The President of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, will not have to appear at this week's plenary session to explain the PSOE scandals because ERC backed down and allied with Comuns to vote against his appearance on Tuesday. However, the head of the executive was not saved from the opposition's attacks and his partners' reproaches this Wednesday in a more than tense session to control the Government.

The former Spanish president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has found a new ally to defend him in front of the cameras. Luis Arroyo (Madrid, 1969), a sociologist, political scientist, and supporting actor in some Spanish films and series, has recently become a regular on Spanish talk show sets. Now, at 57 years old, he has put his professional life on hold to defend the former president. "I am not speaking on behalf of Zapatero," he has emphasized in various interviews this week. "I am authorized to express the conversations I have had with him," he said. The situation is not new, because, according to sources close to him consulted by ARA, he is "very trusted by Zapatero".

The intensity of the political earthquake caused in the ranks of the left by Zapatero's indictment is pending a whole series of legal questions. Amidst the avalanche of information, a large part of the public can barely get an idea of what is happening or form a judgment on the former president's integrity. For now, we know the summary and the indictment order. That is, all investigations carried out so far and the conclusions the judge draws from them. He is accused of two crimes: influence peddling and money laundering. The relevant one is the first because money laundering is only a crime if it comes from a prior illicit activity.

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.

At the moment, Spanish political life greatly resembles the frozen images that sometimes get stuck, fixed, on the screen of a television or some other device. We are waiting for the next step, something has to happen, but no one is taking the initiative. The indictment of former government president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has sparked all sorts of hypotheses and worried comments, but it has not led to substantial changes in the relations between political forces.

At what point did Pedro Sánchez become the number 1 enemy of this triumvirate made up of the Spanish right, the deep state and the Madrid establishment? We can place this point of no return in May 2021, when the president of the government announced his intention to pardon the Catalan political prisoners. That was the turning point, the inflection point. Sánchez was no longer one of them.

The Zapatero case has opened a parallel debate: what do former presidents do? Do they have any limits in the private sector? One of the arguments used by those around the PSOE to respond to the ruling of Judge José Luis Calama is that Zapatero – president from 2004 to 2011 – has used his contact list to carry out consulting or lobbying tasks, as other former Spanish presidents have done. This, they emphasize, is legal, although the experts consulted warn that there is a legal vacuum regarding the activities that former heads of state can undertake and that there is also no specific regulation for lobbying because it is stalled in Congress.

The only thing José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero has said since Tuesday, May 19th transcended his indictment at the National Court

In recent days, the case affecting former president Rodríguez Zapatero is causing a great political and media stir. We still do not know how the judicial evolution of the case will proceed and what political consequences will arise from it, and therefore we must be prudent and careful with the assessments made at this time. However, enough information is already available to ask ourselves some initial questions and venture some initial answers.

The decision to investigate former president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero following the Plus Ultra case has opened various debates on the need to regulate lobbyists or clarify the status of former presidents, especially their professional activities to prevent tiresome conflicts of interest, but also to prevent the commission of criminal offenses such as influence peddling. This is precisely one of the accusations made against the former leader as a result of the consulting work done for the company Análisis Relevante.First of all, it would be desirable for the state bill on interest groups that entered Congress in January 2025 to be unblocked. But it should not be forgotten that lobbying regulation is already a reality in Catalonia –a pioneer in creating a Register in 2014, today with more than 7,000 registered, more than 400 in Parliament–, Asturias, Castilla-La Mancha, the Valencian Country, Madrid, Navarre or Aragon, and also in the EU institutions –it is estimated that there are 30,000 lobbyists in Brussels for 35,000 Commission officials– and in states like Lithuania, Poland, Ireland, France, Slovenia, the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium or Germany.These are regulations that must be placed in the context of the great cultural change that has taken place in the "administrative house" in the last decade: transparency; access to public information by citizens, the status of senior officials, including incompatibilities, conflicts of interest and "revolving doors"; the financing – essentially public – of political parties; corruption case whistleblowers, or the criminal classification of a range of corruption-related offenses. The gap, therefore, lies with regard to lobbyists who interact with the powers of the State, and not because there have been no initiatives in this regard, even during the constituent debate when Manuel Fraga raised it from his experience in the United Kingdom. Without forgetting another omission: the status of former presidents, currently in limbo, beyond the protocol or office-related issues provided for in a 1993 decree. The investigating judge's order concerning Zapatero states "the existence of an organized plot of illicit exercise of influence, structurally organized and led by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who would have placed personal contacts and access capacity to high-ranking officials of the administration at the service of third parties interested in obtaining favorable decisions". Furthermore, the influence "was not directed at obtaining general treatment or an indeterminate expectation, but at achieving a specific administrative resolution: the approval and disbursement of the public aid requested by Plus Ultra within the framework of the Solvency Support Fund".A legal and transparent activity

This is not lobbying. Lobbying is a legal, transparent activity classified among those of citizen participation, carried out by a group of interest that provides technical information to officials, civil servants, or deputies to improve public policies and influences the decision-making process of public policies or regulations. The footprint of their actions is recorded in reports and in the public agenda of the lobby and politicians. On the other hand, influence peddling is a crime – which only exists in Spain – that consists of influencing a public official or authority by leveraging a position of power to obtain an economic benefit for oneself or for a third party through a resolution.How to avoid confusions? To prevent lobbying from falling into crime, the activity must be completely transparent. There is only lobbying when influence activity is carried out by organized groups, which are listed in a public register –usually mandatory, showing all organizational and economic data– and which attempt to technically influence through reports or proposals. Since there is no position of power, the public decision-maker ends up acting discretionarily. The lobbyist, moreover, is a remunerated professional –this excludes NGOs, unions, and employers' associations–, subscribes to a code of ethics, and enjoys a system of incentives: preference in communications, access to public dependencies, organization of joint events, etc. In influence peddling, the influence is spurious, it is not exercised on equal terms: whoever commits the crime takes advantage of a personal or power relationship to exert a type of pressure, which is also opaque, and which seeks to influence so that the public official is forced to rule inexorably in the way requested.

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During the years of the democratic transition, we feared the coup temptations of an army with Francoist roots and culture. It was logical and we were not mistaken when the farce of February 23 occurred, with the parade of tanks in Valencia and the assault on the Congress of Deputies by Colonel Tejero. A strange night, in which the myth of a monarch who had saved democracy by sending the military back to their barracks was invented. Surely the reality was not so simple and even less so clear. But then came the socialist Ministry of Defense of Narcís Serra, who, with salary increases, decorations, and bouquets of flowers, managed to deactivate the warlike ardor of some milicos" still very rancid. Instead, the transition was not thoroughly carried out in a judiciary formed by Francoists and their disciples, waiting for biology and generational renewal to bring about a modernizing function that never arrived.In the judicial sphere, there has rather been an inverse transition towards making politics and exercising power roles. It is a world too endogamous, classist, and retrograde for it to be aired out, at least at the high levels of the career. Another thing are the rank-and-file judges, deprived of means to efficiently carry out their important function. In the upper echelons there is a world of favors, of stale lineages, and of an extremely corporate spirit, and, why not say it, with a desire to act politically. We are not only where we were, but with the general reactionary and post-democratic wave, this power has recovered its oldest version. In Spain, judges are those who best understood José María Aznar's enigmatic phrase from a couple of years ago: “El que pueda hacer, que haga”.The judiciary is today the authentic Trojan horse against democratic institutions and culture. The judicial elite no longer settles for exercising its role as the third power of the state, but rather establishes supremacy and control over others. And not only that: it becomes the necessary ally of the extreme right by creating the conditions for it to come to power. It judicializes political life by intervening in an interested and arbitrary manner, brings up incredible cases, issues sentences without any basis or proof, and dismisses and delays what could affect its political acolytes. Perjury no longer seems an exceptional behavior but rather the norm. The affiliated media will then do the corresponding justifying work. I remember that a few years ago, at a conference in Buenos Aires, the former vice-president of Bolivia and theorist of the Latin American left, Álvaro García Linera, warned that coups d'état today are carried out by the judiciary and not by the army: Latin American military personnel no longer do training stays in American academies, but rather it is the judges who undertake immersions, with the same function, in some North American universities.

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Mayor Jaume Collboni (Barcelona, 1969) receives ARA when there is just one year left until the municipal elections. We talk about housing –the main problem for Barcelonians–, tourism, security, and also about the situation of the PSOE amidst the Zapatero storm.

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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.

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The Central Operational Unit of the Civil Guard entered the PSOE headquarters this morning to request information. They are looking for an alleged illegal financing network of the party. Let's see, a police entry reinforces the feeling of guilt of the investigated person, which, in the era of narrative over facts, is ideal for those who wish harm to the suspect. But if anywhere we know what effect the interested administration of the judicial instruction and police investigation has with a specific intention, it is in Catalonia.

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The name of Delcy Rodríguez rose to prominence in Spanish politics long before Donald Trump's intervention in Venezuela and before she became the country's new leader following the arrest and imprisonment of Nicolás Maduro. It was in January 2020, when she landed at Barajas airport and had a meeting (formal or informal, depending on the version) with the then Minister of Transport, José Luis Ábalos, now in pre-trial detention for the Koldo case. That contact was highly controversial, as Rodríguez was prohibited from entering European Union territory as part of the sanctions agreed by Brussels against Maduro's government. Now, the so-called Delcygate is back in the spotlight: there is a thread connecting those events with the summary of the Zapatero case, which has shaken Spanish politics. This thread has a name, and it is Commissioner Jesús María Gómez Martín.

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The images of the jewels that the UDEF found inside Zapatero's safe stimulated the humorous audacity of Spanish morning magazines and news programs. Nothing like excess and surprise in the midst of the tedium of judicial cases for television stars to exhibit their wit. The photographs of exuberant pieces encrusted with diamonds, rubies, and sapphires, captured under the coldness of police camera flashes, activated the creativity of screenwriters. Susanna Griso, on Espejo público, was the least sharp: “If this were a thriller, we could title it The Treasure of Zapatero”. She could also have made more of an effort when evaluating all those samples, which she limited herself to considering “worthy of an empress”. In the ranking of journalistic ploys, Griso was rather bland. The presenter moves better in the realm of speculation, which is where she makes a difference with subtle insinuations. When she interviewed the general secretary of the Guild of Jewelers of Madrid, she asked him if, judging by the design of those pieces, he could deduce whether they had been manufactured in the United Arab Emirates or could come from a wealthy family from Latin America. The presenter's journalistic nose shines like a Swarovski in a shop window. On Antena 3 noticias, Sandra Golpe opened the news report with images of jewelry accompanied by the soundtrack of the film Breakfast at Tiffany's. Classics never fail. And she finished by recalling a quote from a Zapatero rally: "Being a socialist means having very little and being willing to give a lot". In the morning calculator game, Golpe found an appraiser who estimated the total value of the treasure at ten million euros.But the award for the most corrosive analyst of the day went to Ana Rosa Quintana, who has become a revelation comedian. A raw diamond of stand-up comedy. Her morning monologues are vitamins against indifference. “From the rose to the Rolex”, she stated as soon as the program began, appealing to the socialist symbol. “Legend has it that when the archaeologist Howard Carter discovered Tutankhamun's tomb, he was not as surprised as the UDEF agents when they opened Zapatero's safe”. She imagined how they were dazzled by that “treasure worthy of the Count of Monte Cristo”. Quintana poked the wound: “It turns out that the workers' struggle was a Cartier catalog”, she concluded with sarcasm worthy of a reactionary rapper. The presenter did some prospecting, looking for archive images of Sonsoles Espinosa to see what kind of trinkets she used to wear: “Most of it was costume jewelry, which fits her style very well”, Quintana blurted out in an exhibition of subliminal cruelty typical of a meeting of the nouveau riche.The splendor of jewelry sharpens cunning. Breakfast with diamonds and laundry with sapphires. While awaiting the experts' verdict on the purity of all the gemstones, we will always have the pearls of the morning stars.

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1. I would like to know how much, at European level, the public expense amounts to, which is the sum of the exit polls discussed on TV in each election and minor election with the intention of keeping people in front of the screen. The need for this absurd spectacle, with no real informational value, only justifiable in entertainment terms, suggests a considerable anomaly. The presence of certain "experts" adds an additional grotesque component to the ceremony. In relation to the Zapatero case, there are indications that seem solid and forceful, but for the moment nothing has been proven. And whoever says Zapatero says any other similar case, regardless of the party. Let's remember, to give just one example, the imaginary foreign accounts that brought down Xavier Trias' political career. Despite the cost, it's fine to please people with electoral speculations while they have dinner. It's another thing to entertain them with rumors about very serious matters. 2. The accusation against Zapatero appears at a time when public verification systems –journalistic, judicial, police– are immersed in a growing epistemological uncertainty. This does not mean that truth has disappeared from the map, but rather that the collective capacity to distinguish it from falsehood is more fragile than at other times. Photographs have always been altered and documents falsified; it is nothing new. The news is the extraordinary current ease and speed of doing so. I am not doubting what has been made public so far; I simply recall that I myself, who don't know a bit about computing, can generate in less than a second a realistic image where Zapatero dances a waltz with Pharaoh Amenhotep IV. 3. The logic of suspicion –to put it another way– has mutated within a media ecosystem that increasingly relies on social networks and less on professional journalism (in the long run, this will have important consequences). The accusation is already considered a fact, and circulates with the same speed and intensity as news referring to any other event. This leveling means that accusations against a relevant public figure become a real treat and are often located in the sphere of entertainment, not information. Their plausibility depends not so much on evidentiary consistency as on the emotional and ideological predisposition of the recipients. In the new logic of suspicion, the only important thing is the effect it causes and the profits it generates.

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On February 23, 2026, a judge from Madrid sent the case that led to the impeachment of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero to the National Court. The case had resurfaced after France and Switzerland sent information about an ongoing investigation in which Plus Ultra appeared as a "client" of a criminal organization dedicated to money laundering. The magistrate pointed out that Rodolfo Reyes – majority shareholder of the airline and in the crosshairs of the United States– and other airline executives allegedly orchestrated a plan since 2020 to "appropriate clean money from public subsidies." As the alleged crimes were reportedly committed outside of Spain, the National Court is competent to investigate them, which is why José Luis Calama is now leading the investigation.

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Amidst the world's misfortunes and Spanish politics, this image of presidential happiness appears.Salvador Illa, happy as a clam, taking a selfie with Bad Bunny inside the main nave of the Sagrada Família. Illa looks like he's about to sing: “If you want to have fun with charm and finesse, you just have to live a summer in Catalonia with warmth”.Bad Bunny is the best thing that will happen to Illa in the coming days, because the hurricane of the Zapatero case threatens the stability of Sánchez's government and, by extension, that of the Generalitat government, which is so closely linked to it.In the last few hours we have learned that the Economic and Fiscal Crime Unit of the National Police, the UDEF, has found in Zapatero's office: jewelry, folders and mobile phones. In short, there are three lines here: Zapatero is a victim of lawfare because let him do to Sánchez what he can do, Zapatero has crossed the fine line between lobbyist and influence peddler, and Zapatero is corrupt. Probably, what we have here is that the evidence gathered by the judge (the photos of the jewelry are police propaganda) could indicate that Zapatero has gone further, recklessly, than prudence advised. And until he testifies and the investigation is clarified, we will live in this debate. Now, that the suspicion of lawfare is plausible, everyone knows and it is a prophecy.There is no doubt that the blow to Sanchez is tremendous. If yesterday we were talking about the PNB saying there should be elections this year, today we have Felipe Gonzalez (who else?) saying the same thing.Journalist: “Do you think there will be elections? Do you think there will not be elections?”Felipe González: “I think there should be. It is the first time I say it. I think there should be. I think there should be. That is to say, there should be this year. We should also have respect for the infantry. I would tell it to García Páez. Look, the leadership I value is non-mercenary leadership. That which is not exercised for one's own benefit, but is exercised for the benefit of others”. With friends like González who needs enemies, Sánchez must think. Because, moreover, he is amused by it.Felipe González: “I don’t see him, let’s say, with the capacity to set up a financial engineering as I am seeing. I say, listen, that this means nothing more than that. That Zapatero has reached, in his life trajectory, to know what an offshore company is, well, I don’t see it”.Tomorrow we will know what Sánchez's answer is when asked if he will advance the elections (which until today the answer was no, by no means). And they will ask him in Rome, where Sánchez will be received in audience by Pope Leo XIV, as a prelude to the trip to Madrid, Barcelona and the Canary Islands in fifteen days. Such is life, Sánchez standing up to the Holy Father, just as the Pope, one year after his election, has begun to raise his voice against liars like Trump and, yesterday, against the dangers of artificial intelligence.

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José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero will testify as an investigated party before the National Court two weeks later than planned. Judge José Luis Calama has accepted the former Spanish president's defense's request for an adjournment and summons him for June 17 and 18. Initially, he was scheduled for next week, Tuesday the 2nd. In an order, Calama deems it appropriate to postpone the declaration due to the complexity of the case, as requested by the former socialist leader's lawyer, Víctor Moreno Catena, since he did not have access to it until this Monday. In parallel, the former PSOE leader has already begun to publicly defend himself against the accusations.

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