed by improving signaling, or by increasing the number of trains, or by building a few more stations.. We are talking about how, to be a serious and fair network with its citizens, the Madrid Cercanías should be twice the size.

Yes, in the future there will be fewer breakdowns because obsolete trains are beginning to be replaced, and there are also another 211 under construction and works to improve platforms, catenaries and tracks are being carried out.. But they should have ended a long time ago.. Now, the works must be done quickly and that is why there are failures, and that is why the trains derail and then the entire network, already saturated, collapses..

How can we complain about car dependency if there are no quick alternatives? Madrid has three highway rings (necessary), but not a single suburban ring. The circular lines cross through the Recoletos tunnel, in the heart of the city, and, therefore, do not provide efficient coverage to the medium and low income peripheries in the south-east.. Except for a few trains a day, the entire flow of travelers from the Henares corridor enters Madrid through Atocha, instead of also through Chamartín, in the north.. But in the south, Móstoles, Fuenlabrada, Parla or Valdemoro, cities that have hundreds of thousands of inhabitants, are not connected to each other, because the network is not designed to unite the region, but to transport the alienated workers from their dormitory cities to their work centers through a single access point, again Atocha. And that's why, when a train derails in that place… Chaos breaks out.

The middle distance and empty Spain

In Madrid there is a huge bottleneck between the Atocha and Chamartín stations. Both are being remodeled and adapted to a growing high-speed demand and these works are causing problems in the tunnels and platforms that they share with the Cercanías trains.. But there is a serious problem of territorial cohesion when cities like Ávila, just 100 kilometers from Madrid, have only a few daily frequencies and the journeys are slow and take more than two hours..

The global city can empty the center of Spain, but it could fill it and generate a profitable symbiosis with the provincial capitals and party heads at a distance of up to 250 kilometers if there were good connections with shuttle trains, as is the case between Barcelona and the cities of the interior or as happens with Toledo or Segovia. Cities that orbit the capital and that are already part of its network of influence. Others like Talavera, Ávila, Sigüenza or Zamora cannot take advantage of the Madrid momentum. It is not so worth it to live there but work in Madrid, and weekend tourism arrives in cars in trickles, but not in trains with hundreds of travelers.. And that eliminates opportunities, increases the price of housing in Madrid and makes it difficult to open companies in these places to take advantage of the inertia of the big city.. Too far for the good and too close for the bad. And of the bad, perhaps the worst are the young people who leave and do not return. If it is not worth it to live in Ávila and study in Madrid, those who go to the capital also encourage a perverse transfer of income in the form of rentals from increasingly depressed territories to those that concentrate economic and human capital..

The State joins the criticism of Madrid's macrocephaly, mobilizes paintings from the Prado Museum and officials to other cities to correct the effect of capital status, but does not mobilize trains. The low frequencies, obsolete convoys, breakdowns and endless journeys do not help to establish population and resources in the interior regions.. Disinvestment in medium distance is strengthening the vacuum cleaner effect of Madrid instead of making many places participate in the wealth it generates. And in the end, many provinces are gradually becoming human farms designed to fuel the economy of those who go to the beach at 300 kilometers per hour..

But the problems with suburban and medium distance transportation are becoming chronic throughout the country; they are not an exclusively Madrid problem.. Malaga, for example, has a metropolitan network far below its needs, something that is limiting its development and increasing prices in its center.. At the other extreme, for a few days now Asturians can celebrate that, 4,000 million euros later, their connections with Chamartín have been reduced by one hour thanks to the immense work of viaducts and tunnels on the Pajares bypass. But the new FEVE regional trains will have to wait another three years because they do not safely enter the old tunnels that connect the region..

In short, it is good news that next summer we will be able to go to the Asturian and eastern beaches in a short time, but the State has a pending issue regarding medium distances and Cercanías, which are those that socially unite the population and generate equal opportunities. The connection of Madrid with the coast is great, but not the one that would allow the population to settle in the neighboring provinces, much less the one that hundreds of thousands of people suffer every day in its metropolitan area.. Mobility in and between cities is a fundamental tool to generate equality or generate imbalances. Unfortunately, after five years, the “most progressive government in our democracy” boasts of promoting territorial cohesion and equal opportunities, but maintains an infrastructure policy that continues to enrich the rich at the expense of the poor..

Seafood is the king of the Christmas table and Galicia is the nursery of Spain. The bivalve is in danger, especially the clam (slug, blonde, fine, japonica) and the cockle, with a productive drop of 76% in 2023 compared to the average of the previous decade. It has been a crazy autumn for the 3,614 people who have a permit (permex) for shellfishing on foot in the region, distributed between Pontevedra (2,050), A Coruña (1,528) and Lugo (36). The majority are veteran women waiting to retire who have found in the sand a way to earn a living and support their families' finances, as their ancestors did, searching for bread in the sand..

“We go into the tide with fear, because we don't know what we are going to find and if it will be good or enough,” a veteran shellfish harvester, with many decades of raking under her belt, explains to El Confidencial..

First, a very long train of chained storms prevented them from fishing for a month, in which intense rains, hurricane winds and spring tides formed the perfect storm.. When it finally cleared, at the beginning of November, they came across tons of shells piled up on the banks.. Dead or dying shellfish, now useless. The rains, so longed for to fill reservoirs, had as collateral victims the most popular mollusks of the Galician estuaries.. Because? The Tambre, Traba and Lérez rivers drained with such force into the delicate ecosystem of the estuaries that the salinity dropped suddenly and the seafood died..

This is what happened in Noia and Rianxo, 40 kilometers southwest of Santiago, where they spent several days shoveling kilos and kilos of shells that the waves unearthed and pushed to the shore to return them to the sea in a titanic effort to try to recover them for the future.. Also in Carril or A Illa, already in the Arousa estuary, similar scenes were experienced. Some major bosses pointed to an economic desire in the sudden opening of the dams to move the turbines of the hydroelectric concessionaires that led to a torrent of water.

From November 15 to 27, they closed those estuaries to shellfish fishing in the hope that they would recover and be able to save the Christmas campaign, the most important of the year in terms of demand and price.. On Monday the 27th, the shellfish harvesters at the bottom of the Pontevedra estuary returned to the sand with relative relief, although it was difficult to reach the (low) catch limit of six kilos per person (five of japonica clam and one of fine clam).. “It's not going to be a good campaign, but we hope it becomes regular,” explained Elena Padín, its senior employer..

“Almost two months without going out to sea and today it was difficult to get the quota,” explains César Rodríguez, from the San Telmo brotherhood.. The Provincial Federation of Brotherhoods of Pontevedra, the most powerful and numerous, openly defends the declaration of a catastrophic area. “It is an exceptional situation for which we need exceptional measures,” claims Manuel Rosas, the president, who does not remember anything similar in two decades.. “Mortality is very high and affected not only the adult size but also the offspring.”. “The chain is broken,” laments Rosas..

The Galician brotherhoods demand that the Xunta raise their request to the central government to open the door to economic compensation. The Xunta does not put figures on the mortality reported by the brotherhoods because they are “estimates”, waiting to collect the exact data in the affected estuaries before substantiating this emergency declaration.. Meanwhile, María Porto, president of the shellfish harvesters at the foot of Carril (Arousa), denounced again this week that the mortality already affects all species and demands that the Xunta intervene immediately because people “are going to work land”, desperate for the wasteland that the estuary has become. In 2001, there were 6,551 shellfishers with permex. Today it resists half.

A single shellfish harvester under 20 years of age

More than 2,000 families live by fishing shellfish on foot in the province of Pontevedra, 62% are women; 768 shellfish harvesters are over 51 years old and 258 are over 60, according to data from the Fishing Platform from the last year. The same pattern is repeated in A Coruña, with 1,528 legal permits. In the entire community there is only one person under the age of 20 with permission to seafood in new areas where Gallegian rivers are distributed with several cofradías in each: Arousa (7), Vigo, Pontevedra (3), Muros, Fisterra, Costa da Morte, A Coruña-Ferrol (4), Cedeira and A Mariña. To the group we must add dozens of poachers who have historically despoiled the coasts on foot, afloat or diving with a bottle to hunt crab, catch scallops or scratch barnacles from the rocks..

But the enemy of seafood is not rain. Pollution, climate change, irregular dredging, poaching or the proliferation of prohibited practices such as octopus fishing with bleach have done a lot of damage to an ecosystem as unique as it is delicate, between sweet and salty..

“A decade ago, from the slimy clam bank of As Pías (Ferrol) we took 1,000 kilos. Now there are eight and where before there were 300 families, now there is not even enough for 20,” Isabel Maroño, former patron saint of the Ferrol brotherhood, tells El Confidencial.. What happens in Ferrol has its replica to the south. In 2000, 800 tons of slimy clams; In 2021, there were 158,000 kilos, explains Xaquín Rubido, spokesperson for the Platform in Defense of the Ría de Arousa (PDRA), which brings together its seven brotherhoods and mussel producers..

They are especially concerned about the drop in cockle production, which is around 76%, or 74% of the slimy clam, which they extend to all of Galicia.. “It is a progressive debacle in the face of a Xunta that neither assumes its powers nor takes measures,” the platform denounced this Tuesday.. From the Administration, they respond that they are working to replant the shellfish beds with the species most resistant to low salinity..

Since last September 12, Extremadurans have new sections of personal income tax. This is established by Decree-Law 4/2023, approved by the Government of Extremadura, which has established the lowest application in all of Spain in remunerations of up to 20,200 euros per year..

As a result, these first two tranches have gone from 9.5% to 8% and from 12.5% to 10%, something that produces savings per taxpayer of almost 300 euros.. This is a measure applied retroactively to January 1, 2023. The rest of the sections are configured as follows:

In this way, María Guardiola's government “corrects a grievance that meant having one of the lowest incomes in the country and having to bear one of the highest rates in the second section,” they say from the Junta de Extremadura.. “This complies with what is established in article 31 of the Spanish Constitution and in article 3 of General Tax Law 58/2003 of December 17 on economic capacity, equality, progressivity, tax justice and non-confiscatoriality”. The objective, they say, is to “return to families what they have paid too much in recent years”.

Rental deduction, estate tax….

The same Decree Law has also established an increase in the deduction for renting a habitual residence, going from 5% or 10% in the case of residing in rural areas, to 30%.. Likewise, the annual deduction limits of 300 and 400 euros are increased to 1,000 and 1,500 euros and for the first time single-parent families will be able to benefit from this bonus..

Another tax that is modified is the Heritage tax, which is 100% discounted; as well as enrollment, which drops from 16% to 14.75%. In addition, before its entry into force scheduled for January 1, the tax on empty homes for large owners already taxed in personal income tax with income imputations at 1.1% or 2% of the value has been eliminated. cadastral and with the possibility of being taxed in the IBI with a surcharge of 50%.

The next tax to modify is the inheritance and donation tax, “which is currently subsidized at 99%, which means that many taxpayers barely pay taxes but have to declare something. The reduction for groups I and II (the closest relationships), which stands at 18,000 and 15,956.87 euros, will be raised to 500,000 euros. This will make the taxable base zero, zero installment and zero income.. This measure will mean that the majority of inheritances in Extremadura will not have to pay,” the Board insists..

Finally, given the situation caused by storms that have caused damage to the Extremaduran countryside, aid of 1.4 million euros is established for cherry producers through aid with a maximum amount per hectare of 2,500 euros..

“Equality and tax justice are strengthened”

The Executive defends that, until the arrival of these measures, “Extremadura was one of the autonomous communities with the greatest fiscal pressure in the entire country. This meant that Extremaduran taxpayers paid the highest regional taxes with the lowest incomes.. A clear inequality in relation to other autonomous communities that surround it and that played with an “advantage” when it came to attracting investors and establishing a population.”.

Thus, the new Decree Law “adopts urgent measures to reduce the tax burden borne by taxpayers, in addition to aid for foster care, new self-employed workers and cherry producers.” All of this “strengthens the principle of equality and tax justice, which promotes and accompanies those who generate wealth and employment and whose purpose is to attract investment and prevent more population from being lost in our region,” they conclude.

The history of Spanish constitutionalism is not comforting. Furthermore, it is unfortunate. And it can be much more so if there are many, and they are, and persevering political forces determined to erode the 1978 Constitution with the invaluable help of the PSOE and the coalition government chaired by Pedro Sánchez and some serious contradictions of the democratic right and of dangerous radical drifts.

The more times the socialist leader and the president of Congress (like yesterday, in another speech outside the institutional record) claim to comply with the Magna Carta, the more evident it becomes that they violate it in its letter and/or in its spirit.. There is no need to justify this opinion by the institutional deterioration in which we are immersed and which is so obvious. It would be enough to refer to the explicit agreements with ERC, Junts and PNV and the implicit one with EH Bildu, to make sure that with one hand the Constitution is promised before the King and with the other a kind of disloyalty is perpetrated against it that is no longer even subtle: nothing less than a foreign diplomat acts as mediator between the PSOE and Puigdemont in a non-EU country and historically as evocative of these tasks as Switzerland.

One century and six constitutions

This Constitution follows the path of all previous ones since 1812: expire without any reform. The great constitutional texts are durable and the new generations are effectively and emotionally linked to them to the extent that they collect modifications that occur within a permanent general framework: national sovereignty and unity, basic freedoms and rights, the separation of powers, territorial unity and self-government of nationalities and regions and parliamentary monarchy. The key to constitutional sustainability is not revisionism but reformism.

Our great democratic backwardness stems from a historical lack of political and social disruption in the 18th century, as occurred in the United States with its Constitution of 1787 and in France with its Revolution in 1789.. The distinguished historian Miguel Artola (Los afrancesados) already wrote that our country had “lost” the century in which political modernity was forged..

Here, the long Constitution of 1812 (384 articles) had a brief validity, until only 1814, and two replacements (one with the pronouncement of Riego in 1820, which covered the so-called liberal triennium, and another, very briefly, in 1836). After her, the Royal Statute of 1834 was drawn up, which governed the country for a sad two years.. Then, the Constitution of 1837, which was followed by that of 1845. After the dethronement of Isabel II (1868), General Prim promoted that of 1869, which he proposed, and obtained between 1871 and 1873, an elected monarchy that in February of that year ended with the resignation by himself and his heirs of King Amadeo from Savoy.

The Italian king leaving for Portugal and proclaiming the First Republic in a bad way was all the same nonsense, to the point that the new federal regime did not have a Constitution but rather a project as interesting as it was useless.. In 1876, the Constitution of the Bourbon Restoration was approved, which was believed to last, but the military dictatorship of Primo de Rivera between 1923 and 1930 sent it to the same place as all the previous ones: to failure.. Then came the Second Republic (1931) and the fundamental laws of the dictatorship, a horrible Civil War through.

The national question, unredeemed

This one, from 1978, with 45 years of validity, was thought to be the good one, the definitive one. It is on its way, however, to follow the pattern of all the previous ones: expire without reform. The ruling class, intellectually and civically impoverished, attributes its inevitable genetic decay to the rigidity of these basic norms.. It is a historical lie: in Spain it is not that the constitutions are imperfect and dysfunctional. That has been the repetitive and devious alibi of the mediocre politicians who have devastated our country.. Clumsy in the past, clumsy today.

The reason for the dissent has been recurrent: the unredeemed national question. Every territorial articulation has ended in a brawl, even if we go back to dates prior to the birth of Basque and Catalan nationalisms, which are emotional excrescences and mythological historicisms germinated in the heat of the failure of the Spanish national project of the late 1800s.. In Spain, the destructive fervor is imperishable and manifests itself in the same way: identity introspection, the claim of privilege as a measure of difference and the categorical abuse of territorially limited social traits that, being respectable, become absolute and justifications for segregation.

The national question was reasonably resolved in the 1978 Constitution. Not anymore. Because we have entered the dismissal phase, which does not aim at reform but rather at repeal.. Spain, in national terms, is in a post-mortem state, because it is not likely that there will be a reformist pact.. The once autonomous statutory vitality has been amortized without replacement, despised in the face of the totemic value of the supposed Catalan and Basque political nations that prey on a socialism that once again systemically fails constitutional Spain, without the right having learned from history that different results are only obtained by making and practicing different policies.

To be fair, the rigor mortis of the national body is the responsibility of Sánchez and the PSOE that he leads. Because while it is incoherent to claim to be a constitutionalist and to refuse the mandate to renew the governing body of the judges, it is much more serious and definitive to rewrite history, amnesty criminals for commercial reasons and negotiate the future of the nation abroad and clandestinely..

What separatism wants

The separatists, who are installed in a self-referential supremacism, want a confederal State that, strictly speaking, is nothing other than an international treaty with reservation of the sovereignty of the parties (Switzerland abandoned the confederation to go to the federal State, although it maintains historical tradition the name of Helvetic Confederation), but they are cruel to the nation to colonize it. There is no intention of destroying it completely, but rather of converting it into the hinterland of the interests of Basque and Catalan nationalism.. A purpose of submission. It must be noted that both PNV and Bildu as well as ERC and Junts maintain expansionist desires (a kind of Germanic Anschluss) on Navarra, those, and on the Valencian Community and the Balearic Islands, these. In other words: Spain would be useful to them as a market in all its variants.. It is the commercial reification of the Spanish nation. That's what they are at.

There are not enough problems with the dependence on the independentists that the coalition government has wanted to seek more. Not even three weeks have passed since the inauguration of Pedro Sánchez, and the PSOE and Sumar have lost control of the progressive majority. The 153 votes they had in Congress – 122 from the socialists and 31 from Yolanda Díaz's platform – have remained at 148, with the flight of the five Podemos deputies to the mixed group.

The left-wing Executive thus sees the parliamentary majority it had in Congress (179) disappear, forged after the pacts with ERC, Junts, PNV, Bildu, the BNG and, eventually, the Canarian Coalition, which was not going to be a fixture in all voting. Now, although the logical thing is that the five purple votes remain linked to this bloc, the reality is that Podemos is outside the influence of the two Government formations and it will be necessary to agree with them on all initiatives, including the budgets.. Due to their own efforts to differentiate themselves from Sumar, it was already expected that they would make their weight count, but always subject to their parliamentary discipline..

Their departure to the joint now grants them total freedom and more prominence in the debates in the plenary session and in the commissions.. The total breakup was a possibility that no one ruled out due to the magnitude of the war between Yolanda Díaz and Pablo Iglesias and their political heirs, Ione Belarra and Irene Montero.. They attended together on June 23, despite the fact that at that time relations were already very deteriorated, and they reached a kind of marriage of convenience.

But from the day after the elections, they resumed the fight even more strongly. Podemos pressed to have a ministry or at least a presence in the Government. Díaz did not accept it, knowing that the balance in the parliamentary group was very precarious.. Three and a half months after the constitution of the Chamber, the purples have blown up the bridges.

Knowledgeable sources explain that with the confirmation that they were left without representation in the Executive, Podemos decided to move to the mixed. Although they kept it a secret until this Tuesday. They announced it by surprise to the leadership of the parliamentary group, moments after it was reported on Iglesias' television, Canal Red.. Then Yolanda Díaz also knew it, according to Sumar. Afterwards, purple number three, Lilith Verstrynge, telephoned one of her parliamentary assistants, but the news was already spreading like wildfire..

The PSOE believes that Yolanda Díaz has failed

The confusion yesterday in Sumar and in the PSOE was absolute. Different socialist sources blame the second vice president and Minister of Labor for having a small waist for conducting the dialogue with Podemos. Although there is no doubt that Iglesias wanted to protect her from the beginning, the PSOE never understood her resistance to an electoral pact and her determination now to not provide them with a single space in the Executive or in the parliamentary group.. “He has not known how to manage it and has gone to blow them up,” party sources say..

When, after 23-J, the problems of coexistence between Sumar and Podemos were already evident, the socialist part of the Government hid behind the fact that the solution to that conflict corresponded exclusively to Díaz. Little by little, they began to assume that the purple ones were going to function as an isolated party but within Sumar's group.. But they always minimized the risk of not counting on their votes, with the certainty that they would never dare to leave the progressive orbit and ally themselves with the PP and Vox..

That conviction began to break yesterday, after the shock of the flight of the five parliamentarians—one of them, Belarra herself—to the mixed group, where they will coexist with the BNG, CC and UPN.. The PSOE spokesperson in Congress, Patxi López, acknowledged that “the division of the left is never good news”: when that happens, he added, “the right wins.”. “I am convinced that no one on the left is going to slow down or paralyze the actions of a progressive government,” he said about the loss of Podemos votes..

Sumar also placed that risk at the center of the debate. Its spokesperson in the lower house, Marta Lois, assured that it does not contemplate that anyone “wants to row against or put at risk the progressive coalition Executive”, in the midst of what she described as “harassment” by the “reactionary right-wing bloc”. Off camera, their people called them “turncoats” and disgraced the fact that they were capable of consulting their militants about the purchase of Iglesias and Montero's home, but not about the decision to “break the electoral agreement.”.

The support of Podemos is absolutely essential to prevail over the sum of PP, Vox and UPN, which makes its five seats vital. As important as the seven from Junts and the seven from ERC, which have earned an amnesty law, two dialogue tables with verifiers, the transfer of Rodalies and 15,000 million in debt. But the temptation of the PSOE has been to minimize its impact. Among ordinary deputies and even among some members of the Government, there was a theory that it is just one more difficulty among many that they have faced.. As if they were capable of solving everything, just because they had solved other conflicts before or put together a new Government, which almost everyone considered lost..

“Tanned” in the negotiation

Not all approaches were so linear. Important socialist sources maintained that “we are already experienced in talking to many groups to get laws,” assuming that they will be forced to negotiate everything with them.. The PSOE, at least, ensures that the dialogue, like another party in the bloc, will be carried out by them and not Sumar. But, as this newspaper published, what worries them most is the breakup of the progressives in the face of the next elections, Galician, Basque and European.. “A left divided again in three electoral calls, that is not good,” they acknowledge.

For their part, in Sumar they were surprised, angry and disappointed. It was an open secret that the situation was unacceptable, and Díaz herself made it clear in an interview on TVE on Monday.. Nobody expected that, in the middle of a large internal crisis, the purples would launch such a risky maneuver. It is a play typical of the Iglesias-Montero manual, according to a former leader. And that catches them in the midst of negotiating the lists in Galicia and Euskadi, in the absence of the electoral advance in both regions.

Podemos justified itself by arguing that they had been made invisible, that Díaz made it “impossible” for them to do politics.. And Sumar counterattacked by expelling them from the parliamentary commissions, which they accessed within their group's quota.. None of the parties anymore hides that they can't stand each other, but Podemos has not forced the machine so that its deputies found themselves sanctioned or expelled from the group.. They have decided to take a leap that leaves their hands tied, and that breaks with the balance of forces that, until now, Sánchez and Díaz believed they had..

In the last few hours, the PP has taken a small step that makes it somewhat less difficult to resume talks for the renewal of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ). Alberto Núñez Feijóo's party has lowered the demands of recent months. Last May, Genoa toughened its conditions due to the latent mistrust of the Executive and assured that “without a law in the BOE” there would be no unlocking. Now, the popular leadership is once again turning the helm slightly to open a glimmer of hope and demands that the legal change to choose the members of the CGPJ be made simultaneously. A still subtle, but significant change.

This slight change occurs only a few hours after the Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, placed the end of the interim situation of the Council as a priority. He demanded to renew with “urgency” and begin “immediately afterwards” the process of reforming the election system. He did so accompanied by the Minister of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Cortes. The warning issued in this scenario, of undoubted symbolic weight, overshadowed the signs of Europe's rejection of the amnesty law and soured the candy for the PP..

It was Feijóo himself who made the announcement. In an interview with Cadena COPE, he indicated that he is willing to run the risk of being “deceived” by the PSOE and to agree “simultaneously” on the renewal and reform of the CGPJ law so that 12 of the 20 members are elected by judges and magistrates. “Let's make the law and renew the Council simultaneously. Let's sign an agreement, present it to society and process the law. This is what we aim for,” he said.. Shortly afterward he clarified that he is looking for an initiative registered by the two groups and with the signature of both.

Aside from the president's words, later supported by other party representatives, there are added signals. Despite the reproaches and the warning that it would start off on the “bad foot” if the task is entrusted to him—again—the Popular Party does not veto Bolaños being the interlocutor in these supposed negotiations.. They also demand that the Executive be the one who takes the necessary steps and takes the initiative. The PP waits for a call from Sánchez to Feijóo that will serve as a starting signal.

According to legal sources, different factors weighed in the decision.. In just a few days, the popular have lost the framework with which they worked since last summer the electoral results were insufficient to allow them to reach the Government. Since September, they were counting on the Executive to also take a path with the CGPJ that would anger Europe and decide to cut the majorities and elect a Council with a token presence of conservatives and an overwhelming progressive majority.. This has not been the case and this finding has left the PP confused in terms of arguments..

Loss of legitimacy

Those from Feijóo also accuse the wear and tear of refusing the renewal and thus being complicit in a failure to comply with the constitutional mandate that has already lasted five years.. This position does not go well with his rejection of the amnesty law because it is, precisely, unconstitutional.. It reduces the weight of their complaint and provides the Government with ammunition to attack them or respond to any of their public accusations with the Council's wild card..

There is another added circumstance that encourages the pact: the Constitutional. The PP does not forget that it is still pending the appointment, at the proposal of the Senate, of a judge for the court of guarantees to replace Alfredo Montoya, who resigned for health reasons.. Neither does the growing number of vacant positions in the Supreme Court, the TSJ and the hearings, which already reaches 85 positions.. In the last hours, Feijóo anticipated that the Upper House will promote the election of Montoya's replacement whether or not there is a global agreement with the PSOE.

These timid steps have been received coldly by the Government. Supported by Reynders' words, Moncloa has once again insisted on the order of factors that was already accepted by both parties in the last failed renewal attempt: first renew and then sit down to negotiate the reform of the election method. “Our position is that of the European Union, first the renewal and, later, there can be dialogue, but it cannot be extended,” warned the spokesperson for the Executive, Pilar Alegría, after the press conference of the Council of Ministers.

Many more battles will come, but it is the end of the cold war on the left to the left of the PSOE. Podemos has pressed the nuclear button and has broken bridges with the Sumar parliamentary group just over 24 hours after taking positions within its quota in the commissions of the Congress of Deputies, the working bodies of the Lower House. And he has done so in the midst of the implosion of the party in the Community of Madrid, after the resignation of its leader, Jesús Santos, amid attacks on the state leadership..

The maneuver comes a month after the party leadership in the capital demanded a congress from the Ione Belarra leadership, which according to purple sources has not yet given any response.. Furthermore, hours after Santos slammed the door, the resignation of the leader of the parliamentary group in the Parliament, Jéssica Albiach, also leader of the purples in Catalonia, was known.. Podemos, with managers at the helm in four territories, was falling apart. The hard core gathered the executive to communicate the political divorce. The purple ones have not let even six months pass before breaking the coalition agreement, three and a half months since the Cortes Generales were established.

Publicly, Sumar has criticized the “disloyalty” of the purples to the three million people who voted for them in the July 23 elections. Off camera, Díaz's people openly described them as “turncoats”. Podemos leaked this decision to Pablo Iglesias' website, which Belarra herself did not want to confirm in the halls of Congress, minutes before it was officially announced.. According to the purple ones, they did notify the Sumar management. According to the group of 26 deputies led by the second vice president, they found out from the press. Specifically, through Iglesias' own website.

Podemos came to Spanish politics to change everything. Today, with renewed strength and convictions intact, we make a difficult but essential decision to continue transforming our country.. We need a feminist, ecological and transformative left. If possible.

— Ione Belarra (@ionebelarra) December 5, 2023

There was a call, according to sources in his group, from Lilith Verstrynge, number three dwelling, to one of Sumar's advisors. We can point out that it was not a typical advisor, but rather it was Josep Vendrell, former chief of staff of the vice president.. Neither Díaz nor the parliamentary spokesperson, Marta Lois, had any knowledge of this decision, they say.. In their ranks, they slipped that the move of the purple ones had to do with covering up the scandals of their organic life. A former leader once close to Iglesias made a similar diagnosis: when there are resignations, they act to stop the possible disbandment of one of the five deputies. Today, they all share space with the Canarian Coalition—which they did call—, UPN and BNG.

Podemos, in the mouth of Irene Montero, called the former Canary Islands representative Meri Pita a “turncoat” when she left her group and joined the mixed group, and this Tuesday she justified the break by stating that this way she would have the capacity for political action. They will stop receiving subsidies from the group (not those from the Ministry of the Interior), and will begin to receive those from the mixed group, where they are already the majority force and will have more time to intervene in the debates.. What they have not been able to ensure, according to the Congress website itself, are their seats on the committees.. Now they will have to negotiate those that correspond to the mixed quota.

Sumar's counterattack

Podemos broke with Sumar one day after the commissions were established, just a week after ensuring that they did not contemplate that scenario. And when both factions are supposedly exploring a new electoral union in Galicia and Euskadi. Parliamentary sources assure that Sumar counterattacked shortly after, registering a document in which he did not recognize the purples as his representatives on the commissions, so they were excluded from them..

According to this explanation, Podemos had not yet registered its registration in the mixed group. And, therefore, Martina Velarde, Lilith Verstrynge and Noemí Santana were left out of the tables of their respective commissions. The purple ones have lost the ability to summon, from the presidency of the Social Rights Commission (Santana), the minister of the branch, Pablo Bustinduy, as they previously had in their power.. Belarra is no longer listed as a spokesperson, which would have allowed her to directly question her successor in the ministry..

A day before the outbreak, Díaz already publicly assumed that he could not control the purple deputies, but no one expected them to move so quickly. Another veteran former leader of the Belarra party identifies this as a strategy typical of the hard core: a coup d'état with a controlled blast that covers up another crisis.. The surprise is that they do it when Sumar had not even approved the parliamentary group that would allow them to be sanctioned.. And when not a single law has reached its first plenary session. Podemos claimed to be exploring the limits of the group, and Sumar refused to blame them..

They now have free hands to act, and throughout the political space there is a clamor that they will participate in the European elections on their own, with Irene Montero as a candidate.. The veto of the former Minister of Equality on Sumar's lists is the biggest grievance that they bring against those of Díaz, although their explanation for her departure from the group incorporates another variable: the refusal of the group's leadership for Belarra to intervene this year. Tuesday in the plenary session, to question the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, about Israel and Palestine.

Belarra has endorsed the flag against the murders of civilians by the Government of Benjamin Netanyahu, although in Sumar they ruled out that no one other than Agustín Santos, former ambassador of Spain to the UN, would speak out on this matter.. In Díaz's ranks they remembered that Podemos has come to consult with its militants about the purchase of Iglesias and Montero's home. And in this case it has decided, without meeting the State Citizen Council, the highest political leadership body, that it was time to leave the group in which they committed to being for four years.. A “disloyalty” varnished with “victimism”, according to Sumar. And a liberation for Podemos.