On July 16, 2025, seven years after leaving the Ministry of Finance, it became publicly known that Cristóbal Montoro – along with his team – was being investigated by a judge in Tarragona for allegedly trafficking in the modification of laws to favor gas companies in exchange for bribes. In twelve months, the investigation has progressed slowly and Rubén Rus's orders have arrived sporadically. One of the major new developments was a report from the Tax Agency that located 850,000 suspicious euros: this is the amount that gas companies sent to Equipo Económico – the firm founded by Montoro and at the epicenter of the alleged scheme – between 2011 and 2019 in installments and with an operation to try to disguise them. Around this document, the two visions of the investigation that have been constructed can be traced.

The PP has been forced to balance with Vox in the face of the humanitarian emergency situation in Ceuta. And the distribution of unaccompanied migrant minors who remain in the city since they entered swimming from Morocco is testing the complicity and understanding between Alberto Núñez Feijóo and Santiago Abascal. The far-right party announced on Saturday that its three vice-presidents with responsibilities in Childhood – in Extremadura, Aragon, and Castile and León – will not attend the meeting to be held on Thursday to begin addressing the distribution of minors. However, the PP will leave Vox alone because the regional ministries that depend on the Popular Party – in Andalusia, where there is also a coalition, and in the other seven territories where they govern alone – will attend the meeting.

Isabel Díaz Ayuso has arrived at the month of August more cornered than ever. The controversial trip to Mexico a few months ago, the judicial investigation against her partner, and the management of the serious fires that have affected the Community of Madrid are added to the latest controversy that has shaken her figure. This is the purchase and subsequent hurried sale of a luxury attic in Chamberí with a value of 6.6 million euros — the Community of Madrid published the sale announcement this Friday — surrounded by contradictory statements and unconvincing justifications. Initially, the Madrid government maintained that it had to be converted into a temporary office – even though it is not enabled as such – during the works on the Royal House of Correos, headquarters of the executive. But 24 hours after the information was made public, it hurried to sell the property, claiming that it would be used to rebuild the Western Sierra after the fires.

In recent days, the amnesty has returned to the forefront of political news following the ECJ's endorsement and the six applications of the law made by the Supreme Court. Despite this, the pardon has not yet reached everyone. Beyond the well-known cases of the leaders of the 'Procés', who continue to await the Constitutional Court, there are other independentists who judges from both Madrid and Catalonia have excluded from the scope of the law. Unlike Carles Puigdemont and Oriol Junqueras, who have been excluded due to a convoluted argument by Pablo Llarena and Manuel Marchena regarding embezzlement, the other cases have not benefited because the justice system has considered that they had no connection with the independence movement.

The controversial purchase –and subsequent sale– of a luxury penthouse in Madrid's Chamberí neighborhood has reached the Court of Auditors. It was reported by a lawyer who, given the “impossibility of accessing” the documentation on this operation, wished to “bring to the attention” of the supervisory body a “set of facts that appear to have caused a deficit to public funds”. The case broke out last week, when The Country revealed that the Community of Madrid had bought a 485 square meter luxury penthouse to serve as a "temporary office" for Isabel Díaz Ayuso's government during the works at the Madrid regional government headquarters in Puerta del Sol, although this was not known. Despite this, 24 hours later, the executive announced that the property would come and would allocate the money to the reconstruction of the fire that has devastated the western mountain range.

The ruling of the CJEU on the amnesty law has caused a ripple effect. In recent days, the Supreme Court has rushed to close six cases that were on its table and had been pending for months. However, despite this sudden awakening, the fourteen people who have benefited from the penal oblivion law do not – strictly speaking – have anything to do with Luxembourg's endorsement. It was a filter that the high court implicitly set and which has ended up being the pretext for keeping all these cases frozen for nine months, given that last October the Constitutional Court had explicitly given the green light to apply the law.

The judge is making a move to scrutinize the alleged payments made by the PSOE to Leire Díez as part of alleged maneuvers instigated to destabilize and obstruct judicial cases involving Pedro Sánchez's circle. Santiago Pedraz wants to delve deeper into the suspicion that a series of invoices paid by the party were used to covertly fund the activities of the so-called plumber of the PSOE. The magistrate of the Audiencia Nacional has accepted the request from the Guardia Civil – backed by the Anticorruption Prosecutor's Office – and has requested information from twelve banks regarding the movements and balances of 81 accounts related to the case. Six of them belong to the PSOE. Additionally, there are 62 accounts belonging to Ismael Oliver and his law firm, eleven linked to Gaspar Zarrías, who was vice-president of the Regional Government of Andalusia, and one belonging to Jacobo Teijelo, who is one of Santos Cerdán's lawyers.

Before the summer holidays, José Luis Calama has made a move to deepen the patrimonial investigation of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. After a new report from the UDEF, he has given the green light to a battery of information requests to follow the trail of money related to the alleged “organized and stable structure aimed at the exercise of illicit influences”. The order, which ARA has had access to, authorizes the Spanish police to access 57 accounts in twelve banks. 25 belong to the former Spanish president, his two daughters and his secretary – who are also under investigation– and Julio Martínez Martínez. The other 32 belong to companies linked to the alleged scheme. In Zapatero's case, the request is to Banco Santander, CaixaBank, and BBVA, three banks where he has six bank accounts.

After the Madrid Court has endorsed that she be tried by a popular jury –although two charges against him have been dropped and his passport returned– and that Hazte Oír has requested thirteen years in prison for her, Begoña Gómez shakes up the board and, according to sources familiar with the matter confirmed to ARA, has decided to change lawyers. In this way, she dismisses the lawyer who has defended her throughout the entire two-year investigation, Antonio Camacho, and signs Jaime Campaner, who is also Josep Pujol Ferrusola's lawyer.

Progressives have prevailed over conservatives on the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) and, thanks to the casting vote of president Isabel Perelló, have proposed to sanction judge Juan Carlos Peinado for a minor offense of disrespect for having suggested that Begoña Gómez's escorts could help her flee. The informational proceedings were opened a month ago and already at that first moment the CGPJ was divided because the conservative members alleged that reviewing the judge's words on precautionary measures was not within the CGPJ's competence. Initially, there was a possible serious offense on the table, but it has finally been reduced to minor. This stalemate of positions, which hindered the first attempt to reach an agreement, has been maintained until the end, but Perelló's casting vote – as in the initial vote – has broken the tie. The final say will lie with the Superior Court of Justice of Madrid, which will now have to decide whether to sanction the judge or not: it can issue a warning, impose a fine of up to 500 euros, or apply both penalties.

After four months, the trial of the Kitchen case at the National Court has been submitted for sentencing. In the dock sat the leadership of Mariano Rajoy's Ministry of the Interior, with Jorge Fernández Díaz at the helm, who is under suspicion for allegedly orchestrating an operation to steal information about the PP's slush fund from Luis Bárcenas. This is the prosecution's thesis. In contrast, all the accused, in an absolutely coordinated strategy, maintain that the operation was actually intended to search for the straw men or the money abroad that the PP's former treasurer might have had.

The Supreme Court continues to apply the amnesty law drop by drop and after many months of waiting. The high court has now applied it to the first minister of the 1-O government: Meritxell Serret, who was convicted by the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (TSJC) to one year of disqualification and a fine of 12,000 euros for her participation in the organization of the October 1st referendum. In 2017, Serret was Minister of Agriculture. She later became Minister of Foreign Action with the government of Pere Aragonès and, subsequently, was the Government's delegate in Brussels while in exile. She returned to Catalonia in March 2021. “This chamber has decided that the acts for which she has been accused are declared amnestied,” concludes the Supreme Court's order to which ARA has had access. In this way, the former minister is exempted from all criminal responsibilities attributed to her.

The fire in Ávila, Madrid and Toledo, which has burned more than 80,000 hectares and affects 91,000 people – there are 63,000 evacuated and 28,000 confined – continues to burn amidst meteorological conditions that do not help to extinguish it, due to high temperatures and low humidity, but which are more favorable than those that will occur from Wednesday onwards. From the advanced command post in Navalcarnero, the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, has emphasized the importance of the next 48 hours: Monday and Tuesday will be two "absolutely central" days, because afterwards the forecasts are "really negative" and will complicate – even more – the possibility of putting an end to a fire that has been burning since last Wednesday. “Two days are coming that will not have the conditions we would like, but we can be proactive in advancing the control of the fire,” he added.

776 days have passed since the amnesty law came into force. Since then, its application – with a dropper – has had to overcome multiple adversities from various courts along a tortuous path. Not going any further, on Friday the Supreme Court ended four cases that had been frozen for months. And the one who is now trying to play dumb is the Court of Auditors. The accounting case regarding the expenses of the Generalitat's external action and of October 1st, which affects 35 people, ended up in the Court of Justice of the European Union because the accountant minister expressed doubts about whether pardoning these acts was "compatible" with European law. However, the ruling from two weeks ago dismantled the argument that the independence of Catalonia could have caused a reduction in the European Union's own resources and gave the green light to fully archive the procedure.

After a weekend of immense efforts to extinguish them, the flames continue to ravage various parts of the State affected by the fires. The forest fire that originated on Wednesday in Burgohondo (Ávila) has burned 50,000 hectares and covers a perimeter of about 280 kilometers. According to the third vice-president of the Spanish government, Sara Aagesen, it has become the largest in recent history in the State. This Sunday afternoon, the wind still gave it more strength, and since Friday it has become complicated due to the simultaneity with the Madrid fire, which has affected more than 25,000 hectares. Added to the 2,000 that have also been scorched in Toledo, this front – which ishas been jointly fighting as a single fire since Saturday– has burned 77,000 hectares in total. In addition, it has affected 90,000 people: 60,000 evacuated and 30,000 confined.

When on February 21, 2024, the Civil Guard arrested him, Víctor de Aldama was president of Zamora CF and his name had never appeared related to the Spanish government. Two and a half years later, his “active” collaboration in the judicial investigations that tarnish Pedro Sánchez has turned him into a ticking time bomb for the PSOE. Not only because of the “full and continuous cooperation” with justice that has led to the "condemnation of José Luis Ábalos and Koldo García, but because, boasting of the benefits of stretching the blanket, it has become a path to follow for other people. And it is a weak point of the defense that Moncloa, under José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, puts up. This very week we have had some examples. 

Double message from Pedro Sánchez from the advanced command post of the fire ravaging the Community of Madrid and which has burned almost 10,000 hectares. The Spanish president warned that the situation “remains complex” because, although temperatures have dropped, it is not known “what the evolution and intensity of the winds will be” in the coming hours, but at the same time he has not ruled out that, during the weekend, there will be a “window of opportunity” to “fight the fire and protect lives and population centers”. He verbalized this after it was reported that, during the night, both the Madrid fire and the Ávila fire – which has burned between 13,000 and 15,000 hectares – have remained out of control despite the efforts of the firefighters.

The Supreme Court has applied the amnesty law to eight pro-independence supporters - grouped into four cases - who were pending it. The decision comes a week after the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union, a ruling that the high court tacitly decided to await. Formally, it had suspended the processing of the four cases following the question of constitutionality that it presented in July 2024. The Constitutional Court's ruling, which did not favor him, arrived in October 2025, but nine months have had to pass for the Supreme Court to have made a move. “The facts that gave rise to this procedure would not offer any doubt as to their subsumption in article 1 of the amnesty law. [...] Consequently, the objective scope of application is met,” conclude the four interlocutory decisions. They are three protesters convicted of aggravated public disorder in the protests following the verdict in the trial of the Catalan independence process, a mayor which attributed the competencies of the schools to make possible the 1-O and the four members of the Parliament's table – with Roger Torrent at the head – who were acquitted of having disobeyed the TC rulings.

Sumar announced this Wednesday that it has agreed with the PSOE on the extension of rents until 2028 through a new housing decree that will also include tax incentives for owners, an indispensable measure to achieve the text to be finally approved with the favorable vote of Junts in Congress.

“I will have it when the [ministers'] council finishes, that's how we've kedat”. This is the message of discord that Jorge Fernández Díaz clings to in an attempt to achieve acquittal in the Kitchen case trial, which has entered its final stretch at the National High Court after almost four months. Where does it come from? It is an SMS that, on August 2, 2013, the then Minister of the Interior allegedly sent to his number two, Francisco Martínez, who was Secretary of State for Security. It is one of the pieces of evidence that led to Fernández Díaz's indictment – in September 2020 – and has brought him to the dock. The Prosecutor's Office is asking for fifteen years in prison. However, from day one, he denies its authenticity. “We maintain the thesis that these messages never existed. If they existed, they were neither sent nor forwarded by him,” his lawyer, Jesús Mandri, defended during the final statement. He considers that they underwent “clear manipulation” and an “ad hoc creation” and that it is “implausible” to claim that the messages came from the former minister. On the other hand, sources from the prosecution support them, arguing that it makes no sense for Francisco Martínez to put in writing something that incriminated him.