🤝 This Week in Spain: PP, PSOE Agree to Renew Top Judicial Body

Also: The amnesty process begins, controversy over the Madrid Pride banner and... goodbye Airbnb?

By @IanMount and @AdrianBono | June 27, 2024 | Madrid | Issue #63

🎉 Welcome to The Tapa, an English-language, weekly newsletter about all things Spain!

🥜 This Week in a Nutshell: It’s probably the least sexy topic in the history of political topics, but the PP and PSOE have finally agreed to renew Spain’s top judicial body after five years of playing tug of war. So yes, it deserves an honorable mention because for a fleeting moment we’ve been reminded of the good old days, when democracy worked and governments could reach deals. (Of course, this lasted, like, a second but it was worth celebrating).

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We know it sounds boring but we’ll try to make it fun

PP and PSOE Finally Agree to Renew General Council of the Judiciary and Both Sides Claim Victory

AI came up with this for an “agreement PP PSOE” prompt. We’re not impressed.

White smoke ☁️ has appeared! We have a pope! Or maybe it's cats 🐈‍⬛ and dogs 🐶 curling up together! Whatever it is, it’s just weird: This week the PSOE and the PP came to an agreement on something big, which they haven’t done for, like, ever (okay, 5+ years). And what did they agree on? They agreed to…renew the CGPJ!

• You’re, like, super-excited, right? No? Okay, this is going to take some ‘splaining, isn’t it? Yeah, this is both important, and completely obtuse. Here we go…

Spain has a strange process for selecting judges. A group of 20 judges and jurists known as the Consejo General del Poder Judicial (CGPJ, or General Council of the Judiciary) chooses judges on various courts (including ones on the bigees—the Supreme and Constitutional courts—which basically decide what’s law). 

• But who chooses the CGPJ? Therein lies the rub. Spain’s parliament and senate get to choose the CGPJ members by 60% majorities, which means, as you can imagine, that the party in power has a lot of sway over the CGPJ, and therefore the judges, and therefore the whole justice system. Which is why the parties put a lot of effort into ensuring that more of their people than the other side’s are on the CGPJ.

So close to an agreement. Back in 2018, about five months after PSOE boss Pedro Sánchez tossed out the previous PP PM Mariano Rajoy and took over as head of government, the PSOE and the PP agreed on a slate of CGPJ members, with conservative Manuel Marchena as president of the CGPJ and the Supreme Court and a lefty majority on the CGPJ. 

• But then there was that recording. A WhatsApp recording surfaced of the PP’s Senate spokesman, Ignacio Cosidó, basically saying that Marchena’s naming would allow the PP to control the courts (or at least the important ones). So Marchena withdrew his name and the whole agreement collapsed.  

• For the longest time, nothing happened. Relations between the PP and the PSOE deteriorated over things like the PSOE’s rewrites of the sedition and embezzlement laws to help the Catalan separatist parties (who often voted with the PSOE), and the PSOE’s threats to drop the number of votes needed to renew the CGPJ to 50%—which would mean it could do it with its friends on the far left and separatist parties. “Bad, bad, scary, scary,” the PP said. 

• Also… The PP was sorta happy to have the CGPJ paralyzed and stuck with members it had appointed in 2013 when Rajoy was in power (though many of those members wanted to leave because honestly it had been a helluva long time).

• Plus, an excuse. The EU has been saying that Spain should change its method of electing CGPJ members, to follow “European standards”—which means,  establishing that at least half of the CGPJ members should be “judges elected by their peers.” Which gave the PP a sort of “moral” reason to hold off renewing the CGPJ until the law changed. (PP bonus of judges electing judges? Judges sorta lean conservative in Spain, meaning they might elect more conservatives among themselves.)

But finally it just got to be too much. A combination of the PP’s excuses and the PSOE’s threats got the EU justice folks irritated hasta lo cojones, so on Tuesday, negotiators for the both sides finally signed an agreement under the watchful eye of EU ‘values and transparency’ boss Věra Jourová.

• The PSOE and the PP would each choose 10 of the 20 CGPJ members. 

• The CGPJ would then have six months to device a plan for future renovations that would take into account those good ol’ “European Standards”, which parliament would vote on. 

All good, right? Um, maybe for the PP and the PSOE, but not for everyone (more on that below).

So who claimed victory? Well… both sides.

• PP says, ‘We wear big-boy pants’. Feijóo gave a press conference Tuesday evening to preempt his critics on the right and claim he was personally responsible for being the adult in the room in the name of “political coherence”. “I’m in politics to guarantee the independence of the Judiciary”, he said, low-key patting himself in the back. In other words, he would take the heat for reaching an agreement with horrible lefties in the PSOE because, at the end of the day, it was the right thing to do for the country. Slow clap. 👏

• Adults, yes, but ‘We won, yo’. Feijóo and many other PP leaders were clear about claiming victory, calling it a “great success” for the party. This was a triumph of the respect for institutions, they said, arguing that “neither the PSOE nor the PP would be able to control the Judiciary”. Feijóo even finished his press conference with “Mission accomplished”. Just like Georg W. Bush! (Let’s hope this one turns out better.)

The PSOE? They had a different take.

• Don’t go thinking anything big is gonna happen. “We’re not saying that judges will elect judges,” said parliament spokesperson Patxi López. “This isn’t mentioned in any way in the agreement. What it says is that the CGPJ itself can come up with proposals that we may consider [in Parliament]”.

So why’d it take so long? At the end of the day, the agreement signed is very similar to the one that the PP and PSOE were close to signing in 2022 and that the more hawkish members of the right torpedoed because any deal with Sánchez was a deal with Voldemort. 👺

So what changed? In the end, it was probably Brussels. The PSOE probably saw their “blow it up” bid to drop the needed vote from 60% to 50% didn’t sit well with the EU, and the PP probably saw that holding out on weak arguments against a deal it agreed to two years ago didn’t sit well either. As El Diario noted, “The pressure coming from Europe and the judges themselves also probably had something to do with it.”

Anyway. What happens now?

It’s time for Parliament and the Senate to shine!

• There will be a vote. For the renewal to be approved, a qualified majority of three-fifths is required (that would be 210 votes in Parliament and 177 in the Senate). This is more than guaranteed since between PP and PSOE they have 259 seats in Parliament and 235 in the Senate. (It’s weird to see them vote together, isn’t it)?.

And it’s also time for the uncool kids to whine!

While PP and PSOE are getting ready to consummate the agreement, there are two political parties that are disgusted with it: far-right Vox and far-left Podemos.

• Angry Righty. Vox leader Santiago Abascal was livid at the mere idea of the PP negotiating (let alone reaching an agreement) with the PSOE. “Treason has been committed,” he said adding that from now on in the eyes of his party “PP and PSOE are the same”. (Like, tell Sánchez and Feijóo that one.)

• Angry Lefty: The far-left was the same but opposite. Podemos secretary general Ione Belarra accused the PSOE of making “a big mistake” and “surrendering to the right” (see?) and said this agreement ushers in a new era in Parliament: “The PSOE has picked a new partner in the government, the PP, kickstarting a new great coalition legislature”. Belarra also said Sánchez had “surrendered to the right” even though they lead a “dirty judicial and media war”. Bad!

Other parties that support the PSOE, such as ERC, EH Bildu and Junts were also critical of the agreement. In the end, it was only leftist Sumar that seemed to be happy with it, calling it “a step forward”. But no one (least of all the PSOE) seems to care what Sumar thinks anymore anyway. And it’s really unlikely any of these parties (including Podemos) will stop voting with the PSOE over this issue. So we know why Sánchez doesn’t look worries. Moving on…

More news below. 👇👇

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💬 Five things to discuss at dinner parties this week

1. ☠️ Tragic Sant Joan celebrations in Catalonia

Sant Joan is meant to be fun—a massive show of fireworks, bonfires, food and booze in honor of the summer solstice, fecundity, and all that, taking place pretty much all night on the beaches of Catalonia. When the morning light arrives, it always unveils scenes of amazing Hieronymus Bosch carnage—in terms of hangovers and garbage.

But this year was actually, truly tragic. Four people died in Catalonia during the night of Sant Joan, including three violent deaths and one drowning. Not at all what Sant Joan is meant to be.

• The drawing occurred in the resort town of Sitges when a group of people, including a 55-year-old man, jumped in the ocean shortly after midnight to help people who were having problems getting out. The move turned out to be fatal for the man, who drowned. Another woman was taken to hospital. It’s the third drowning of Catalonia’s summer season—which only began on June 15.

The violent deaths were especially shocking, considering the generally low levels of violent crime in Spain. While three murders in one night might be an average weekend in Chicago, it’s big news in Spain, where the annual murder rate is 0.68 per 100,000 people (compared to 6.38 in the U.S.).

• Girona shooting death of two. A brawl began in the city of Girona at around 10:30 p.m. in the Font de la Pólvora neighborhood as a fight between two “clans” (Spanish media code for groups “de etnia gitana”) that escalated into running into people with cars and ended with a guy pulling out an AK-47 (seriously?!) and shooting four people. A 44-year old woman named Yoli (who’d also been run over) and 48–year-old Juan (the head of the “Tomates” clan) died. Two of Juan’s children—a pregnant woman and a 14-year-old boy were taken to hospital.

• The shooter in Girona got away. The shooter—named by the police as Guillermo C. H.—had a long history of run-ins with the police and neighbors, and is suspected to have fled in the direction of France. 

• And the fight kept going. Members of the groups involved went to the hospital to see the injured and apparently got into fights with police and security guards who blocked the entrance. 

• Fourth death in Barcelona. A 26-year-old Colombian man was talking with a group of Colombian friends in the predawn hours when an assailant came up from behind him on Passeig de Borbón in the Barceloneta neighborhood—and without saying a word, slit his throat from behind. Nearby police caught the blood-covered suspect, of Algerian nationality, and found the knife presumably used. Early police theories about the motive include robbery or a previous incident between the two. 

Sant Joan stats. The emergency services number (112) received 7,406 calls about 4,566 incidents over Sant Joan in Catalonia, only 1.1% more than in 2023. But the small increase will offer little comfort.

2. 🆓 Let the amnesties begin!

The first beneficiaries of Spain’s brand spanking new amnesty law were freed of charges on Tuesday. The law aims to eliminate the legal jeopardy faced by people who participated in the illegal/unconstitutional/whatever 2017 referendum on separating Catalonia from the rest of Spain, and the first winners run the gamut from boldfaced names to “who?”

• Biggest figures. The top two freed by the Superior Court of Catalonia in the first round are Catalonia’s one-time Interior Minister Miquel Buch and Lluís Escolà, the regional police officer Buch hired to help Catalonia’s former presi and present self-exiled savior Carles Puigdemont escape from Spain and then work as his bodyguard after the referendum didn’t work out. Both had received sentences of around four years (along with a two decade ban on elected office/public jobs), so we suspect they are both very happy. Happy or not, Buch said he would not be returning to active politics.

• The other 16? No idea. They were activists who participated in protests between 2018 and 2020 (during which several protests turned violent). Several had “thrown rocks at police vehicles” and one of them had received a seven-and-a-half year prison sentence, so…definitely also happy.

This is not the embezzlement you’re looking for. One of the peculiarities of the amnesties dates back to 2022, when Sánchez’s government modified the embezzlement law so that it punished not all misuse of public funds, but only misuse for personal gain. 

• BMW bad, separatist push OK. So, like, it became sorta okay to use public funds to try to break up Spain if you believed in that, but not to buy yourself a BMW. Buch and Escolà had both been hit with embezzlement convictions, which were eligible for amnesty under this change.

Controversial law. The law, which PM Sánchez pushed through to get the Catalan separatist party votes he needed to get another term as PM (or, as he says, to improve coexistence of people in Catalonia and improve Catalonia’s level of comfort in Spain), still faces pushback among some judges on Spain’s top courts and could face resistance in European courts as well.

• Polls have found that around 60% of Catalans support amnesty, while outside of Catalonia about the same percentage of Spaniards reject it. 

Small fry and big kahuna. In the near term, while those amnestied are normal civilians and low-level politicians, waters should remain calm. But when Puigdemont tries to return to Spain, expect fireworks 🎆

3.🏳️‍🌈 LGBT community angry over Madrid pride banners…again

Madrid’s Pride Week starts tomorrow and, just like in the last few years, the LGBT community in Madrid is not happy with the design that the city has chosen to advertise it.

• Odd signs. If you walk around downtown Madrid, you’ll see banners everywhere promoting Pride celebrations that read “Madrid Orgullo 2024” (see video above) and include some rainbow-colored fireworks, high-heel shoes, condoms, carnations and what seems to be Teddy bears. Or maybe gummy bears? It’s not clear. Maybe it’s a reference to bears? Or maybe they are THC edibles? (They are already referencing alcohol and sex, so why not drugs?) Anyway…

• Erasure (not the band). The anger from LGBT organizations (including Madrid Pride, who issued a statement yesterday) and left-leaning PSOE and Más Madrid leaders in the Madrid Assembly is directed at Mayor José Luis Martínez Almeida (PP), who they say is “erasing” the LGBTQIA+ acronym, along with the rainbow flag, along with history.

• Snide sniping. “This is what Pride represents to the Madrid PP: clichés and prejudice,” tweeted Labor Minister Yolanda Díaz, while the PSOE tweeted to criticize Almeida’s “small vision”. Pride organizers said they had “no involvement” in the creation of the banners and it was “unacceptable” that the community was being reduced to “stigmatizing stereotypes”.

And yet… this isn’t the first time this happens. The clash between City Hall and LGBT organizations a few days before Pride has been taking place since Almeida took office in 2019—it’s, like, tradition—and it always seems to concern the same thing: the banner.

Almeida, however, is brushing the whole thing off and says “there’s nothing wrong” with the banner.

• Almeida says: “Pride should be celebrated and there’s nothing wrong with adding a cocktail or a high-heel shoe, in reference to the traditional race,” he said.

• The “traditional race” he’s talking about is the popular “carrera de tacones” or “high-heel race”, a hilarious Pride competition where people race through the streets of Chueca wearing high-heels while hundreds cheer on the side.

• More Almeida: “I don’t see any humiliation or an intention to humiliate. That’s never been City Hall’s intention. I’m not with the ones who want to relocate [Pride celebrations] to the Casa de Campo Park [in reference to far-right Vox] nor with those who claim Pride as their own and say it’s ideological. I’m with the ones who say it should be one of Madrid’s features,” he concluded.

Madrid Pride is one of the city’s biggest events each year, with over 1.5 million people attending the march in 2023, according to organizers. Not only that, last year it ended with a €520 million boost to the city’s economy.

Let’s try to have nice things, for once.

4. 🛖 Kiss you assAirbnb goodbye

Well, that blew up quickly.

Tourists go home. Barcelona Mayor Jaume Colboni (PSC) announced last Friday that as of 2029, there would be no more tourist flats in the city. All 10,101 legal tourist apartments in the Catalan capital will see their licenses extinguished in November 2028, five years after the regional government instructed the city to come up with a new urban plan that set the number of legal tourist pads. Barcelona chose…0.

• That rent thing is a problem. Rent has risen 68% over the last decade and buying prices have gone up 38%, Colboni said: “We are facing off against what we believe is the biggest problem in the city.” And it’s not just Barcelona: Cities from Lisbon to Berlin to the Canary Islands have been cracking down on short-term rentals. Even Málaga, a PP-governed city seen as friendly to real estate business, has put a moratorium on new licenses. 

• No new ones in years. The city hasn’t given out new tourist rentals licenses since 2014 and it’s ordered the closure of 9,700 illegal ones since 2016, the mayor said.

Then things went further. Eager to get in on the politically popular action (like, really, who wouldn’t like the Airbnb on their floor to go away?), Housing Minister Isabel Rodríguez called a meeting of Spain’s mayors (or at least the lobby that represents them) to call on them to act like Barcelona’s mayor (who happens to be a member of PM Sánchez’s, like Rodríguez) and crack down on the tourist (housing) trade. As in, “It is time to assume your powers as the mayor of Barcelona has done.”

• But that’s not all! Housing Minister Rodríguez said in an Tuesday a.m. interview with Telecinco that the government was considering a change to property laws that would allow the comunidades de propietarios (you know, those testy owners meetings in the lobby of your building) to ban tourist apartments in their building. Who would vote against such a fatwa if they weren’t themselves running a tourist apartment? That’s right. Prolly no one. We would certainly vote against them! 🙋

Obligatory “to be sure” paragraph. To be sure, not everyone was happy about this turn of events. Like, Barcelona will no doubt face 10,101 lawsuits from tourist pad owners. Apartur, the group which represents the tourist apartment owners, also said the move will “condemn to death” family tourism in the city (as families often rent apartments) and that, “Collboni is making a mistake that will lead to an increase in poverty and unemployment.” 🙀

• Works in theory, but in practice? While Rodríguez tweeted that, “It's about making every effort to ensure access to affordable housing,” it’s unclear whether putting some of these flats back on the market would make that much of a difference. The bigger problem? There is a massive shortage of new housing being built. Even the Bank of Spain says so. 🏡

5. Pedro Sánchez’s father-in-law dies

These are tough days for Begoña Gómez, wife of PM Pedro Sánchez.

The Prime Minister canceled all activities for the next 48 hours after attending a plenary session of Parliament yesterday, citing “personal reasons”. Soon after, news broke that Gómez father, Sabiniano Gómez, had passed away.

• Gómez suffered a fall last week and had remained hospitalized since. His condition kept worsening until yesterday, when he died.

• Sánchez canceled his trip to Brussels, where he was scheduled to participate in the Council of Europe, in which the appointments of the politicians who will lead the European institutions for the next five years would be ratified (he delegated his vote on German Chancellor Olaf Scholz).

Sabiniano Gómez’s death happened just 10 days before Sánchez’s wife is due to testify as a suspect in a case of influence peddling and corruption you may have seen in the media being referred to as the Caso Begoña.

• The case was launched with a complaint from Manos Limpias, a group with far-right ties, that accused Sánchez's wife of influence peddling and business corruption (its filing led to Sánchez announcing he was taking five days off, remember?)

• Begoña Gómez’s lawyer has complained that judge Juan Carlos Peinado has "not clarified" the specific facts for which she is under investigation, and the (government-appointee-controlled) Prosecutor's Office appealed the judge's decision to the Provincial Court of Madrid, hoping to have the case dismissed. The judge, however, pushed forward with the opening of proceedings, "despite the somewhat disjointed content of the complaint."

We will bo doubt be updating you on this next week.

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