Political life in Madrid is currently unfolding between two scenarios. Firstly, the courts, due to the start of the trials for corruption cases involving the PP and the PSOE. And secondly, in the realm of international relations, concerning everything related to the situation in the Middle East, after a precarious two-week truce was announced, with very uncertain results. These are very diverse issues, which obviously have nothing to do with each other, but which, if followed closely, give a fairly accurate idea of the point at which political forces stand, particularly those of the Popular Party and the Socialists. The start of the trial of the Ábalos-Koldo-Aldama case scheme was, and will continue to be in the coming weeks, a great opportunity for the PP to take advantage of the exhibition of the reprehensible procedures employed by the former Minister of Public Works and former organization secretary of the PSOE, his advisor, and the businessman who did business with them, in relation to public contracts to acquire sanitary material, allegedly violating the law in a tragic context, that of the COVID-19 pandemic.

While Gabriel Rufián travels the State defending his idea of unity of the left, the right also has someone preaching the same. Less popular, retired, but capable of filling the auditorium of the select Círculo Ecuestre between his obsessions with ETA and conspiracy theories. Jaime Mayor Oreja, former Minister of the Interior and former leader of the Basque PP, who boasted in 2009 that his great-grandfather had banned Basque at home to "get out of the barn," has managed to gather leaders from the PP (Alejandro Fernández at the forefront) and Vox (Joan Garriga). All in all, to send them a message: "There is an 85% of things that unite us, let's be capable of offering an alternative".

The day before the trial of the Kitchen case began at the National Court, the PP announced that its strategy was to create a firewall. "Feijóo is not the Kitchen," party sources proclaimed. This has been the popular party's approach throughout the first and second days of the oral hearing. The argument that current PP leaders repeat both in public and in private is that it is a matter related to the past, which has absolutely nothing to do with Alberto Núñez Feijóo and the current popular president's team. The person in charge of verbalizing this on Tuesday was Alicia García, spokesperson in the Senate, in a press conference focused on attacking Pedro Sánchez for the alleged corruption surrounding him. "We are talking about a case from more than ten or fifteen years ago, but today a case from fifteen minutes ago from the PSOE is being judged. And those that remain," she defended.

Today is one of those days when you don't even have time to get your bearings. We are waiting for Iran, because Trump seems determined not to give any more ultimatums. Yesterday he said: "We can destroy Iran in one night, and that night could be tomorrow," meaning, this coming dawn. This time it could be for real, because these extended ultimatums are starting to be a joke and because the crude language Trump has used these days shows more desperation than ability to intimidate the ayatollahs' regime, and that makes it even more dangerous. If his threat is fulfilled, the consequences could be catastrophic, almost unimaginable, beyond the deaths, the war crimes he will commit, and the world economy also going up in smoke.To understand how erratic and neronian Trump is, we only need to think that he has the world admiring the NASA trip to the Moon: human beings had never been so far from Earth, and this is extraordinary news and of national and almost worldwide unity, but Trump himself has counter-programmed himself with a war whose meaning he does not know and from which he does not know how to get out. He only knows how to boast about the rescue of the shot-down pilot (a meritorious operation, yes, because if the Iranians had taken a prisoner the political cost for Trump would have been very high), but when you look at it, Iran already has a great hostage, which is the Strait of Hormuz, on which we all depend.Speaking of Hormuz, we highly recommend the reports that our Head of International, Francesc Millan, is currently filing from the Middle East. Yesterday we read about him sailing through the Strait, and today we find him in the ultra-modern and very exposed Dubai.Not everything is misfortune: unemployment has fallen in Catalonia and the number of people who have jobs and are affiliated with Social Security is nearing records. It is good news, which unfortunately does not prevent people from working and not escaping poverty.And yesterday an old acquaintance, Jorge Fernández Díaz, went to trial accused of having participated in the theft of information from Luis Bárcenas that compromised the PP. The Kitchen plot allegedly paid bribes to Bárcenas' driver with money from reserved police funds. On the defendants' bench are one who was a minister, one who was a secretary of state, five commissioners, two inspectors, and two police officers. Rot to the bone of the State, a type of rot we know well, because some of these, starting with Fernández Díaz, appear in all the photos of the patriotic police.And today begins the Koldo case, which affects the PSOE: purchase of masks, contracts, cronyism and favors. Do these two trials have anything in common? Yes, that Fernández Díaz was of Rajoy's utmost trust and Ábalos was of Pedro Sánchez's utmost trust.And we end with a page that makes us think that the nightmare will continue in Rodalies. It is this one signed by Natàlia Vila. As you know, the service is provided with trains from 1990, and now the new ones were supposed to arrive. First they were supposed to arrive last year, then at the beginning of the year, and now they say "in the autumn", and most will be for Rodalies and few will come to Regionals, and they will be delivered over the next 4 years, until 2030. On top of that, some new trains that are already in the testing phase are already covered in graffiti. No further questions, your honor.Good morning.

The Abat Oliba CEU University invested the former minister and former president of Congress Ana Pastor (PP) as doctor honoris causa on March 25, in recognition of her career. Taking advantage of the opportunity, the former politician, who accumulated two and a half decades of political activity in Spain until 2024, speaks to ARA.

Spanish politics is the scene of a total confrontation between the government and its detractors, but history shows that promises of total rupture by the opposition often end up diluted when entering the Moncloa Palace. Alberto Núñez Feijóo's People's Party has a whole series of laws that it has promised to repeal when it governs, as Mariano Rajoy had previously done, for example. What was the result after becoming president?

Alberto Núñez Feijóo's frustration at not being able to govern this legislature is palpable in the Senate. Given the impossibility of implementing his program, in the last two years the popular leader has used the upper house as a kind of showcase for what Spain governed by him would be like. Although the PP's absolute majority there is sterile because Congress blocks legislative initiatives, far from standing still and throwing in the towel, the popular parliamentary group has approved about forty laws in the upper house. For now, they cannot be applied, but from the Senate, the popular party members media-wise claim them as the alternative to Pedro Sánchez and propose the work done on these draft laws as a basis from which to start working when Feijóo arrives at Moncloa. A scenario in which they are confident from 2027 onwards. This is a portrait of what an eventual Spain governed by the PP would be like according to the initiatives they have proposed in the Senate:

Alejandro Fernández (Tarragona, 1976) feels strengthened at the helm of the PP of Catalonia and has left behind his differences with Alberto Núñez Feijóo.Can you explain to us what the PP's position is regarding the war in Iran?

This 2026 one of the most iconic buildings in the center of Madrid celebrates its centenary. It is the headquarters of the Círculo de Bellas Artes (CBA), a private, non-profit cultural institution that claims to be a "reference of freedom and independence" in the capital of the State. In recent years, it has focused on "opening up to citizens" with initiatives such as the climate shelter —they have set up a green and free space that last summer was used by 60,000 people to protect themselves from the heat; the Festival of Ideas, which brings philosophy to the streets, or the City and Science Biennial, organized in collaboration with the Barcelona City Council.

The cultural battle is a concept that in the last decade has been inherent to the rise of the global far-right. In Spain, Vox has been fighting it for years to try to change the debate framework on issues such as feminism, environmentalism or LGTBI rights and to normalize discourses that were not previously acceptable. An example of this is the media coverage that the euthanasia process of Noelia Castillo has had this week and, in this context, the statements of the Madrid Minister of Health, Fátima Matute, talking about the importance of institutions also focusing on "healing the soul" are striking. As the elections in the Community of Madrid, scheduled for 2027, approach, its president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, and her executive are increasingly adopting elements of the cultural war against progressivism. Ayuso has recently asked her supporters to exercise extreme vigilance to avoid losing the absolute majority, with an eye on Vox.

When the euthanasia law was approved in June 2021, support for the initiative was very broad in Spanish society, which had experienced emblematic cases such as that of Ramon Sampedro (died in 1998), played by Javier Bardem in Alejandro Amenábar's film Mar adentro, or that of Ángel Hernández, the man who helped his wife, María José Carrasco, to die in 2019 and who was acquitted of the crime of aiding suicide once the law came into force. According to a CIS barometer from January 2021, 72% were in favor of the law and only 15% against.

This morning something very interesting happened, a new strategic move by Pedro Sánchez in his long and well-known struggle to resist, to resist everything: his collaborators in prison, the indictment of his wife and brother, his party defeated in every election in Extremadura, Aragon, and Castile and León. This morning Sánchez went to Congress to explain the social measures to alleviate the cost of the war in Iran. And he went on the attack. Seeing that Europe is no longer leaving him alone with the "No to war" movement, he said that the 2026 war in Iran is like the 2003 Iraq War, which had disastrous consequences in Iraq, in the world, and on our streets with Islamist terrorism. That if that war was illegal, this one is too. And that the People's Party (PP) was complicit. But to say that Iran is like Iraq, to ​​once again use the trump card of the "No to war" movement of 2003, is déjà vu. And then, Sánchez personalized it with a tremendous attack against José María Aznar. He said that Aznar, in 2003, wanted to feel important, that he supported a war in exchange for ego, for the power to influence George Bush. He recalled that the Madrid bombings were the fault of that war. And he recalled that Aznar shows no remorse. He even went so far as to question his morality.

The president of Andalusia, Juanma Moreno Bonilla, can boast of having won back for the People's Party (PP) one of the Socialist Party's (PSOE) historical strongholds since the restoration of democracy. He did so in 2018, when he became president through a governing pact with Citizens (Cs) and the external support of Vox, despite not winning the election. In fact, the PP's results, in an election where three right-wing parties were running, were far from their best. Three years later, he was re-elected with an absolute majority that allowed him to shed the burden of his investiture partners, a result so exceptional that he has it tattooed on his wrist. Moreno, who describes himself as a "liberal in the broadest sense," They will face off on May 17th to the third round to remain at the head of the Board, with all the polls in his favor despite the burden of having had to weather the breast cancer screening scandal in the community.

The week begins in a very dangerous way. As you know, Trump has announced attacks on Iranian power plants if Iran does not unblock the Strait of Hormuz Iran has warned that its response will be to attack the desalination plants of the Persian Gulf countries. You attack my electricity, and I'll attack your water.

At the beginning of the year, the PSOE and Podemos parties agreed on a mass regularization of migrants to grant legal status to half a million people already living in Spain. They did so by drafting immigration regulations to avoid having to go through Congress, where they would have struggled to secure a majority to pass them. However, the PP has found a loophole to try to influence the Senate through the law on repeat offenses, promoted by Junts and approved last week in the upper house. The PP pushed for an amendment to toughen the conditions for the regularization of migrants, and, as ARA has learned, Junts will vote in favor this Thursday in the final vote in Congress. The regularization will still go ahead, but controls for obtaining a residence permit will be increased.

Isabel Díaz Ayuso and Santiago Abascal sitting on a powerful motorcycle painted with the Spanish flag. It is not a real image – nor AI – but a Fallas puppet exhibited this week in Valencia. Although there is no alliance between them in real life – rather a dispute over the same electoral space in Madrid – their radical speeches and the sympathies shared by the Madrid president and the Vox leader in the international arena make the vision of this tandem not particularly jarring to the spectators of the Fallas monuments. Abascal's ties with the far-right world leaders are official and organic – through alliances in the Eurochamber or with foundations of this ideological space – while Ayuso has them from a more symbolic perspective. This is what happens with Donald Trump.

Last September Jaume Veray resigned as president of the PP of Girona to make way for the young Empordanès Daniel Ruiz, until then general secretary in the province. To form a tandem, Ruiz chose as his number two a name that the party did not make public: Alfonso Sánchez Fisac, former deputy of Ciutadans in the legislature of the 1-O referendum (until 2020) and former councilor of Tossa de Mar (2019-2023), before joining the popular ranks. That decision, however, has not stopped accumulating criticism, and one of the most vocal concerns the fact that he lives in Barcelona.

He Felipe VI's acknowledgment of the "abuses" in the conquest of America The monarch's remarks have been positively received by Mexico. The country's president, Claudia Sheinbaum, stated at a press conference on Tuesday that these words represent "a gesture of rapprochement" from the head of state, acknowledging "the excesses and exterminations that occurred during the arrival of the Spanish." She added that "we must recognize this and continue to move forward with the dialogue," in a process that "requires further work." On the other hand, the monarch's statements have not been well received by Vox, as expected, and have also generated discomfort within the People's Party (PP). Both parties made this clear in their reactions on Tuesday to the monarch's words, with which he intended to make a gesture toward Mexico. He has been asking for an apology from Spain for years. because of its colonial past. Although neither the right nor the far right have sought a direct confrontation with the head of state, both parties have distanced themselves from his position and have reaffirmed "the pride of the Spanish legacy" in Latin America.

Alberto Núñez Feijóo clings to the good results for the PP in Castile and León to try to corner Vox. In an interview this Tuesday on EsRadio, the Popular Party leader called on the far right to abandon its "political myopia" and "read the ballot boxes correctly." Feijóo accused Santiago Abascal's party of taking an "adolescent approach" to negotiations with the Popular Party in Extremadura, Aragon, and Castile and León and demanded they finalize a pact now. "If the PP has twice as many votes as you, and in some regions, three times as many, it is undemocratic to prevent this party from governing," he went so far as to say.