June began in Parliament with a heated control session in which the opposition tried to surround the President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, for the cases of alleged corruption affecting the PSOE and Pedro Sánchez's circle. And the first control session of this July has started the same way, with one more step from the Junts politicians. The president of the Junts group in the Catalan chamber, Mònica Sales, demanded this Wednesday that Illa ask for "forgiveness" for the judicial cases and stop "hiding himself". "When Catalonia has a problem, you disappear; when the PSOE has one, you are always there," she said. "This weekend you had the opportunity to ask for forgiveness on behalf of your party," she retorted, referring to the PSOE federal committee, in which the president said that socialists have "no fear" of anything. Illa, in turn, reiterated that he fears nothing and that he has already given the necessary "explanations".

It is a common place to affirm that politics consists in choosing the least bad of two deficient alternatives and that democracy serves to oust those who do not do well. In the Declaration of Independence of the United States, in 1776, Thomas Jefferson wrote that “all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, among which are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. Citizens have the right to be free and to try to be happy.In Spain, for years we have found ourselves mired in a confrontation that has turned politics into a war of communication where anything goes to harm the opponent, who has already become an enemy. We have moved away from the principles proclaimed by Jefferson and practiced by Adams, and we have built a political environment based on what is negative and bad rather than on what is good and positive, and on the fact that telling lies is "legitimate" if it is effective. "That's politics," they say. It is not.It doesn't matter if a person hasn't broken the law or abused their power if I can accuse them of doing so, with false reasons or half-truths. Once the accusation has begun, social networks will do the rest and, from anonymity, will convince many that what is not true is true. The problem is that the enemy of truth is not lies, but half-truths, which, by containing part of the truthfulness, make it difficult to discern the degree of falsehood.

The future of Spanish political life is currently being played out in two different scenarios, each with its own rhythms and liturgies, making it difficult to make accurate predictions. The first arena is the judicial and the second, the strictly political. I place justice first because, for now, if Pedro Sánchez's government falls, it will not be due to management problems, serious errors in key economic decisions, or foreign relations. The siege on the executive is not being achieved by the opposition, but by the specialized units for economic crimes of the National Police and the Civil Guard, along with the judges and courts involved in the criminal prosecution of the PSOE. I am not talking about lawfare, but about a de facto situation, in which political events are marked by the content of the police reports and court proceedings.

The Congress of Deputies once again experienced one of those disastrous days this Wednesday that cause citizens to distance themselves from politics. The exchange of recriminations between the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez, and the leader of the opposition, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has brought no new developments and has only served to further tarnish the political climate, something that, as some spokespersons have rightly warned, primarily benefits the far-right. In a normal democracy, a verdict like the one in the Ábalos case, in a judicial process that has been suspiciously swift and with sentences that some jurists deem disproportionate, would be enough to bring down a government. But it is true that Spain has peculiarities that explain both Pedro Sánchez's resistance to throwing in the towel and why no partner is currently considering supporting a motion of no confidence alongside the PP and Vox.

Brexit is a representative example of how a demagogic idea (less than an idea, barely a slogan) can come to condition an old, stable, and respected democracy like the British one, and by extension, international politics. More than anything else, Brexit was a huge, colossal stupidity, and as happens with stupidities, its effects were — and still are — devastating. Keir Starmer became prime minister with a striking Labour absolute majority as has not been seen for a long time, and now abandons power mid-term, with discredit earned through hard work: to implement neoliberal policies, the others were already there, there was no need for a Labour politician as right-wing — and as anti-European — as the Tories themselves. Starmer has had to experience from power the explosion of the far-right in the United Kingdom, represented by Reform UK, Nigel Farage's party, an old populist who had always played a residual role in British politics and who now has solid possibilities of gaining power.Starmer's resignation has coincided with the conviction of former minister and former organization secretary of the PSOE, José Luis Ábalos, and the Spanish right sighs: may Pedro Sánchez follow the example of his colleague Starmer, who after all is also one of them, they say. Starmer was made to step down, as he himself has acknowledged, by his own party. The Spanish right wants to play Pedro Sánchez the trick we already know from Lula da Silva in Brazil or António Costa in Portugal: to set up a judicial siege around a president and his government (with true and false causes, and with an arbitrary and discretionary use of the justice administration) until the president in question resigns or ends up in prison (this would be the most desired outcome with Sánchez).Those who will go to prison, with sentences that surely must be adjusted to their crimes, are Ábalos and Koldo. The exemplary nature of the sentence should be celebrated, as well as the speed of the process: let's hope the example also applies to the PP, a party that according to the Gürtel sentence has been organized to commit crimes at least since 1988 and occupies headquarters paid for with black money, without anything happening. The two speeds, the different yardsticks: Kitchen has reached trial thirteen years late, and it seems that justice is also in no hurry with the Montoro case, of structural gravity for the powers of the state. Nothing that we do not know, on the other hand, since the offensive of the robes against the Process. Finally, the one who will not go to prison will be Víctor de Aldama, one of those characters who seem to be taken from Santiago Segura's films and who abound and move at high speed among the high powers of Madrid. A hustler, a betrayer, a liar, and an almost confessed swindler who gets away with the laughter of the triumphant scoundrel. "Thanks to justice," says the subject, with all the cynicism, and encourages "those who come behind" to follow his example. Spanish democracy does not need any Brexit, it creates it every day.

"The left cannot steal," Gabriel Rufián, a Member of Parliament for Esquerra, told the PSOE bench a year ago. This warning resonated strongly with a PSOE which, with the Koldo and Cerdán case and the investigations into Begoña Gómez and David Sánchez – wife and brother of the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez – were yet to be joined by the cases of Leire Díez and former socialist president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. The perception in public debate, however, is clear: progressive voters do not forgive illicit enrichment, as the conservative electorate does. But does corruption really punish the left more than the right? Far from being a myth, evidence shows it is a reality with studied mechanisms.

Like an eternal return, a persistent democratic migraine, the pornographic recordings, the stench of the sewers, the triangulations of the subsoil mud, and the dirty money from commissions return. It happens, however, that in murky waters, full of accumulated toxic sediments, everything is always mixed at once, one thing and the contrary: legitimacy and illegitimacy, legality and illegality, naivety and arrogance. Because, in purity, it seems entirely legitimate – considering the chronology of events – that if a party and a government feel like victims of the depths of a state that already sufficiently accredited its darkness and miseries, then it tries to find out the actors, dynamics, and arteries. To denounce them publicly, to nullify them politically, and to judge them criminally, of course. Not the contrary. Because it is not that it seems illegitimate, it is that it is, radically, to pretend that the fight for a supposed democratic regeneration is carried out with identical dirty war, clumsy saviour teams and, even, using structural actors – Villarejo, once again – of the plot they intended to dismantle. Laugh to keep from crying. Felipe González used to say that At this stage of democratic degradation, we have already seen them in so many colors as to know that these types of conspiracies always end up filled with very curious, careless, and quite boastful characters, who so often boast of relationships, information, and contacts that often never existed. Even, completely naive, they think they will get away with it and never doubt if they will end up sinking the one they intended to rescue. That is, they do not fully understand the high police and military technostructure of the State. Of this State within the State, which has always seen separatism as a threat, saw in Podem a systemic risk and thinks that the current legislative majority is an anomaly to be corrected. Otherwise, in other latitudes of night and fog, the opacity of parallel structures is recurrent and habitual, and they tend to be very peripheral – trying not to leave any remains, traces, or faces. Neither the PP with the Kitchen nor the PSOE with the Leire case have made much effort. Another crude naivety that reveals where we are, but not yet what bill we will pay.The paradox, in any case, is that if everything were a lie, the PSOE's response is understandable, but if everything is true, it also is. The PSOE says that those involved were "charlatans, opportunists, and resentful." Really? Because they are two former organization secretaries –Ábalos and Santos Cerdán– whom Sánchez appointed. So, where is the catch? How far does the ripple effect go? How deep is the crater? We only need to rummage through the archives to see that we are back to square one. Seeing Grande-Marlaska change his version three times in less than a week about the finally confirmed conversations of Leire Díez with the director of the Civil Guard is simply devastating: from denying them to acknowledging them. One day, one thing, and the next day, the opposite. It won't be for lack of paradoxes. The food chain of all this is that the last one attacked –the PSOE of Pegasus and the police infiltrators, believe it or not– thinks they are the first. The PSOE now believes this –which looked the other way when the blows were falling on Podem–, Podem said it a few years ago –as if the harshness against independence hadn't existed before–, and Catalan independence said it in 2017 –forgetting the years of anti-legal exception in the Basque Country and a long cycle of repression against Catalan social movements and new criminal suspects, from Julia García-Valdecasas to Núria Pórtulas, or from the Three of Gràcia to the Eleven of El Raval–. If we start rewinding, we already know clearly where we will end up: in the blind spots of the Transition. In what lurked in the heart of the State.

It is now known that the end of the Spanish legislature will be a judicial ordeal for the PSOE. As we explain today, there are up to seven open judicial fronts against members of the party or the government, and that's if there are no secret cases underway that could appear at any moment. Many things can be said, but the only certainty is that the legislature began with right-wing protests in the streets and demonstrations by judges against the amnesty law, and it ends with a judicial siege on a party as has not been remembered at least since the end of the Francoist era.

Government changes in Spain go through processes of demolition. They seem like regime changes, and sometimes they even are. I'm not talking about the virulence of political confrontation. Internal struggles within and outside parties do not make Spain unique. No, what makes Spain unique is an unfinished territorial architecture that always threatens to be demolished or reconfigured. It is this unresolved issue and the bloody expression of ideological difference that turns politics into a battlefield.

“You cannot force a country to choose between democracy and stability, because there is no greater instability than that which stems from corruption”. The phrase is by Pedro Sánchez and was addressed to Mariano Rajoy the day before the motion of no confidence that made the socialist leader president of the Spanish government, on June 1, 2018. Next Monday it will be eight years.

Faced with the crisis that looms heavily over the PSOE due to the Zapatero case, the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, has reiterated his support for the socialist ex-president, who is being investigated for alleged crimes of criminal organization, influence peddling, and document forgery. On the day that the Central Operative Unit of the Civil Guard entered the party headquarters on Ferraz Street in Madrid, Sánchez assured from Rome that he has read the judge's order and has been informed of the summary through the media and that he "reaffirms" his opinion: "Full cooperation with justice, full respect for the presumption of innocence, and all my support for President Zapatero. There is no reason to change this position.

Politics should not be a profession. In an optimal democratic system, our representatives should come from society itself and, therefore, already have their own job, a profession. The cases of those who come from work and return to work once their task is finished are so unusual that their case becomes news, as happened with Julio Anguita. Former presidents, moreover, have a lifelong pension, a secretary, an office, and a driver with an escort, whether they were in office for half their lives or only lasted a few months. A luxury retirement, at the opposite extreme of widows who receive the minimum wage. The establishment of these privileges is already a scandal and establishes a completely unfair comparative grievance with the rest of the workers. (Well, I am self-employed, so I know what awaits me the day I can no longer string two sentences together and get paid for it: becoming an occupier and anti-system grandma, at the very least.)

The Civil Guard yesterday arrested the entire governing board of the Torredembarra City Council, led by mayor Daniel Masagué, for alleged crimes of embezzlement of public funds, money laundering, prevarication, and influence peddling. The Civil Guard also arrested the deputy mayors, Francisca Felguera, Santiago Ardèvol, Elia Rodríguez, and Pere Font, from CiU, José Oviedo, from the PP, and Ignasi Duran, from the Group of Independents of Torredembarra (GIT).

President Salvador Illa defended his chief of staff, Eduard Rivas, this Tuesday morning, after his involvement in alleged irregularities when he was mayor of Esparreguera (Baix Llobregat) became known. Rivas, who led the town hall of this municipality for the PSC between 2015 and 2024, is being investigated as part of a process that probes public contracts of the council, according to has been reported by El Periódico, which explains that the Mossos confiscated the socialist official's mobile phone three months ago. Illa has reaffirmed his "full confidence" in his collaborator.

1. While here we are eating the 'mona' cake, in Madrid they are working. The third term of the school year begins with one of those news items that will have repercussions. This Monday, the trial for Operation Kitchen begins at the National Court. The case will once again place the Popular Party at the epicenter of the mire. And this is not just a case of corruption. It is much more than that. It is being investigated whether the party in power used the State to cover up its own corruption. The indications seem clear, but justice, in Spain, can always come out with a broken candle.

Forestalia is a major Aragonese renewable energy company that is quite well known in Camp de Tarragona: it intended to promote a 287-kilometer high-voltage line, 181 of which are in Catalan territory, to bring electricity from Aragon to Catalonia. A project, controversial at the time, which is now history. However, the headaches for the company are not over, and now the dust is being generated by an alleged environmental corruption case that, for the moment, has resulted in six arrests. What is being investigated?

Let's take it step by step. The case has already been dubbed the Forestalia case. This Friday, a hearing for precautionary measures is scheduled by the magistrate responsible for the case. Broadly speaking, an alleged environmental corruption scheme affecting the province of Teruel, in Aragon, is being investigated. The case came to light ten days ago, when the Central Operational Unit for the Environment (UCO) of the Guardia Civil arrested six people, including a former senior official from the Ministry for Ecological Transition, Eugenio Domínguez, and the owner of the company, Fernando Samper. Searches were also carried out in Madrid and Zaragoza. Juan José Cortés Hidalgo, head of Court of First Instance and Instruction No. 1 of Teruel, is directing the investigation under judicial secrecy.

]]>

The president of the Alicante Chamber of Commerce, Carlos Baño, was arrested Friday morning by the National Police, according to information obtained by ARA from sources close to the investigation. As detailed by the EFE news agency, the arrest was made for an alleged corruption offense related to the management of consumer vouchers in some twenty municipalities in the province during 2022 and 2023. The consumer voucher campaign was launched by the Alicante Provincial Council during the tenure of Carlos Mazón, who would later become president of the Valencian Government, to boost household spending and stimulate local businesses after the economic consequences of the coronavirus pandemic. The investigation seeks to determine whether there was possible fraud in the management of these public funds. Despite his position at the Alicante Chamber of Commerce, Baño was arrested in his capacity as president of the Alicante Federation of Commerce (Facpyme). In parallel with the arrest, and in coordination with the Alicante Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office, agents from the money laundering group of the Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit have carried out several raids on the headquarters of the entities that managed the consumer vouchers, including the Facpyme (Alicante Federation of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises). The campaign represented an expenditure of 58 million euros by the Alicante Provincial Council between 2022 and 2024. The initiative subsidized 50% of consumer purchases at participating establishments, while the customer paid the remaining amount. The investigation aims to determine whether the Alicante Federation of Commerce financially benefited from implementing the campaigns through a shell company. At this time, neither the National Police nor the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office have provided further details about the operation, as it has been declared secret.

]]>

The judge in the Montoro case takes another step in the investigation. The head of court number 2 in Tarragona, who is investigating the alleged scheme of tax favors to companies from the Ministry of Finance In exchange for financial benefits, he has requested a whole series of documents from the former PP minister and the companies under investigation. In a ruling that also extends the investigation for another six months, Judge Rubén Rus grants the request of the Anti-Corruption Prosecutor's Office and requires the judicial police to provide a whole series of information, including the deeds of constitution and dissolution of the marital property regimes of several of those under investigation, such as Montoro himself. He also requests the complete registry entries, reports, and annual accounts between 2008 and 2025 of Equipo Económico, the firm linked to the former minister and which investigators place at the epicenter of the alleged corruption network, and of other companies, including those listed.

]]>

Five arrests in 24 hours related to the PSOE for alleged corruption cases and cases of alleged sexual harassment: after the Salazar case, and that of the president of the Lugo Provincial Council, Javier Izquierdo, senator and member of the party's executive committee, resigned yesterday.And yesterday, the PSOE failed to pass the deficit target, a necessary step before the budget can be processed.

]]>

Tomorrow the ARA will turn 15, and today might be a good day to explain some of that analysis. It's very simple: when you sit down first thing in the morning to analyze the news, you have to use several lenses: the microscope, to see details that might go unnoticed but are and will be fundamental; the wide-angle lens, to see everything in its entirety; and the telescope, to see further and gain perspective. And then, after everything has been recounted and debated, you have to choose and prioritize the facts. Well, today, after examining the most important news stories from every angle, I've come to the conclusion that I can only tell you that this is a stinking mess.

]]>