Yesterday Alberto Núñez Feijóo had the mass bath that parliamentary arithmetic usurped on election night. On June 23, everything was prepared in Genoa to celebrate, but the impossibility of joining Vox to remove Pedro Sánchez from Moncloa overshadowed the victory.. The chants of “president, president!” to Isabel Díaz Ayuso on that balcony in Genoa, fears were resurrected in a broken PP. Two months later, the one acclaimed on the street has been Feijóo. The act against the foreseeable amnesty called by the popular people exceeded all expectations by bringing together more than 40,000 people, according to the Government Delegation; more than 60,000, according to the national direction. The planned capacity was 10,000. Previous reluctance among party officials turned into euphoria when testing the power of convocation. The majority were militants, the territorial organizations chartered nearly 200 buses, but also citizens dissatisfied with the transfers to the independentists..

The most shared analysis among the attending officials is that there is room to lead the social response to Sánchez. Among the barons – none were missing – the balance is “very positive” because “it has been a shot of adrenaline” in the face of Feijóo's predictably unsuccessful investiture that starts tomorrow in Congress. Beyond the message to the Spaniards, in the popular ranks it was necessary, according to the sources consulted, for the leader to convey that he is willing to “resist and fight.”. Those who know the Galician have experienced with concern the “slump” he suffered after the elections and attribute the “lumps” that the management has taken in the last month to that “state of confusion.”.

“Feijóo is back,” summarized yesterday a senior popular official. Although the noble floor of Genoa always denied that the call was an act of reaffirmation of leadership, the cadres interpreted it that way yesterday.. The challenge for Feijóo is to transfer the spirit of the Plaza de Felipe II to his intervention in the Lower House. There is maximum expectation in the party, because “everything is at stake,” warn popular sources, who claim that its president must set the foundations for his leadership not only internally, but also vis-à-vis the Spanish people.. There is no room for errors.

“Feijóo must win social leadership to consolidate it in the party,” explains a territorial leader who asks that the Galician make “a state speech” tomorrow beyond criticizing Sánchez and his agreements with the sovereigntists.. “We must show that there is a serious alternative that defends equality among Spaniards,” he insists.. The leader of the PP has been preparing his investiture speech all month. He has consulted with many from “outside and inside the PP”. He has asked his barons for papers on measures that have been implemented in the autonomies, but also to help him detect the “vulnerable points” after the agreements with Vox. In Genoa, they are aware that pacts with the extreme right will be the line of attack of Sánchez and his partners in Congress.

“In Congress, we cannot stay in the harangue against Sánchez,” claims another baron of those who yesterday gave up their hands in applauding the leader, although he recognized that the “best rally leader” continues to be former president José María Aznar. “In a Spain of free and equal citizens, the vote of one cannot be given more value compared to the vote of another.”. Law and Justice must be equal for everyone, starting with politicians, because if politicians are not equal before the law, it is an unspeakable cacicada in a State of law,” Feijóo stressed before a dedicated audience.. “There is no room for first-class and second-class citizens,” he added in a speech that served as a prelude to what will be face to face with Sánchez.. In his replies to the president, the Galician is expected to insist on the “lack of moral integrity”, which he already brandished yesterday before the masses, to mark the difference between the two..

“Even if it costs me the presidency of the Government, I will defend that Spain is a nation of free and equal citizens”. With this message, Feijóo advanced what will be the axis to justify why he goes to a failed investiture. The objective is to present a politician who prioritizes the “general interest over the individual” and who does not give in to sovereignist “blackmail” to sit in the Moncloa. A “statesman” who will once again offer great pacts and break down his economic and social proposals, management sources say.

Paradoxically, the PP places the starting point of its opposition work in the investiture with the horizon that Sánchez will not be able to exhaust the legislature due to tensions with his partners. The electoral repetition seems less and less feasible and even some in the PP consider that it is a double-edged sword: “If the result is repeated, we would have a serious problem.”

There are decades in which nothing happens and weeks in which decades pass, says a phrase from Lenin that could well serve Alberto Núñez Feijóo these days.. The leader of the Popular Party, 62 years old, four elections to the Parliament of Galicia, four absolute majorities, is risking his career and prestige, as well as the present and future of the PP.

In the conservative formation they are aware that both the demonstration against the amnesty that took place on Sunday, which left a clear feeling of support, and the investiture speech, Tuesday at 12:00, in which he will present his idea of Spain and government program, represent a turning point for the popular.

Feijóo is at stake a lot at a time when the meat grinder has been activated again, fanned by those who want to repeat the Casado operation in that short-term game that Spanish politics has become. Those who question the current leadership and begin to sneak the names of Ayuso and Moreno Bonilla under the door are doing the party a disservice, at a time when it is not appropriate.

The only way we see to reach Moncloa is by leveraging Madrid (16 seats on 23-J) and Andalusia (25 seats), and not by removing their territorial leaders from the places where they govern and where they have consolidated their respective positions. leaderships, which would be worse than undressing a saint. It would be straight up suicide.

The atmosphere that is perceived is just the opposite. Aware of the moment they are going through and the possibility that some and others will be scalded if they enter the game of thrones in which they want to embark them, the popular ones have spoken out in defense of their leader. Your explicit support will be seen in the investiture debate.

Especially because the main unknown that loomed over the figure of Feijóo, that is, whether he would be willing to cross the desert and stay in the opposition after the unconsummated investiture, has been resolved.. “He goes for everything. Don't have the slightest doubt,” they confess in their team.. Hurt to his pride, they say, he is not willing to end his career with a blot like that of 23-J, and even less so if it comes out of Pedro Sánchez's inkwell..

More than a speech, what happened this Tuesday should be the guidelines of a political plan that, as of today, has yet to be defined, and with which voters can identify.. To do this, you will be able to wield one of the most powerful weapons, that of principles and values..

At a time when radical relativism and the increasingly widespread idea that the end justifies the means prevail, the vindication of morality seems essential to get out of the toxic spiral in which the country is trapped.. This starting point, Feijóo understands, is the only way to break with the mental frameworks that have been imposed on us and to show that there is a centrality in which a majority of Spaniards place themselves..

Another of the challenges of the PP will be to prepare for a new stage that requires urgent redirection and reorganization, since the possibility of generals is there.. Feijóo's strategy, consisting of giving absolute autonomy to the barons in their decision-making, has become unsuccessful, especially in the pacts with Vox. Communication and command in the square are needed. Nor has the structure of Génova 13, with Feijóo taking refuge in his Galician inner circle and dealing in a tight manner with his deputy secretaries, been efficient..

And then we will have to remove the elephant from the room. Once and for all, the Popular Party has to make a decision regarding Abascal so that voters know what to expect. The cut is the cortijo, wrote José Antonio Zarzalejos. Either they accept and make them visible as necessary partners of the government, as in Extremadura or Murcia, or they explicitly reject the possibility of including them in a future Executive..

“There is a part of the electorate that is greater in number, especially among young people and women, who are more afraid of Vox than of Bildu, and that is something that we have not been able to see,” says an autonomous councilor.. “Many young people do not know who Miguel Ángel Blanco or Bildu is, or what ETA did, while Vox is present in our daily lives.. We all have children who are friends of homosexual or transgender kids who are horrified by Vox's speech, or we know women whose ideology could be located in the center-right, but when they hear how they despise gender violence, they feel attacked.. “Life is going the other way”.

Aside from one's own errors, of which there are many, there is the conviction that the culprit of the mobilization on the left in the last two weeks of the 23-J campaign was the real possibility of having Abascal as vice president of the Government. His statements a few days before, predicting that tensions would return to Catalonia if Vox entered the future Executive, made a hole in the aspirations of a PP (six seats compared to the 19 of the PSOE) that will also have to redefine its strategy in this community.

Given the possibility that there is no agreement between the PSOE and Junts on the amnesty, or that Sánchez prefers to press the red button for the electoral repetition because he believes it is convenient for him, Feijóo must clarify as soon as possible what his relationship is with Vox. You will hardly find a better occasion than this Tuesday in Congress.

Otherwise, there is an increasingly widespread fear in the party leadership that they could get a worse result than 23-J. The PP needs those two million votes from the center-left, which sometimes votes for them and sometimes doesn't, and which are the ones that can make Feijóo president without having to depend on Abascal's formation. “And those who believe that it is impossible are wrong, just as they were wrong in Andalusia,” says the counselor..

A woman in her 30s died this Sunday in a residential building in the Madrid district of Villaverde as a result of several stab wounds, as reported by Emergencies Madrid to Europa Press..

The victim was on the landing of the stairs of a building on Doña Francisquita Street, had several stab wounds and was in cardiorespiratory arrest..

Agents from the Municipal Police of Madrid and the National Police have begun advanced resuscitation maneuvers that the Samur-Civil Protection paramedics have continued upon arrival for more than 30 minutes, although the woman has not recovered her pulse and has had to confirm his death. The National Police investigates what happened.

Three sweaty runners looking for the shade of some trees that shelter two groups of people on the grass: some practicing yoga, others warming up to do their daily training. Nearby, young people and not so young people take turns using the bars that make up the calisthenics park.. A little further away, about ten people dressed in boxing gloves learn how to move around an imaginary ring while two children race their small bikes.. This image, increasingly repeated in the large parks of Madrid, is here to stay.

The green spaces of the capital are consolidated as large areas in which to practice sports without incurring too many expenses. The municipalities are aware, and they promote it. Society wants to “be in shape”, but does not have time. For this reason, the individualization to which the dynamics of the big city pushes us is also strong here..

The Run Club (TRC) was able to see this incipient upward movement of outdoor sports well and opened two physical locations in the capital, one in Retiro and the other in Madrid Río. The decision to locate there was not trivial: “We go out running and what we use the most is the Casa de Campo and the El Retiro park,” says Antonio Brunete, director of the Club.. And it is done by people between the ages of 25 and 50, mostly.. Now they have about 300 members. He places the beginning of this impulse, the fever to practice sports outdoors, once the worst moments of the pandemic were over..

That made people want to take to the streets, finding in it, paradoxically, a refuge in which they could free themselves.. “We have brought the gym concept to running clubs, with daily schedules, training in the mornings and afternoons,” he says..

“The boom has been noticed even in Guadarrama. People who used to go running are now beginning to opt for trail running, running in the mountains.. Such was the influx that they had to regulate the competitions they held in the national park so that nature was not affected,” illustrates Brunete..

Sports promotion

Someone making the decision to go for a run is something that has been increasing, but not as new as practicing calisthenics in parks.. Roberto Marín is a member and manager of ARES Calisthenia and, when he felt attracted to this practice ten years ago, he was forced to travel from Tres Olivos to El Retiro park. Now, he has a calisthenics park 25 meters from his house.

The followers of this discipline, which combines strength and body awareness, have increased significantly. What started as a good option to do sports for people with fewer economic resources has become the favorite practice of many others who have found in it a healthy way to stay in shape..

Marín knows well how more and more coaches appear and spread their knowledge through social networks, especially on YouTube and TikTok. “Calisthenics consists of training with your own body weight, so you have to know very well what you are doing to avoid major injuries,” he comments on the matter..

One thing with the other has made ARES Calisthenia close contracts with various municipalities to teach classes in their parks. Parks that, on the other hand, are full of people using them as a sports venue, whether for running, practicing calisthenics, yoga, group exercises or boxing. And Madrid, in this case, takes the cake. Spaces like those already mentioned, or the Juan Carlos I park, are filled with people who gather every afternoon to play sports.. But why do they do sports?

No time to be in shape

According to the latest survey of sporting habits, carried out by the Higher Sports Council at the national level (2022), the main motivation for playing sports is to be in shape with 26.3% of the responses, a somewhat higher percentage in the case of women. They are followed by other reasons such as entertainment, with 22.1% and health, with 20%..

The survey also talks about the main barriers that people encounter when practicing physical activity.. The biggest is lack of time, followed by interest. “This tells us about interests and living conditions that are linked to practices,” observes Raúl Sánchez, sports sociologist and professor at the INEF of the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM).. The relationship, he says, is established directly, since outdoor practice is carried out in a more unregulated way than others..

If we look at the 2022 data, 45% of those surveyed opt for the outdoors, more than doubling those who prefer to practice sports in closed spaces.. But why? “On the one hand, there is the urban lifestyle in which the lack of time predominates, but also the desire to be in shape. There is also a growing individualization of people, which makes it more complicated to create a community,” says the expert..

A cult of the body that never left returns

In Sánchez's analysis, the growing cult of the body that has been established in society does not go unnoticed.. “Bodybuilding and the aesthetic ideal are coming back with great force. What is growing the most is gymnastics in all its forms, which is why calisthenics parks are springing up,” he points out.. Added to this is the marketing that sports brands have carried out in order to popularize running.. If before whoever practiced it was almost a semi-professional, now anyone can go running. You just need the right shoes for it..

The economic crisis is another of the sociological reasons that the UPM professor establishes to explain this boom in outdoor sports in the capital.. “They are either very cheap or free options, directly, as well as public in many other cases. Without going any further, without calisthenics parks, many people would not be able to practice it in any other way,” he emphasizes.. From his point of view, the trend will continue and this reality will become more. Only extreme circumstances, such as unhealthy temperatures or high levels of air pollution, could change the dynamic..

Be in shape

A new question that refers to the why that Sánchez tries to answer refers to the main reason given by Spaniards for doing sports: to be in shape.. “It can be very unhealthy. It is usually answered thinking about aesthetics, rather than health,” he says.. That, added to the widespread desire for greater bodybuilding, can be dangerous.. “If this gets worse, as it seems, the public administration should carry out a campaign aimed at young people to prevent some evils associated with ignorance and pure ignorance of the consequences that practicing sports can have,” says this sociologist..

Likewise, the street is not synonymous with equality either.. “When we see six people on the grass with a monitor, they are probably from a more affluent class than those people who go out to exercise on their own,” determines Sánchez..

This results in a greater probability of injury in the case of the latter, as they do not have a professional nearby to guide them in sports practice.. As the expert concludes, a solution for exercising outdoors to become a safe option for everyone could be in the subject of Physical Education, in which young people could learn how the body works when subjected to it. to efforts and the healthiest way to progress once adulthood has arrived.

Valencian civil society, half mythological animal half real body, has endured the last decades sandwiched between crises. Those that have to do with its poor structure, with the reconversion of part of its bourgeoisie (and the global transformation, with the old industrialists becoming financiers), and also with a certain complex regarding Madrid and Barcelona, dragging along the belief of the era influence of Valencian power beyond its borders.

In that journey, which could have perfectly begun in the nineties and continues to this day, one of the few common denominators that has survived has been the Manuel Broseta Meeting Club.. It was founded in 1984 by a society trying to understand itself, in the midst of modernization of a country that was no longer the same. Four lawyers, a journalist, an educator and an industrialist had the vocation of bringing together protagonists with different ideological inclinations and promoting debate.

Almost forty years later, nearly 500 guests have attended its meetings, from Santiago Carrillo to José María Aznar, from Manuel Fraga to Jordi Pujol, from Artur Mas to Pedro Sánchez, from Eduardo Zaplana to Ximo Puig. The first guest was Gregorio Peces Barba, then president of the Congress of Deputies, and the last – so far – will be this coming Monday the new Archbishop of Valencia, Enrique Benavent, whose figure, due to its unexpected nature, continues to generate expectation.. It has also served to introduce people who were beginning to connect with the city to the local environment, as was the case of Ricardo Bofill or Zubin Mehta..

The morning in January 1992 in which an ETA commando killed Manuel Broseta, shooting him in the back of the head in his office in Blasco Ibañez when he had just finished teaching, Broseta was also the president of the Meeting Club. Since then, it began to bear his name “as a symbol of rejection of any type of violence.”. His figure, associated with listening, became an adjective of a club that sought to listen to the context of its time..

After its first six presidents, the seventh was a woman, Amparo Maties, who won the presidency, which she has held since 2016.. As since its origins, the organization is structured around a board of directors appointed by a general assembly that brings together all the associated people.. It is financed through the fees paid by its members (around 400), without sponsorships.. “The vocation of the Club, as a civil society entity, is to be a space of neutrality, meeting and dialogue,” explains its president..

Perhaps the most surprising thing throughout this time is that no other alternative has appeared or been consolidated as a broad space for dialogue.. Either they have been ephemeral initiatives or they have dealt with narrow segments of society.. The Club, however, now faces a few new needs: that of claiming the fact of the match itself as an attractive attraction, beyond the skirmishes over X (old Twitter); as well as expanding his influence beyond his own circle.

Renew your demographics

The shrinking impact of traditional media also means that the usual speakers resonate less strongly and the dialogue must find other channels.. “The profile of the member – they explain from the Club – has been maintained since its beginnings, it is that of a person with intellectual restlessness, with training and some of them are representatives of organized civil society entities, and are influential people in different areas of society, economic, social, cultural, scientific and political”.

Regarding the danger of failing to renew their own demographics, they consider that “there are young people with this profile and who share these same concerns, who are highly prepared and who hold positions of responsibility.. The closest are the sons and daughters of our members who have closely lived their parents' experience of what it means to belong to an entity whose conferences are attended to obtain information, give opinions and reflect.”. Promoting the generational change of members was one of the objectives of Maties' candidacy.

In the face of polarization and acrimony in the public debate, this kind of micro-Swiss Valencian style claims its neutral position in promoting “the active participation in public life of members and sympathizers from their own political ideology, with their deep respect to people through dialogue, contrast of opinions and exchange of ideas”.

On the way to half a century, some of its pending issues involve expanding its own physical presence in the city (meetings are always held at the SH Valencia Palace hotel) and promoting alternative dialogue formats, an evolution in the face of a society that, as in those early eighties, bears little resemblance to that of his parents.

It's not easy to find a date. But it does not seem unreasonable to place the origin of the degradation of Spanish politics – it is not that it was previously a pristine place and free of pollution – on May 3, 2016, when the Official State Gazette published Royal Decree 184/2016 that dissolved both the Congress and the Senate in order to call new elections. It was the first time that elections were repeated in the recent history of Spain, and since then politics has entered into twists and turns that were unthinkable not too many years ago..

Erosion, although perhaps we should speak of debasement, is certainly not a problem that should be linked to the breakdown of the two-party system in the previous general elections, those of December 2015.. After all, the previous system had failed after the financial crisis of 2008 and the subsequent political crisis, but the metastasis began to flood the entire political system in light of the bankruptcy of an unappealable principle.. Democracy is based on the existence of basic consensus that enables coexistence, and on which the identity of a nation is built.. For example, its territorial structure, its common cultural and symbolic features, the proper functioning of its institutions or even the organization and autonomy of its judicial system.. Also, the political climate.

Since then – just seven years have passed – three general elections have been held (including a second electoral repetition) and no party has ever won more than 137 seats of the 350 seats in Congress, despite the fact that the electoral system clearly benefits both. majority parties. Without this representation premium, their majority would even be very inferior.. The system, to put it directly, is broken, which explains the succession of events and the accumulation of unaddressed problems.. Not because parliament has been fragmented, but because bipartisanship has been replaced by bibloquism.

It is evident that the ammunition that has sown discord – there are other factors but they are less relevant – originally comes from the Catalan independence movement, always disloyal to the rule of law since the times of Francesc Macià on April 14, but the current state of affairs It would not have been possible without the help of the two major parties, which since 2016 have dug deep trenches until reaching the current situation.. The new parties, there is the dramatic case of Ciudadanos, which ended up becoming a hooligan of sectarianism instead of providing fresh air with innovative ideas, have made the trench a little deeper.

The photo of Columbus

“We are not going to agree, we are a radically different party,” said Pedro Sánchez, according to this report from El País, in the federal committee of the PSOE just 48 hours before the Cortes dissolved.. Nor has the PP—neither with Rajoy nor with Casado nor Feijóo—done anything to seek a way of understanding.. Quite the contrary, since at least 2018 (already in full competition with Vox) he has thrown himself into the arms of the extreme right that seeks to liquidate the State of the autonomies and outlaw political parties, and with whom he shared the ominous photo of Colón, institutionalized with the agreements after 28-M.

No one can be surprised, therefore, that the country has serious problems of governability – a concept that goes beyond the approval of laws – and that it has resurrected a trompe l'oeil that consists of understanding politics as two models that are incompatible with each other, when In practice, it is Europe that sets the limits of political action. The independentists know this well because not only did Article 155 put an end to their secessionist delusions, but it was the European Union itself who said that it would never accept Catalonia into its fold for obvious reasons: many more nations would come after it.. Those who maintain that Sánchez can enable a process of self-determination in 21st century Europe are lying, therefore, and not only because it is openly unconstitutional, but that the European Union would never allow it..

Crying over spilled milk, however, is meaningless.. Probably, the worst thing that Spanish politics can do now is to start arguing about who is to blame for reaching this state of affairs.. Obviously, unless politics is understood as a boxing ring in which the contenders end up knocked out by so many blows.. Unfortunately, and given the absence of alternatives, it seems that they want to continue this strategy. It is in this context that we must place the current debate on the more than probable amnesty for those accused of 1-O, whose approximate number would be about 700, according to Òmnium Cultural, audited by Verificat, of which seven would be the escapees. of the Spanish justice.

Clean slate

Amnesties, in principle, are neither good nor bad. They depend on the goal they seek. And it is not necessary to resort to an exercise of comparative law to understand that in certain historical periods they have fulfilled that function.

It is therefore false to say that an amnesty means a clean slate with the past (another thing is from the point of view of the judicial file).. From the political point of view, which is the truly relevant one, nothing is forgotten. Everyone knows and remembers clearly what happened on October 1 and the days that followed, so it makes no sense to insist on comparing the amnesty with either amnesia or oblivion.. It does not even, of course, imply a disqualification of the judging courts because they did their work in accordance with democratic law, approved by popular sovereignty, and there is nothing to reproach.. On the contrary. As former Minister Tomás de la Cuadra recalled a few days ago, it is no coincidence that initially the Ministry of Justice was called Grace and Justice..

The extraordinary nature of the amnesty is precisely what makes it a delicate instrument. In particular, because its concession – which is perfectly legitimate, including in consolidated democracies such as Spain – must be placed in a specific context.. Without context there can be no amnesty, as happened at the beginning of democracy or even when in the first half of the 1980s pardons were granted – comparable in this case to an amnesty – to ETA-PM militants with blood crimes. after 1977. Nothing happened and there were no scandals, simply because they were situated within a certain context: their dissolution.

As a matter of principle, therefore, the priority is to know what is intended with the amnesty. Or what is the same, what is the good to be protected that necessarily has to be of a superior nature to the granting of the amnesty itself, whose nature is political, as is the Constitution itself, which is what sets the limits of its execution. In this case, according to the Government, it facilitates coexistence in Catalonia.

The argument, from a formal point of view, is unappealable.. There is little doubt that if the amnesty, in the general interest, normalizes the political situation in Catalonia – the main source of our current territorial conflicts for more than a decade – it must be granted.. Now, the obligatory question is whether with its approval there are guarantees that what in terms of coexistence can be called the normalization of Catalan politics will be recovered.. Or, at least, the famous implication that Ortega spoke of in his fertile debates with Azaña about Catalonia is temporarily materialized.. And what is no less important, if it is guaranteed that after political peace, in the figurative sense of the term, victory does not come. That is, the construction of a Catalonia based on the will of others, which would be a calamity..

A lame debate

That is why the current debate on the amnesty is lame if it is not framed in a broader context of territorial policy, which is the one that corresponds to the parties with a vocation for Government.. Not only about the fit of Catalonia in the organization of the State, but, in general, about a global review of Title VIII of the Constitution that avoids, for example, converting Congress, through the back door, into a territorial chamber, to which requires qualified majorities that the majority of the left has today..

Political emergencies, however, have led to the construction of the house on the roof being started.. Instead of beginning to move towards a territorial reform that could well lead to an amnesty, we begin with the second, which can only cause confusion and noise.. The same thing happened after the reform of the Statute and the subsequent ruling of the Constitutional Court, instead of seeking solutions to a devilish problem, such as the TC overturning a text approved in a referendum by its recipients, on which at that time popular sovereignty rested. , nothing was done, which led to the events of 2017.

Confusion and noise because the amnesty is framed today in the investiture debate, since the socialist candidate needs the votes of the independentists, who are the ones who demand amnesty now. That is to say, it becomes a matter of State, such as the amnesty, since it affects the entire political system and the constitutional order, into a matter of Government.. A matter of State, by the way, that not only concerns whoever holds power, but also the main opposition party, which precisely because it is a very relevant issue should not engage in demagoguery.. Among other reasons, because of those dusts (the denial of political action) these sludges.

The fact that the amnesty is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition to facilitate political normalization in Catalonia should be at the center of the political debate. It is not. Precisely, because of the instrumentalist and even Manichean character, in the most miserable sense of the term, that is intended to be given to the amnesty by stripping this measure of grace of the underlying problem, which has to do with old problems not resolved due to the apathy of one and the other, and that is what could have emptied the independence desires of content.. This Sunday's demonstration is the proof of the nine. As is thinking that with the amnesty a conflict that has poisoned coexistence is extinguished. In short, a matter of State converted into an auction.

The Canary Islands are on the verge of potato shortages. Several supermarkets have begun to limit the number of tubers that each customer can take and those that remain are paid five times more than they were two years ago..

The problem is that the Canary Islands do not produce all the potatoes they consume. The stocks arrive, more or less, until the beginning of October: the rest have to be imported, usually from England. However, this year the perfect storm has formed: the Canarian harvest has been catastrophic, around a fifth of what is usually normal, and English potato producers have raised an alert due to the presence of the Colorado beetle. in their crops, which prevents them from being exported to the Canary Islands.

Along with the Guatemala moth, the Colorado beetle is the worst enemy of the potato. The insect feeds on the leaves of the plant, preventing it from capturing light for the photosynthetic process and causing its death.. If not stopped in the early stages, the Colorado beetle becomes a pest that is practically impossible to eradicate..

The Government published a ministerial order in 1987 preventing island territories from importing plant organisms from countries with phytosanitary alerts.. “The situation has changed a lot since that order, which was published 35 years ago,” explains Alberto Duque, responsible for potato cultivation at the Coordinator of Farmers and Livestock Organizations (COAG).. “At that time there was a long list of places free of the beetle that has been reduced to a minimum. Now there are hardly any northern European countries left, because the cold is not favorable to the beetle, but the high temperatures have caused them to emerge in Kent, England, a place where we had never seen them.”.

The Canary Islands imported 90% of the potatoes they received that year from England. With that door closed, the options are reduced: find another importer or lift the veto and assume that the Colorado beetle is going to reach the islands.. To Duque, this last option does not sound crazy: “It is a decision that the Cabildo must adopt.”. The ideal would be not to have a beetle, but now we can't even import from the Peninsula, this would open doors.”.

Even with skyrocketing prices, potatoes are a cheap product. Unlike bananas or oranges, which cross oceans every day to reach supermarkets around the world, it is not profitable to transport potatoes over long distances.. That is why producers like Poland or Sweden are usually left out of the equation..

For Victoria Delgado, president of the Agrarian Association of Young Farmers (Asaga) in the Canary Islands, there are intermediate options. “The alert has been launched only in England.. So why does the ban extend to the entire United Kingdom? “We ask that each country be analyzed, one by one, and also that the import of potatoes not be treated the same as that of their seeds.”.

According to Delgado, the deficit in potatoes has only to do with normal-sized potatoes, those consumed in the rest of the Peninsula, and not with old potatoes, as has been published in some of the press, which are smaller. size and are used to make wrinkled potatoes. “The old potato is produced here in the Canary Islands and we have the seeds, there is no problem there,” says Delgado.. “The issue is with normal potatoes, which are present in most of the popular dishes of the Canary Islands and right now are skyrocketing in price.. when you find them”.

A bunch of problems

Increasing potato plantations in the Canary Islands does not seem like an option either.. Water in the Canary Islands is paid twice as much as the communities that pay the most in the Peninsula, so farmers opt for more profitable products: “Bananas. The banana has no rival in the rest of Spain, while the Canarian potato would be like the others, and a lot of it is produced on the Peninsula, only with higher production costs,” says Duque..

Another reason for not expanding the crop is the presence of the Guatemalan moth on the islands.. Unlike the beetle, it does not kill the plant, but eats the inside of the tuber, making the merchandise unfit for sale.. “It arrived in the Canary Islands in the suitcase of a passenger who came from Latin America five years ago and we still have not managed to eradicate it,” says Victoria Delgado..

However, what worries Canarian consumers and producers the most is that this is not a one-time event, but rather that the dynamics can lead the islands to suffer a shortage of potatoes every year.. “The heat of the month of March has wiped out almost all production. On the island of Tenerife it has been dramatic. The problem is that hot springs are occurring more and more and we have no alternative,” explains Victoria Delgado..

Some supermarkets have started to wage war on their own and import from countries like Egypt. Duque, from COAG, doesn't think it's a good idea: “The Egyptian potato is of poor quality and comes with certificates that God knows who backs them up.”. We have already had several cases in which we start to analyze tomatoes from Morocco and see that they do not comply with the regulations, but of course, then we start calling and the company that issues the certificate does not even exist.. “We should be more careful with this.”.

“The direction in which this populism disguised as progressivism is leading us is unique and unequivocal: the impoverishment of public life”. (José Luis Pardo. Discomfort studies. Authenticity policies in contemporary societies. Anagrama Editorial. 2016. Page 257).

During Rajoy's two terms in office (2011-2018), at the water table of Spanish society, the reversal took place that now manifests itself in a defiant way because he ideologically and strategically emptied the right in the same way—inversely—as Zapatero radicalized the left. Starting with the 2015 elections (the PP collapsed to 123 seats and the PSOE to 90) the corrosion of the institutional framework became rampant.. And the collapse of the system began to show its face: the electoral repetitions and the agonizing efforts to form a Government. After the December 2015 elections, others in 2016. PSOE crisis with a traumatic internal rupture that politically gave birth to Sánchez. Legislature of disruption with the first successful motion of censure that took down Mariano Rajoy (May-June 2018) and the emergence of the rupturist purpose after two new general elections in 2019.

From all these circumstances that make up a process of decline and weakness of the constitutional framework, arises the feverish opportunity of the independence movements and an unrecognizable left recklessly tempted to alter the historical terms of the Spanish democracy of 1978 governed in two long periods by the PSOE ( 1982-1996 and 2004-2011). An amnesty law, whether called that or otherwise, would operate in accordance with its nature: a transitional norm from regime to regime through the delegitimization of the first to design a different one..

The PP and anthropophagy

In this context, the intention—nothing new since the Tinell Pact (December 20, 2003)—is to eliminate possibilities for the right to access power.. And what Shlomo Ben-Ami wrote in the prologue to José Varela Ortega's magnificent historical essay entitled The Lords of Power (Galaxia Gutenberg) happens.. 2013): “There is no democracy that can long survive the efforts of important sectors of society, both right and left, to replace a policy of participation with one of exclusion” (page 13) and also that “it is precisely in moments of crisis like the current one when this historic achievement of the Transition is put to the test. “It is possible that at this time they require a refoundation of the Spanish model, a change upon change without breaking the parameters of the coexistence of all in a common political space.”. (page 17).

The PP is a man-eating party—that's how an intelligent jurist defines it to me—because it usually devours its leaders.. There is already gossip in cannibalistic circles around the organization that Núñez Feijóo is amortized. Because the measure of all success is obtaining the Government. Patience has already been discarded as a virtue in the exercise of politics. Aside from the absolute and manifest inconvenience of moving the chair of the former president of the Xunta de Galicia, without ceasing to consider the errors he has committed, how is it possible to ignore the arsenal of effective, direct, enormous power available to the right? Spanish in these moments achieved, also, under the presidency of Núñez Feijóo? It is possible because, after the traumatic July 23, the PP has not fully digested the frustration of its expectations. The question was and is very simple: in a parliamentary system, the party with the most votes and with the most seats is not inevitably responsible for government management, but rather the exercise of an opposition consistent with the democratically obtained resources and that configures an alternative..

Four democratic and institutional powers

The great powers of the right are these:

1) The largest parliamentary group in Congress—137 deputies corresponding to eight million votes—which makes it necessary—introducing Vox into the equation—for the adoption of decisions that require reinforced majorities greater than absolute ones, or that is, a blocking minority, for example, for the reform of the Constitution.

2) Absolute majority in the Senate that, in addition to empowering it in the second legislative reading, allows it to control the spending ceiling as a necessary condition of the General State Budgets (Organic Law of 2012 on Budgetary Stability and Financial Sustainability), approve —or no— new Statutes of Autonomy or their revision (articles 144 et seq. of the EC), and, in addition to exercising cameral control over the President of the Government, forming parliamentary investigation commissions and, finally, authorizing the Executive to apply measures to the protection of article 155 of the Constitution.

3) Government with an absolute majority in the communities of Madrid, Andalusia, Galicia and Rioja and in coalition with Vox in Aragón, Valencian Community, Extremadura, Region of Murcia, Castilla y León, Cantabria, and the mayors-presidencies of the autonomous cities of Ceuta and melilla. The regional governments manage essential public services (health and education, among others), have legislative initiative before the Cortes Generales and powers to apply the framework laws (education, housing).. In addition, they are part of the sectoral commissions on which the viability of government policies depends, among them, the one that studies and debates regional financing, to which must be added the control of the majority of the mayors of provincial capitals ( 30) —two of which, Barcelona and Vitoria, have a mayor from the PSC and the PNV, respectively, by transferring the votes of the PP in exchange for nothing— and more than half of the non-capital cities with more than 50,000 inhabitants.

4) Link with the European People's Party, the majority in the Union Parliament, which provides it with a capacity for international relations and dialogue with great potential (the European popular group is, with 177 deputies – 13 from the Spanish PP – out of 705 , the largest in the Union Parliament).

Mobilization in the street

These are the powers available to the right and with them Núñez Feijóo could concoct an entire credible project—alternative and opposition—as long as he articulates it convincingly.. The power of popular convocation – which today materializes in the great event in Madrid – is not minor and it is a call with as many drawbacks as indications. The overreaction of the PSOE and the Government to the call suggests that the initiative causes concern because it opens an unexpected front: the public and unavoidable expression of a radical disagreement with a possible measure—the amnesty—that would act lethally on the effective validity of the Constitution of 1978. It is not an apocalyptic reflection but derived from the most basic legal and, above all, political logic..

The use of the street must be administered carefully, with temperance and with a purposeful message.. But it is legitimate, although its effectiveness is like that of medications: it causes side effects. Furthermore, raising political issues with the banner has been a specialization of the left that feels robbed when the right invades that territory that it considers to be an ideological pasture of its property.. The left in the street is predictable; the right in the street is a coup. Isabel Rodríguez mentioned the rope in the hanged man's house.

Pablo Iglesias' warning

Núñez Feijóo, whatever the outcome of today's rally in quantitative and qualitative terms (it coincides with the annual party of the PSC and the Alderdi Eguna or party day of the PNV), has a legitimate opportunity on Tuesday in the debate on his investiture: to assemble a good speech and reply correctly. It is not easy and the shot must not be missed.. The arguments for a convincing dissertation are many and the powers that the PP accumulates are sufficient to deal with the left and the independence movement face to face..

As often happens, in the face of the trompe l'oeil of smiles with which Yolanda Díaz wants to make a political statement, everything about Pablo Iglesias is understood without the need for exegesis. It's like the canary in the mine. And this is what he wrote on September 14 (“Aznar and the historical commitment”) in Ctxt: “what is worrying is not that they are taking their social bases out into the streets, but that they already have their army of judges, commanders ready. police and military and media gunmen, in front of a PSOE that does not seem to understand that this goes far beyond the investiture. “This is about the end of the '78 regime and the confrontation with a right that is much more powerful than the 171 seats that PP, Vox and UPN have.”. If we discount the hyperbole in which the founder of Podemos and his war-civilist language abound, the substance of his thesis is true: the right—which goes beyond the PP—has more power than it seems, although, perhaps, the right itself politics don't believe it.

The relationship with Vox

Finally, the PP must make a definitive strategic decision about its relationship with Vox. The cut or cortijo. The behavior of Abascal's party has been painful, but the resignations of the PP have been no less so, particularly in Extremadura and the Region of Murcia. The impositions of Jorge Buxadé in the appointment of presidents of regional legislatures with such foolish political profiles, so far from the natural average of the citizen, show that a sector of the radical party – the one that has separated Espinosa de los Monteros – is torn between administration of power wherever possible and the intention to destroy the PP to ensure its longevity in the opposition against Sánchez. So this clarification of Genoa is urgent because its future is going.

The recipe is to absorb again that political manifestation that has no parallel with the stimuli that have given effect to apparently similar parties in the West and overcome the division of the right-wing bloc to compete with more advantages against the left-wing bloc and independentists.. It does not at all suggest an opposite solution, that is, the normalized cohabitation between the PP and Vox because those of Abascal are a ballast to the possibilities of regrowth of the Popular Party. The management of that pairing has been terrible.

The example of how members are treated, especially the unwanted ones, is Pedro Sánchez himself: not a bad word or a bad gesture towards Unidas Podemos or towards ERC, PNV, Bildu and, now, also Junts, even if they accuse the PSOE of having been behind the coup of 23-F. On the contrary, the extreme harshness that he applies to his adversaries, to which Feijóo himself can attest. You don't have to look like your opponent, but sometimes you do have to learn from their stratagems by reinterpreting them.. The PP, in short, has a hand of cards with the possibility of launching unexpectedly impressive schemes after an investiture by Núñez Feijóo that, surely, will not prosper, but that could harbor a lot of political power for the immediate future if the Spanish democratic right puts its foot down. long lights.

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The school year and the autumn of 2023 have already begun and the festivals of some Spanish towns continue to be celebrated, commemorating their patron saints and patron saints.. This Sunday, September 24, La Mercè is celebrated, in honor of the Virgin of Mercè. This is a Major Festival of Barcelona capital, and it is celebrated in style.

As this year the holiday on September 24 falls on a Sunday, it was decided to move it to September 25, so next Monday will be a holiday and non-working day in the capital of Barcelona.. On the occasion of these holidays, Barcelona is filled with festivities, with cultural activities, exhibitions and concerts, from September 22 to Monday 25.

As Barcelona City Council explains on its website, the legend of the Virgin of La Mercè dates back to 1218.. On September 24 of that year, this Virgin appeared to three people at the same time: to King James I, to Saint Peter Nolasco and to Saint Ramón de Penyafort.. It is said that the request for all three was the same: to create an order of monks dedicated to freeing Christians imprisoned by the Saracens.. The figure of La Mercè gained strength in 1687, when it is said that she saved the city of Barcelona from a plague of locusts, thus becoming the patron saint of the city..

Holiday in many municipalities of Catalonia

September 25 is also a local, school and non-working holiday in other municipalities of Catalonia, where La Mercè is also celebrated, by tradition or in imitation of the capital's festivities.. Thus, it will be festive in Montcada and Reixac, La Palma de Cervelló, Vallgorguina, Cervera, Santa Coloma de Gramenet, L'Hospitalet del Llobregat, Sant Joan Despí, Almacelles, Viver de Segarra, El Prat de Llobregat (celebrating their fiesta mayor) and Castellví de Rosanes (for the local Sant Miquel festival).

🎉 From September 22 to 25, #Barcelona celebrates its main festival: La Mercè. 🥁 Get ready to experience the cultural wealth of the Catalan capital up close! Fireworks, giants, concerts and much more. 🎆 .https://t.co/aQsaJv7DpB pic.twitter.com/lOpxvMUq02

— Visit Barcelona (@VisitBCN_ES) September 18, 2023

On the other hand, there will be other municipalities close to Barcelona in which September 25, and therefore the 24th, will be a working day and not a holiday.. These are Badalona, ​​​Cornellà de Llobregat. Esplugues de Llobregat, Sant Just Desvern, El Masnou, Montgat, Sant Adrià de Besòs, Sant Cugat del Vallès, Sant Feliu de Llobregat and Tiana.

In addition, September 25 is also a holiday on the island of El Hierro. Specifically, Our Lady of the Kings, patron saint of the island, and its main festival, on September 24, are celebrated every year.. But since that day falls on a Sunday, the local and non-working holiday for the people of El Hierro has moved to Monday, September 25..

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This Saturday, September 23, the equinox will occur, autumn will officially begin. At the equinox, the Sun is located at the closest point to the equator, and day and night are approximately the same length around the world.. From there we enter the autumn season, in which the days will become increasingly shorter and colder in our hemisphere, since the other part of the planet will be receiving a greater proportion of the sun's rays..

After having experienced one of the hottest summers on record in Spain, with four heat waves included, autumn brings with it some relief with a logical drop in temperatures, although the forecasts indicate that we are not going to say goodbye completely. heat. The Aemet (State Meteorological Agency) already warned a week ago that “there is a high probability (greater than 60% in the Peninsula and 70% in the archipelagos) that the meteorological autumn will be warmer than normal”.

Now, other experts also agree that the fall of 2023 will be hotter than normal throughout Spain, and it will also rain even more than usual on these dates..

A warmer autumn

From the well-known website specialized in meteorology Eltiempo.es they assure that during this autumn it is very possible that temperatures will be “above normal throughout the country”, and especially in the eastern and northeastern areas of Spain: ” Eastern Cantabrian, Aragon, Navarra, La Rioja, Catalonia, Balearic Islands, Valencian Community and eastern Castilla y León”.

For the rest of mainland Spain and the Canary Islands, Eltiempo.es points out that during the months of October, November and December it will be “warmer than normal”, while in the aforementioned regions the weather will be “much warmer than normal”. normal”. According to the same source, these anomalous temperatures will also affect the sea water, which will also be warmer than normal on these dates..

A rainier autumn

Both Eltiempo.es and Aemet also point out that this autumn has a good chance of being rainier than other years.. The Aemet predicted that “there is a 50% probability that it will be rainier than normal”, while Eltiempo.es points out that in this sense the eastern half of the country and the eastern Canary Islands will be “within normal “, while the western half of the peninsula and the westernmost islands of the Canary Islands will encounter “slightly wetter than normal” weather.

They believe that the area most affected by this anomaly will be western Galicia, which they differentiate without the word “slightly” and directly indicating “wetter than normal.”