The struggle that is taking place within the right, and that particularly affects the present and the future of Genoa, 13, aims to resolve a long-standing complicated relationship. The question in the Popular Party, which was present before the elections, and which had a definitive effect on the strategy that was designed, is still alive: what to do with Vox. The debate is interesting because of its impact on Spanish politics, but also because it reproduces many of the dilemmas present in the European People's Party. Let's remember that in 2024 there will be elections in the EU and that, as they say from Vox, “they will be very important”.

In this debate, Vox has something to say, it is not the exclusive decision of the popular: the relations of force in many municipalities and communities have made it urgent to face what kind of relationship they are going to have, and what will be the guidelines that will govern it in the coming months. In Bambú the anger is great, since they blame Genoa for having followed a counterproductive strategy that has left the PP without a government and weakened them.

Santiago Abascal has made it explicit that the smoke from the demoscopy has been the first responsible for the electoral failure. Sources close to the leadership of the party are more forceful: “The biggest mistake of this campaign has been that Bendodo buys the play from Michavila, who is the one who ultimately designs the approach”. From there, the pollster euphoria that attributes a great result to the PP “is repeated by the media, as if it were a reality. But that could only be put into practice if we were demonized, and they have dedicated themselves to that”. The operation has not come out and “they will have to decide what their relationship with us will be”.

The fast way or the slow way

There are two theses in the PP, those of those who understand that it is necessary to return to the Aznarista scene of the PP as the common house of all the right, and that of those who prefer to approach Vox now and deal with differences in the future; after all, the PSOE formed a government coalition with Podemos, and Pablo Iglesias and Irene Montero are out of Parliament and the leader of the new space, Sumar, is much more in tune with Sánchez. The popular ones consider the fast way to reduce the space to Vox or the slow way, and both pose problems, internal and external.

If you want to go all out with Vox, and return to the Aznar hypothesis, a profile like Feijóo's is less forceful than Díaz Ayuso's. If you want to maintain a close equidistance, in order to consolidate local governments, it will be difficult to close the door on them. And there is an evident division in the popular bosom on how to navigate the times to come.

In Vox, however, they do not quite understand these popular doubts. “They forget, they say from the Vox leadership, that when Juanma Moreno achieved the absolute majority in Andalusia, Vox also grew”. “There are those who continue to want to kill us in Genoa, but we must remember that Mañueco or Mazón are presidents, and Feijóo is not”.

Feijóo and Weber have the same problem

A relevant aspect of the debate on the Spanish right is its impact on European positions, because the European People's Party has its own dilemmas. Until now, it exhibited a firm position when it came to denying space to the extreme right. But the arrival of Meloni to the government seems to be changing something within the popular: its leader, Manfred Weber, has already indicated that he is open to this position changing, and not only in specific votes within the community institutions, what is already happening, but when it comes to forging pacts when the European elections take place.

Sources from the Vox leadership affirm that the dilemma of Weber and that of Feijóo is very similar: “The leadership of the PPE may want one thing, but then they have to face their barons, the leaders of the popular parties of the States, some of whom rule with our allies. The reality is prevailing. The same thing could happen to Feijóo, since his desire to move away from Vox clashes with the needs of his local leaders, who “prefer to govern with us rather than stay in opposition.”

The ultimate terms of this dilemma lie in the party's pragmatic needs and its moral stances.. The EPP had a firm position of denying space to their rights. However, that starting position is changing: “The PPE would prefer that Draghi had stayed, and go hand in hand with the socialists in the institutions, like here”. However, the relationship of forces is changing, and the 2024 elections will be decisive in many ways, including ideological ones.

Madrid has become the greatest pole of attraction for international university students, but also for those who opt for internal mobility. The high cost of rent and the increase in the amount of electricity and gas bills have made the university residences and the different halls of residence throughout the region more than feasible options to find a place to reside while studying.. Thus, university residences are becoming a succulent sector.

The data warn of this dynamic: the Madrid region receives 45,000 students each year from other autonomous communities, which represents 19.5% of the total student body.. This percentage is not very far from that corresponding to international students, since the Community of Madrid absorbs up to 12,000 young people from other countries each year, which translates into 23% of the total international students who choose Spain as their destination.. In addition, of the 10,200 places built in university residences in recent years, 22% are located in the downtown region.

These data are what have made the international operator and manager of student residences in Europe Nido Living opt for Aravaca to open its next residence. To his credit is the management of some 12,000 beds in the United Kingdom and Europe since its creation in 2007, a figure that drops to the current 9,000, distributed between Denmark, Ireland, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom..

Javier Baines is the General Manager of the company in Spain and will be the next director of the residency planned in Aravaca. “We saw that Madrid is always ahead in terms of receiving students from other places, either from different regions of Spain or from other countries, so the potential we find is enormous,” he says..

Aravaca will only be the beginning, as the university residence company plans to open two more in the capital by 2025. “This boom is due to the fact that the sector has become very professional, they are practically hotels for students. Parents choose us for all the services and security we offer”, adds Baines himself..

They prefer a closed price

To all this is added, of course, the high cost of rent and what living independently entails: payment of bills, cleaning, maintenance. “People are quite afraid of that and parents end up opting for a fixed price, which is what we offer them here, and not having to be with various contracts for a period that does not exceed one year, on many occasions,” he emphasizes. the General Manager of Nido Living. According to his calculations, most students stay at his facilities about 43 weeks a year..

The prices, where appropriate, range from 875 euros per month for a room with a shared kitchen to 1,400 euros for a single room with a private terrace and full board. That is what those interested who want to stay at Nido Living Aravaca will have to pay starting next year, an enclave that has 12,000 square meters, five buildings and 501 rooms. In addition, its location is not trivial. As Baines states, “the area also has enormous potential, it is well connected and there are many universities, both public and private, around it”.

rent control

Alejandro del Saz, president of the central student delegation at the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM), is not unaware of this increasingly present reality in the capital. “The subject of the rental price is very commented here, among the students. Nobody can afford a flat, so we rent rooms that no longer go below 500 euros,” he says.. To find a lower residential offer, the student body must move significantly away from the study center.

The student representative also indicates that one of the advantages of living in a residence lies in the camaraderie that is formed by continually being with people of a similar age range and, normally, with similar interests.. In any case, their main demand is to control rental prices in stressed cities like Madrid: “Here people think more about tourism than about students”.

From his point of view, the other alternative, the residence halls, is a better option than a university residence, although there is never room to enter. “And they always give scholarships. They are centers attached to a university that operate at a loss, they are not profitable. It is a pity that there is not a greater offer because, in these cases, the same ones that manage your university degree also manage your accommodation and maintenance”, details Del Saz.

No colleges

Alejandro Cremades corroborates this statement of the low supply of halls of residence for such high demand. “Fortunately, there are waiting lists for our residence halls, they are always full,” he says..

Unlike university residences, these centers are considered non-profit educational institutions that, on a mandatory basis, accompany the student with a training program. “Throughout the years of the schoolboy's stay, he is provided with a series of training in complementary skills to the career”, says Cremades.

Regarding prices, the president of the Association comments that “there is everything” due to the diversity of halls of residence: public, private, from foreign countries, military… In any case, the range is between 10% and 20% cheaper than the cost of renting an apartment, according to Cremades himself. The scale is between 900 euros and 1,400 euros per month.

“What happens with the flats is that many are in the upper part of this fork and without including the services that they do have in the residence, so they are forced to share a flat but, sometimes, the accounts do not work out either”, remarks the president of the Madrid Association. In this sense, Cremades maintains that at the UCM practically one in ten students is awarded a scholarship “to ensure equal opportunities”.

On the other hand, although the high demand for places is a fact in Madrid, a new residence hall has not been built for more than two decades.

Bad winds blow in Europe for the independence movement. Two recent official reports link Catalan separatism to terrorism and Russian espionage to destabilize the European Union. His ties to organized crime even come to light. In short, Europe is beginning to distance itself from sovereignism and its methods. One of the works prepared by community leaders is entitled Hybrid Threats. A comprehensive Resilience Ecosystem (Hybrid threats: a comprehensive resilience ecosystem) and was developed in March 2023 by Rainer Jungwirth, Hanna Smith, Étienne Willkomm, Jukka Savolainen, Marina Alonso Villota, Maxim Lebrun, Aleski Aho and Georgios Giannopoulos.

This study states openly that in 2017 “Catalan separatists intended to create their own structures, separate from their Spanish counterparts, in the banking, telecommunications and energy sectors, seeking external support and financing, constantly using different platforms to disseminate campaigns of misinformation and propaganda”.

The story is priceless. “The Catalan dispute was instrumentalized by Russia in an attempt to undermine and damage the integrity and functionality of democracy, create cascading effects in other Member States and include in decision-making processes. The former leaders of the Catalan independence movement were linked to Russian intelligence agents and organized crime figures.. The aforementioned police and European intelligence reports even establish links between the destabilization attempts in Catalonia with those connections”.

On the mobile of the head of the Puigdemont Office, Josep Lluís Alay, were found appointments, comments, photos and an excessive interest in some mafia leaders, such as the top czar of the Russian mafia, Zakhar Kalashov, with Aslan Usoyan, with Vasily Kristoforov or with the also capo Koba Shermazashvili. Alay also met in Moscow with two former Russian spies, the couple formed by Elena Vavilova and Andrei Bezrukov, detained in the United States and later exchanged for Western spies..

Meeting in Barcelona

Nor should we forget that Carles Puigdemont himself came to receive obscure characters who officially worked for the Kremlin's secret services in his official office at the Palau de la Generalitat, with the aim of obtaining international recognition for a hypothetical independent Catalonia.. But the EU report reports that Russia's true objective “was not an independent Catalonia, but deep and prolonged internal instability in Spain and in the EU. To this end, Russia used as tools the support of political actors, the polarization of society and the exploitation of social divisions, the promotion of contradictory narratives, the financing of cultural groups and think tanks, the discrediting of [Spain's] leadership ], cyber operations and foreign direct investment”.

The report notes that although Russia did not create the problem, it “exploited it for its own benefit” through massive fake news and disinformation campaigns.. In several diagrams reproduced with infographics, the EU warns that “Russian political actors supported the separatist policy [of Catalonia]” through “dubious or illegal” sources. The Kremlin took advantage of the economic uncertainty to “exploit the economic difficulties in Catalonia and support the separatists” and reports that “disinformation campaigns and Russian propaganda were aimed at continuing to promote the Catalan separatist movement and polarize society.”. It also assumes that the Eastern power “provided financial and logistical support for the illegal referendum carried out by the separatists” and that it carried out “cybernetic operations to destabilize the situation in Catalonia”..

This report also makes reference to a work by the Warsaw Institute dated October 5, 2017, that is, four days after the referendum.. In this letter it is already stated that “the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, announced that the referendum in Catalonia was an internal matter of Spain. Unofficially, Russia seems to support the Catalans (…) Therefore, Russia seeks to share and undermine Western democratic institutions (…) The fact is that some separatist circles in Catalonia are somehow connected with Russia and Russian hackers and trolls support Catalan independence on the Internet. The Russian media have published a quote from Enrich (sic) Folch, from Solidaridad Catalana, who said that an independent Catalonia would support Moscow in the international arena and, furthermore, would officially recognize the self-determination of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Additionally, the Russians and their allies (including Julian Assange and Edward Snowden) have been very active on Twitter and Facebook.. The referendum was commented on by no less than 600 pro-Kremlin accounts, both real and fake..

The continuous opening of websites and portals of the illegal referendum was the work of Russian pirates, but the Canadian laboratory Citizen Lab also intervened, which later produced the report known as the Catalangate, whose main premise was that Spain had indiscriminately spied on pro-independence leaders or activists. Parallel to the presentation of this work, there was a disinformation campaign linking false data with true until creating a moderately credible account of Catalan nationalism, although based on falsified data..

The Europol report

Another of the reports reviled by sovereignism comes from Europol and reports that “in Spain, the Catalan and Basque independence movements are currently the most active and violent within the Spanish separatist scene. His stories combine separatism with far-left views, focusing on messages against the Spanish state and its institutions, also focusing on broader issues such as capitalism”.

Faced with this statement, the MEPs Carles Puigdemont, Toni Comín, Clara Ponsatí, Diana Riba and Jordi Solé filed a battery of questions this July to be answered in writing. The Junts and ERC MEPs point out that “questions are raised about the accuracy and objectivity of these assessments”.

MEPs err in their assertions: Europol reports that in 2022 there was a terrorist attack in Spain, but there were 48 terrorism-related arrests. Oblivious to this paramount question, political representatives ask: “Could the Commission detail the specific criteria used by Europol when assessing the levels of activity and violence of the Catalan and Basque independence movements in its recent report on terrorism?”. They also want to know “what measures the Commission has taken to ensure the accuracy, objectivity and reliability of the data and information that Member States provide to Europol for the preparation of these annual reports on terrorism”. Finally, they demand: “Has the Commission checked the facts and data presented in the Europol report with the definition of terrorism that appears in directive (EU) 2017/541?”.

Last April, Puigdemont, Comín and Ponsatí already tried to discredit the State Attorney General for his work in 2021, in which he “classifies the Catalan independence movement as national terrorism”. The prosecutor lists “the arrests for damages and those made in connection with an 'illegal' demonstration and details the 'violent and sabotage actions' including causing public disorder, blocking roads, putting up banners, the burning of flags and even damage to Francoist symbols”. Thus, based on the aforementioned directive, they ask the Commission if it considers that “the classification of the aforementioned acts as terrorist activities by the authorities of the Member States is in accordance with the definition of 'terrorist crimes' established in directive 2017/541”.

ANC protest

To complete the offensive, the president of the Catalan National Assembly (ANC), Dolors Feliu, sent a letter on Thursday to Catherine De Bolle, executive director of Europol, in which she demands the withdrawal of “criminalizing content about the Catalan independence movement “appealing that they are false data provided by Spain against the Catalan “national minority”. Feliu underlines on several occasions that sovereignty is a movement of a non-violent nature and that the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe approved a resolution in 2921 in which it said that “none of the political representatives incited violence”. The president of the ANC takes the opportunity to attack Spain and includes the statement that “the tendency of the Spanish State to use terrorism to delegitimize, silence and persecute democratic political dissent is very worrying”. He cites Amnesty International, Fair Trials and EuroMed Rights to support his accusations.

Feliu also demands that the deputy director of Europol, Jean-Philippe Lecouffe, explain “what mechanisms and processes have been used to corroborate these accusations, taking as good the information provided by the Spanish authorities, which describes the Catalan independence movement as violent”, since that the inclusion of these claims in the 2023 report “may have harmful criminalizing effects. This poses a serious threat to democracy and jeopardizes rights such as freedom of expression, assembly and peaceful association, and undermines Article 21 of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, which prohibits discrimination based on reason for belonging to a national minority and political opinion”.

“Stop immediately”, “ABS defect”, “Workshop stop”, “PTO1 conditions not OK”. These are the messages that can be read on the screens of some of the new pumper trucks of the Infoca Plan and that is forcing them to be repaired in the middle of the season of high risk of forest fires. A situation that the unions are denouncing and on which the Junta de Andalucía responded that one was already operational.

After this newspaper reported that at least two of these vehicles were damaged, and that the Ministry of the Presidency, Interior, Social Dialogue and Administrative Simplification specified that they were back in operation after correcting “small oil leaks due to bad joints state or defective”, this Monday there were another three that were being repaired. Specifically, in a mechanical workshop specialized in trucks that is located on Torre del Mar street in Malaga, in the Santa Teresa industrial estate.. Sources from the firefighting service consulted by this newspaper stated that they were vehicles attached to the checkpoints of Alhaurín el Grande, El Burgo and Marbella..

Sergio Blanco, delegate of the Independent Union of Andalusian Workers (UITA), reiterated the same question he had asked days ago: “Have these vehicles gone through a test bench before delivery?”. And he asked for a definitive solution to this problem because “the safety of the Infoca Plan workers is at risk”.

Sources from the aforementioned ministry only confirmed on Wednesday that one of the three trucks had been repaired and was already incorporated into the device.. The other two, as verified by this newspaper through graphic tests, were still in the same workshop.

The discomfort is growing among the forest firefighters, who are documenting the alleged failures with images, and of which the computer system informs with messages on the truck's screen.

“Poorly designed and with engine problems,” said Blanco, who recalled that on July 1 they communicated to those responsible for the device a series of “important” deficiencies detected in the vehicles and that have not yet received a response. “We are talking about new trucks, not ones that have been bought second hand and that are 20 years old”.

The council, in a previous response, defended that “never before had Infoca had heavy firefighting vehicles so effective and safe for extinction and forest firefighters”, although the latter, according to the aforementioned trade union organization, “transfer to us that they did not stop giving trouble”. This situation, they add, limits the operation of the service “in the period of maximum risk”. The bomber trucks under suspicion are 17 and are distributed throughout the community.

Meanwhile, this Wednesday there was a new meeting between the representatives of the IUF, UGT, CCOO and CSIF with those responsible for the Infoca Plan where they were given to understand that the “faults” had been corrected and they downplayed them..

The sources consulted complained that the regional Administration still does not make a clear statement on issues such as seniority, and to the complaints expressed they have added that “the rest periods between days are not being met”. An issue that they have asked to discuss, and that they are willing to take to court because “the minimum 12 hours between shifts are not respected”.

The four unions recently warned that “our patience has run out”. “No progress is being made, nor is the future of the Environment and Water Agency (Amaya) specified,” they criticized after the launch of the new Agency for Security and Comprehensive Emergency Management of Andalusia (Asema) and the process integration into it.” We have always said that if two agencies are to be established, both must be operational. The Junta de Andalucía must provide them with human and material resources”, they pointed out this Thursday in a new statement, in which they announced that “it is expected that in the month of September the workers will be officially notified that they are going to join the Asema”.

The king emeritus arrived and the car window did not even go down. Not a word, not a greeting, nothing. Inside the vehicle, Don Juan Carlos had to observe, like scenes from a silent movie, the journalists who surrounded the car, jumping so as not to be left behind, gesturing, asking questions, bringing the microphone closer in case the passenger seat window went down a few centimeters.. We can imagine the questions, are you going to visit your son? What have they told you in the Zarzuela? Is there any discomfort? Do your daughters, your grandchildren come to see you…? Through the glass, you could only see the smile of the king emeritus, but without moving his lips, and that half-wedge greeting with his hand, so characteristic of royalty.

Neither was his host, Pedro Campos, his friend from the seventies, when they met at the regattas that now serve as an excuse for the self-exiled king to return to Spain to calm the attacks of nostalgia, after establishing his residence in the United Arab Emirates.. This is how he has chosen it to be able to protect his heritage, only a couple of visits a year. It was last January when he communicated it to the Spanish Tax Agency, and this month of June was the first in which the citizen Juan Carlos de Borbón did not have the obligation to present the personal income tax return in the country that reigned for so many years..

They will no longer catch him as in previous years, when the years of financial engineering of the emeritus to hide his fortune outside of Spain came to light. The absolute opacity of his new tax residence allows him that, not having to explain his money to anyone in Spain, but he has the forced cost of not being able to step on this floor for more than a few days counted a year. Only a few days and in silence, which is the second obligation he has had to assume to continue spending a few days racing on his beloved Sanxenxo beach, perhaps the most painful toll for the king emeritus.

From self-exile, expatriation or fright, as preferred, this is the third visit to Spain made by the person who reigned for 39 years and 7 months after the dictator's death. This silence of the emeritus, this discretion, is not accidental, it is the demonstration that his son has won his pulse.

This time, the emeritus king has arrived in Vigo with the same notoriety that an extravagant millionaire or a rock star from the sixties who comes to lie down in a hammock would have done.. In a private plane and with absolute institutional indifference. It was exactly what Felipe VI wanted, what he expressed and led him to openly confront him on the two previous trips. Above all, on the first visit, in May of last year, when everything ended in a sour and tense meeting between father and son..

In El Confidencial, José Antonio Zarzalejos told it in detail, without a doubt the Spanish journalist with the best information on what is happening in the Royal House since before the abdication of Juan Carlos, which will be ten years old in June 2024. Due to the strict rules of protocol and prudence that are used in the Headquarters of State, any word, any adjective, acquires a special, exponential value.. For this reason, when in the last visit of the emeritus it was conveyed to public opinion that the Royal House considered Juan Carlos's visit to Sanxenxo “a great mistake”, that there was deep discomfort for all this, we can assure that the seriousness of the situation was maximum.

Even more, because apart from being reminded that his visits to Spain had to be short and discreet and that he was not complying; In addition to that, Juan Carlos was violating the regulations approved in 2015 on gifts and favors to members of the Royal Household, of which he continues to be a part.. That was one of the first measures that Felipe VI imposed when he was appointed King of Spain, to send from the beginning a very clear signal of the new time that was coming to the Crown.. Austerity, discretion, exemplarity. And it was not possible that this line of firmness would be broken, precisely, by Juan Carlos I, with public ostentation of luxuries every time he arrived in Spain..

It has already been pointed out here on several occasions that the severity with which the excesses of the citizen Juan Carlos de Borbón must be treated can never tarnish the praise and admiration of his historical role, as promoter and pilot of the Transition with which Spain achieved the unequaled milestone of moving from a dictatorship to a full democracy peacefully, “from law to law”, as that unprecedented strategy of Torcuato Fernández Miranda was summed up. Nothing can muddy that period that belongs to all Spaniards as heritage. Nothing and no one, neither Juan Carlos de Borbón.

For this reason it is so irritating that the person who managed to establish a full democracy in Spain, in the form of a parliamentary monarchy, has become in his last years the main threat, the best asset of those who want to destroy that period of our recent history. and destabilize the country. We can also verify this during this visit: the silence of the emeritus corresponds to the silence of his worst enemies, from the independentistas to the radicals of the left.. This time there are no Echeniques or Ruffians setting fire to the networks with insults and contempt. Of course, we cannot ignore the moment either, these days of deep hangover after the general elections that have truncated the claimed victory of the right. We can all intuit that this same visit from Juan Carlos would be something else and the president in pectore at this time would have been Alberto Núñez Feijóo. Much more if the result of the polls had been a coalition government with the extreme right… In that case, not even the maximum discretion would have spared the scandal of the Montanera left, falsely speculating on the return of the emeritus spoiled by Feijóo. But that is part of what will never be fixed, political demagogy. So the best thing is to stay with what we can verify and celebrate, that Felipe VI has won a new pulse for his father.

The agenda of the Canary Islands Coalition and the PP reveals the low degree of execution of the European Funds under the Executive of the socialist Ángel Víctor Torres. For example, of the 31.5 million euros planned for the creation of places in the first cycle of Children, a competition held by Podemos during the last legislature, as of June 27, only 5 million euros had been executed..

The data from the economic intelligence apparatus of the Canary Islands Government, the so-called Economic-Financial and Logistics System, also indicate that for “person-centered care equipment”, that is the name of item C22.11, with 48.7 million of euros, none have been executed. The tourist disaster of the islands during the covid in all its waves is taken calmly in the Canary Islands: only 18.1 million euros have been executed out of a total budget of 103.4. Regarding item C14.12, “tourism resilience strategies for the Canary Islands and the Balearic Islands”, of an expected amount of 70 million, not a single euro has yet been received from Madrid.

The new Canarian Executive has to start the machinery to promote the construction of rental housing. Of a planned item of 22.9 million, only 4.7 have been invested. Nothing has been executed from the 22 million item destined for the rehabilitation of public buildings, which depends on the Canarian Government. And this is how the regional program for the digitization of the education system goes: 50 million euros in budget, 4 million executed as of June 27, 2023.

The president of the Las Palmas construction association, ACEP, María Salud Gil, points out that in the field of infrastructure, the sector is asking for the use of European funds linked to the ecological transition, digital transformation, energy efficiency or community facilities. The decree of European funds linked to the creation of affordable housing stocks in the Canary Islands reserves 700 euros per square meter to build them. In addition, the employers' association of Las Palmas hopes that “a man or a woman who knows the mechanics of budgeting and housing plans will be appointed as head of the General Directorate of Housing, if we are not lost”.

In his opinion, “the problem is that the houses that are built are made for a segment of the population that is solvent, but what really should worry is why houses are not incorporated into the market to balance prices and production costs. And, above all, to attend to the more than 20,000 registered housing applicants”, to whom he believes that many others must be added “who are not because they have no faith in the system”.

“Not only do we have to talk about protected and social housing, we have to talk about housing at affordable prices, so that they can be bought by young people, so that incipient families have the possibility of acquiring them, they are people who do not enter the free market or the protected. What's up with those people?”. Gil stresses that for this we only have to “manage the legal framework in which we find ourselves: now there is a legal framework and financing that allows thousands of affordable homes to be made if the public and private initiatives are able to cooperate”.

Some historians have located the most immediate origin of some of Spain's territorial problems, although not the cause, in the Pact of San Sebastián (1930).. From that meeting, held in secrecy, some say that at the home of its promoter, Fernando Sasiain y Brau, and others at the Hotel de Londres, came the commitment of a broad group of right-wing and left-wing intellectuals and politicians proclaim the Republic in the face of the debacle of the monarchy after its determined support for Primo de Rivera.

That pact faced the so-called national question from the commitment to give “a legal solution to the Catalan problem”. However, nothing was said about how to deal with the territorial structure of the State, either from a federal or a unitary vision.. The result was dramatic because, on April 14, Francesc Macià unilaterally proclaimed the Catalan Republic within the Spanish Federal Republic.

It is evident that before the San Sebastián meeting, territorial problems already existed, and the First Republic definitively demonstrates this, but there is little doubt that the national question went through the Second Republic, to the point of significantly conditioning its outcome..

The 1978 Constitution addressed the territorial issue from the perspective of administrative and political decentralization, but incompletely. What was left was a denatured Senate, although it was formally declared a Chamber of Territorial Representation, absolutely useless to channel problems. Its only use has been, paradoxically, to seize powers from Catalonia in application of article 155 of the Constitution. The model that was improvised was the so-called autonomous State, which is a kind of imitation of classic federalism, and which has undoubtedly given notable results.. It is a reality that the autonomous State has coincided in time with the greatest social, economic and political progress in Spain in centuries.

The lack of specification in matters of competence of Title VIII, however, has led to a multitude of lawsuits before the Constitutional Court, and what is more politically relevant, the idea has spread that the model, far from being closed, is subject to the correlation of forces between the central Administration, ultimately the tenant of Moncloa, and some regional governments, particularly the Basque Country and Catalonia.

The strategy of victimhood

Not only that. Nationalist pressure, in order to compete politically, has generated a scenario of grievances in which some regional barons, whether they are socialists or conservatives, frequently use territorial tensions to win votes to the extent that they add fuel to the fire or play card. Victimism has borne fruit in territories such as Madrid, although also in Catalonia in the opposite direction. Moreover, the increase in political instability in recent years, at least since the CiU dropped the González government in 1993 by not supporting its State Budget, has to do with territorial issues.. Even, sometimes, above corruption or the economic situation.

It is not a subjective feeling resulting from sectarian analysis. In May of this year, the CIS published a study on the cultural and European identities of the Spaniards in which questions were asked about the different models of territorial organization. 13% responded that their preference was a centralized system without the existence of autonomous communities. Along the same lines, another 19.8% declared themselves in favor of a State in which the autonomous communities have less autonomy than at present. In total, 32.8%. In other words, one in three Spaniards is suspicious of the current model.

How many like the current system? to something less. Specifically, 31.6%. It is, without a doubt, a very important comparison that can explain, in part, why three million Spaniards vote for Vox, which is the only party that proposes a return to the unitary state of Francoism. last two data. When those surveyed were asked about how the organization of the State has functioned in recent years, 69.4% thought that regular, bad or very bad, while only 29.2% considered that it was good or very good (the rest or do not know or do not answer).

The CIS survey is completed with two other responses.

All the surveys, obviously, are susceptible to being questioned, and it is not necessary to refer to the most recent examples, but what the CIS reflects is that the autonomous system, as it is designed, is far from being a problem resolved.

The autonomous carajal

On the contrary, it was at the center of Rajoy's two legislatures —the procés— and it has been in the first of Sánchez to the extent that he had to rely on the independentistas to govern, which has created a favorable breeding ground to those who want to scrap the autonomous state. What's more, neither Rajoy nor Sánchez have dared to update the regional financing model despite having expired for ten years for fear of opening Pandora's box, which gives an idea of the mortgage that has been embraced by politics Spanish on account of the autonomous carajal, as Mario Onaindía called it a few years ago.

In the legislature that has started after 23-J, now in the hands of the independentistas of Junts, the territorial question, in fact, will once again be at the center of the political debate. And the ERC must be included in the equation, whose electoral collapse may condition the stability of the Sánchez government, if there is one. Or even the Canary Islands Coalition.

It is not necessary to do a master's degree in territorial politics to understand that Spain has a problem with its state model to the extent that it contaminates the functioning of the political system in a very relevant way, unless you want to keep closing your eyes so as not to see what we are dealing with. an increasingly fragmented party system for territorial reasons. The PSOE depends on the PSC, when not too long ago some leaders who today rebel against Sánchez wanted to expel the Catalan socialists from Ferraz's orbit, and Sumar is a swarm pregnant with regionalist and not so regionalist acronyms. The PP lives politically from its aversion to independence – sanchismo defines itself as a permanent concession to independence – and Vox has built its political ideology around the most rancid exclusive and intolerant nationalism, even proposing the outlawing of secessionist parties.

In no other country in Europe does something similar happen, not even in the United Kingdom, where there is a powerful independence party in Scotland. Neither in France, nor in Germany, nor today in Italy, territorial problems condition everything. On the contrary, it is the ideological wickerwork —the presence of the State in economic activity, social policies or the fiscal question— the issues that decide the vote, but never the policy of territorial alliances. Precisely, the ballast that the PP has today to form a government together with its pacts with Vox, which have taken their toll and isolated it politically, which forces it to win by an absolute majority.

It is evident that the current situation reflects a plural Spain that has no turning back. The autonomous State is what it is and what it is about now is to redirect it —with an inclusive will— to avoid the unhealthy temptation of throwing the dirty water out of the basin with the child inside, which is what has usually been done in the hazardous life of Spain during the last two centuries. Or expressed in another way, doing the opposite of ignoring that the elephant is at the center of political life.

What happened in the legislature that began in 2019 and now in 2023 is a good example that territorial policy conditions everything, even in matters as relevant to citizens as housing policy, which in the end will depend on the interpretation made the Constitutional one, which leaves politics in a very bad place, which will continue to be entangled for many years if good sense is not imposed and an old problem that ruined two republics and threatens to vitiate Spanish politics is not addressed.. It is a bad thing to continue discussing the national question in the 21st century.

Teresa Rodríguez and Macarena Olona are separated by an ideological abyss, but their political careers have certain parallels. The rise of Vox and Podemos consolidated them as two important assets for their formations, although they ended up facing the leadership and began their own path with the general elections as a litmus test. However, the electoral advance left them without room for maneuver. And this 23-J consummated his great failure.

Olona and Rodríguez were also rivals in the Andalusian elections last year, an election that marked a turning point for both. The first of them, from Alicante, arrived in Andalusia after being a spokesperson for Vox in Congress; After the absolute majority of Juanma Moreno, he left politics due to illness and ended up leaving the party. Rodríguez, who had led Podemos in Andalusia for years, presented himself with Adelante, his new party, after being expelled from the parliamentary group for his divorce with the party of Pablo Iglesias amid accusations of turncoat; He won two deputies to consolidate the project and abandoned institutional politics due to his commitment to not be there for more than eight years..

Thirteen months later, both Olona and Rodríguez arrived at the general elections accused of dividing the voters of their former parties.. However, neither of them came close to contesting a single deputy. Olona ran with Caminando Juntos for the ten provinces in which he had managed to gather endorsements, but he barely got 5,500 votes. In Granada, the constituency for which she was running, the results have been even below average: 430 ballots. Not even 0.1%.

Teresa Rodríguez had returned to her job as a teacher and was not the candidate for Adelante Andalucía, although both she and her partner, the former mayor of Cádiz José María González Kichi, had turned to the campaign as number 2 and 3 on the list. They were the two best-known faces of their new brand and they intended to bring to Congress a deputy of “Andalusian obedience” for the Cádiz constituency, although they were far from the objective. His left-wing and Andalusian party only obtained 9,000 votes, 1.4%.

The advance, with the changed foot

This 23-J caught both of them with the wrong foot. Olona formed the party three weeks before the elections and had no implementation in the province of Granada – he had registered at the house of the president of Vox when he presented himself to the Andalusians – but he developed a campaign against time and with a very limited budget. His objective was to squeeze his image and program actions that would attract attention, as evidenced by his campaign start in a brothel with women covered with masks.. “A usual place for politicians,” he said. His candidate for Valencia was the president of the Association of Sex Workers, Susana Pastor.

Olona tried to mobilize abstentionists in very specific voting niches. As number two for Granada he had Father Johnny, an evangelical pastor of gypsy ethnicity. The evangelists have a certain incidence in the city, to the point that the new mayoress, Marifrán Carazo (PP), campaigned in a temple participating in one of the cults of this community. Some incidence, but not enough.

Teresa Rodríguez's party, Adelante Andalucía, had had more experience and implementation in Cádiz, where Kichi had governed the capital for the last eight years.. In addition, the formation has two regional deputies in the Andalusian Parliament and, although without success, had presented lists in numerous municipalities in local elections. After achieving just eight councilors in all of Andalusia, they ruled out the possibility of joining Sumar and only ran for the Cádiz constituency.

During the campaign they sought media attention with uncomplicated actions and without fear of confrontation. From a controversial billboard in Madrid, going through a failed breast-feeding attempt and kissing with his candidate in front of the Vox headquarters. “We cannot stay in political correctness, in statements to the press and in intervention in the institutions. We are leaving the rest of the public spaces to the reactionary withdrawal,” said the party leader, Teresa Rodríguez, who insisted on “recovering the streets, which Vox now has.”.

The party has announced a “reflection process” starting in September before results that they consider “very bad”. Getting an Andalusian deputy to be key in Madrid was the ultimate goal of the project, which is suffering a setback that will be difficult to overcome. With nationalists from other territories being key in the formation of the Government, the coup is even more painful. The candidate for the Congress of Deputies, the historic leader of the Andalusian Party Pilar González, has announced that she is abandoning institutional politics, leaving the party orphaned in leadership.

At the moment, both Adelante Andalucía and Caminando Juntos have announced their intention to consolidate their projects. Olona's party believes that, given the circumstances, the results are “unbeatable”. The one from Rodríguez has announced a “collective debate” to renew himself and look for new leadership. It is another of the consequences of this 23-J: the possible goodbye of the two loose verses of the new policy.