👨‍⚖️ This Week in Spain: Supreme Court Screws the Puig

Also: A bull with fiery horns wreaks havoc and the government's plans to stop kids from watching porn.

By @IanMount and @AdrianBono | July 4, 2024 | Madrid | Issue #64

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🥜 This Week in a Nutshell: If you didn’t get the headline pun, that’s because “Puigdemont” is pronounced “pooch-deh-mont”. 🐶 Ha! 🤣 And speaking of Puigdemont, turns out he’s not having a great week. Apparently that whole illegal referendum thing he organized back in 2017 in Catalonia when he was regional president will not go away easily. No matter what the new amnesty law says.

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No Spain for you

Supreme Court Says ‘No’ to Amnesty for Carles Puigdemont

After being an outlaw for seven years and hiding in plain sight in a McMansion outside Brussels, we thought separatist Junts leader Carles Puigdemont would soon be coming back to Catalonia now that an amnesty law was passed by Parliament. Turns out God the Supreme Court had other plans.

• The country’s top court this week announced it would not apply the new law and grant amnesty to the former regional president of Catalonia. You know, the guy who was largely responsible for spearheading the 2017 illegal independence referendum that ended up becoming one of the most embarrassing moments of recent Spanish history.

• The Supreme Court says that this law cannot be applied to Puigdemont (or as we like to call him, Poochi) nor to his former advisers Toni Comín and Lluís Puig because (the judges say) the amnesty law doesn’t cover crimes such as embezzlement for personal gain or any actions that affected the financial interests of the European Union (and the Court considers these guys are guilty of that).

• Who loses? This is a setback for Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez and his coalition government, as amnesty for separatist leaders (like Puigdemont) was one of the demands that both pro-Catalan independence parties Junts and ERC made in order to support his appointment as PM.

• It’s also a huge problem for Puigdemont, who was expecting to triumphantly return to Catalonia ASAP after the amnesty bill was passed. With this ruling, his arrest warrant remains active which means he won’t be setting foot in Catalonia anytime soon (unless, of course, he wants to go to jail).

So wait… was there embezzlement on their part? Well, the Supreme Court seems to think so.

• Follow the money 🤑. The judges say there was embezzlement by the political leaders that pushed for the referendum because, as El País explains, “they saved money that, had they not rerouted public funds that didn’t belong to them, they would have had to spend from their own savings to finance the independence process”.

• A bit tortured, no? As we explained last week, 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. As in, you can’t use public money for that diamond pinky ring you’ve always wanted, but it was less illegal to use it for a political cause. Now, the judges are arguing that Puigdemont’s use of public funds for the separatist cause actually benefitted him personally. Get it? We sorta do, but we also think the judges (like a lotta people) really just don’t like this whole amnesty thing.

• But there’s more! The top Court also sees another problem why they can’t apply the amnesty law to Puigdemont et al: they say that the bid for independence posed a threat to the EU’s financial stability and, as Politico explains, “had the 2017 referendum… been successful, the EU’s territorial dimensions and Spain’s contribution to the bloc’s budget would have been impacted.”

• EU v Spain. “It is especially difficult to reconcile the European Union’s efforts to end impunity for embezzlers with Spanish legislators’ desire to excuse particularly grave crimes simply because they were committed by specific political leaders during a specific period of time,” read the ruling, with, like, a very direct jab at the amnesty law.

Guess what? Yup, everybody has an opinion about this, and they roughly fall into two camps.

The Left and separatists. The Supreme court is engaging in “lawfare”, engaging in weird interpretations to get the outcome they want, and in other ways acting like mafiosos. Like:

• PSOE. Education Minister and government spokesperson Pilar Alegría says she had “Maximum respect for the decisions of the judiciary,” but recalled that the law was approved by a majority in Congress and that the “text of the law is very clear and the will of the legislators is as clear as the text… What has to happen is for judges to apply it.”

• Sumar. “If they want to do politics, let them run for office. But what we see in these decisions is a real embarrassment from a legal point of view,” Gerardo Pisarello said. “They invent the theory of embezzlement through savings, something that had never been heard before.”

• Puigdemont. Well, the fugitive himself does Twitter pretty well, and suggested the court was a mafia like la cosa nostra but substituting the world for a judge’s robe (toga) for cosa.

And from the Right: Basically happy happy but we need to keep an eye on this because PM Pedro Sánchez is trying to stake the courts to flip this on appeal.

• PP. Party boss Alberto Nuñez Feijóo was happy about the ruling but expressed doubts about the impartiality of the Constitutional Court—where Puigdemont will eventually appeal and where the PP will file a motion trying to get the whole amnesty law ruled unconstitutional. Why? Because Sánchez named two former members of his government to that court. “I won’t deny that we have difficulties accepting the impartiality of our Constitutional Court, but it is what it is,” he said. “A Constitutional stuffed with two Government positions seems absolutely immoral to us.”

• Vox. Party head Santiago Abascal took to X to celebrate, “A little decency among so much ignominy” and didn’t even try to blame the amnesty on immigrants from North Africa, which is kind of restrained for him.

So what happens now? Well… the last hope for Puigdemont and the others is to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court (which, like, already said “no”, so we know the answer) and then to Spain’s Constitutional Court. If all else, fails, there’s always the European Court of Human Rights. And then God himself. Or Puigdemont could just come back to Spain and go on trial and get a pardon. Really don’t see that one though.

More news below. 👇👇

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💬 Five things to discuss at dinner parties this week

1. 👠 To see porn in Spain the government wants you to use its new pajaporte

Who among us did not catch a glimpse of some naughty images before the age of 18? Well, apparently Spain’s government did (or didn’t?) and is so eager to make sure it never happens again they have created a system to age-gate access to online porn that is so complicated we’re not sure we have the brains to explain it. But we’ll try.

• Porn can be bad for the youths. So no one says we’re downplaying a real problem, let us state that we know that pornography can deform kids’ (and adults’) ideas about sex. A recent study in Spain found that 62.5% of people between 16 and 29 consume pornography (72% of males, 52% of females), the age of first contact was 13, and about 3-in-10 said it had led to more violent sexual fantasies or had influence on the use of violence during sex. Which is not good. We get it. Still, this new app…

Cartera Digital Beta. That’s the name of the app/digital ID wallet announced by the Minister of Digital Transformation, José Luis Escrivá. But because people are funny, it was immediately dubbed the Pajaporte, or “Masturbation Passport.” 🤣

• Check your ID at the door. Sites with adult content based in Spain (which is sorta like none of them) will have to age verify people coming in, which they will able to do via this new digital ID app. The digital wallet will generate 30 anonymous digital age-verification ID cards that can be used 10 times each at one site (so a site can’t collect user behavior data and user can’t be tracked across sites). Why 30 and 10? No clue. The government may not know either. Though when you run out of ID cards they’ll give you new ones. Which is nice.

• Just trust us. Seems like a lot could go wrong and not a lot right? Yeah, to us too. As in, will the app be so airtight that no bad actor will be able to expose your identity? And if it’s only sites based in Spain, what good is that? (Plus, anyone can get around it by using a VPN.) 

• And another thing. Doesn’t downloading the app in the first place act like a “hey I like porn” flag? The app is meant to eventually identify people for any need—not just age, but also to store their driver’s license and padrón, DNI, etc, But until it adds those, it’s just the “porn user ID” app. 

Preparing for September 2026. That’s what the EU will require member countries to deliver their EUDI (EU Digital Identity) wallet, and Spain’s age-verification app is a step in that direction. Minister Escrivá said it would be ready at the end of the summer. And an EU law going into effect in October 2027 will require websites to stop minors from accessing “inappropriate content” aka porn. Good luck on that!

2. 🤪 And while we’re talking about sex, here’s a Nocilla ad!

Who knew a seven-second commercial could get so many peoples’ knickers in a twist? Well, Nocilla does now! Idilia Foods, which sells the hazelnut and chocolate spread (and which recently bought 50% of chocolate milk Cacaolat), put out what its creatives (at Contrapunto BBDO) probably told them would be a “fun” and slightly “edgy” advertising to appeal to Gen Z. And wow did they get their money’s worth!

• The ad. An older man sits at the kitchen table, holding a small, vibrating gadget to his head, his face confused. A teenage (we assume) girl also sitting at the table turns to camera with a knowing, slightly embarrassed smile. And in voice over you hear “When you tell your grandfather that that is not a thermometer, say it with Nocilla.” See above.

• The funny bit? The gadget is indeed not a thermometer but a…Satisfyer. You know, the erotic toy/vibrator that offers, um, “A tingling pressure vacuum coupled with arousing pulsations.” So, get it? He’s an old dude pressing a vibrator to his head and she has to explain? Ha!

Culture warriors, unleash thyselves. Conservative twitter/youtube/insta/whateveh went nutty because, in the words of (also conservative) ABC, Nocilla “used a sex toy as a comic resource, understanding that it is in bad taste and that it is not typical of a brand with a family image.” Also, some people thought it made fun of the olds. Which would definitely be true if it featured Joe Biden holding a Satisfyer to his head. Maybe Nocilla should call him?

• Let us count the ways. Some internauts announced they were boycotting the spread; one YouTuber called it “woke garbage” (basura woke); an X user noted the difference between old ads showing kids play sports and this one and said, “A decade apart. There is a plan to corrupt and degenerate society”; and well-known leftists (kidding) Christian Lawyers wrote on X, “Nocilla, a product consumed mostly by children, launches an advertisement with a Satisfyer. How far will the sexualization of children go? ENOUGH ALREADY!” It’s like, OH MY GOD CIVILIZATION IS COMING TO AN END! Right?

• Well, maybe not. Sad right=Gloating left. “It amuses me to see ‘radical, outspoken, transgressive, politically incorrect’ profiles scandalized like 1920s nuns because a Nocilla ad shows a Satisfyer as a joke,” one wrote: “Fachas offended by a Nocilla advertisement. It's happening,” wrote another.

How can we know that 1920s nuns wouldn’t be in the pro-Satisfyer camp?

3. 🐂 A toro embolado breaks into a house and chaos ensues

Sigh.

Like it or not, the toro embolado is still a thing in some towns in Valencia and Catalonia. For those of you unaware with the term, it’s a festivity in which a bull that has burning balls of flammable material attached to its horns (yes, don’t ask) “is set free in the streets at night, and participants dodge the bull when it comes close”.

• Because it’s already summer and the small town festivities are in full swing, people in the town of Les Alqueries (in the Castellón province, in Valencia) were running away from one of those bulls (again, with literal fire on its horns), when it suddenly broke into a house and made everyone panic.

• In the video above you can see people screaming and trying to get the bull’s attention as an eery yellowy light comes from the interior of the house. The light, of course, being the (again) LITERAL FIRE on the anima’s horns. Fire hazard!

• Fortunately no (human) injuries were reported and no houses were set on fire. However, this is a practice that has left several dead in the past. It also didn’t stop the media from headlines such as “night of terror in Castellón” (yeah… for the bull!).

The viral video has once again reignited the conversation about animal cruelty and why we need to maintain such practices in the 21st century.

• Ecologists in Action, a confederation of over 300 ecologist organizations from all over Spain, issued a statement titled “Cruelty as Fun”, criticizing the celebrations in Castellón and calling the toro embolado practice a “major cruelty”.

4. 😢 Two sisters commit suicide in Barcelona before being evicted

This is a tragic one and it has become a part of the much larger conversation about the housing crisis in Spain.

On Monday morning, two sisters in Barcelona aged 64 and 54 apparently decided to take their own lives by jumping off the top floor of the building they were living in—and were about to be evicted from.

• Before jumping, they left a suicide note next to the eviction order. The two women owed €9,000 to their landlord and had failed to pay rent since February 2021, right after their mother’s death from COVID during the height of the pandemic. The landlord decided to take legal action in May 2023, suing them for their failure to make payment for the previous two years.

• The two women jumped from an interior courtyard of the building on Navas de Tolosa Street, in the Sant Andreu neighborhood, just past 4:30 a.m. The eviction was scheduled for 11 a.m. that day.

• After the owner sued, the judicial process was conducted in absentia because no one showed up, and the Barcelona City Council was asked by the court to conduct a vulnerability analysis and report. However, despite efforts from representatives to mediate between the parties, they were unable to make contact with anyone living in the apartment.

Area residents say the sisters “never asked for help”, “kept to themselves” and were “isolated”, with the younger one “barely leaving the apartment”. Their neighbors also said they were both severely affected by the death of their mother as the older sister (the only one who left the apartment) was always wearing a face mask and “stayed away from everyone”.

• Barcelona mayor Jaume Collboni said he was “overcome by such horrible news” adding that he couldn’t “stop thinking” about the city’s “many attempts to reach out to them”, all of them unsuccessful.

• Collboni also said this “bitter tragedy highlights the biggest problem that the city is facing today: the price of housing”, a problem that he said is his government’s “first priority”.

Hundreds of people gathered on Tuesday to protest the price of housing in the city, arguing that prices “not only choke, but also kill”.

• “These aren’t suicides, these are murders,” they said in reference to the two sisters, and called for a minute of silence to honor the women.

• Irene Escorihuela, housing specialist and director of the DESCA Observatory, an organization focusing on economic, social, and cultural rights told El País that "this is not an isolated case."

• "We are talking about frequent situations, suicides after suicides, it is a clear indicator that there is a housing problem, that the administrations are not responding adequately, and we should not be reaching eviction days in this manner".

The story took place on the same week it was reported that rent has increased by an average of 10% in Barcelona (€1,193 in Barcelona and €868 in the rest of Catalonia) when compared to the same month last year.

5. 😷 COVID is still among us and we’re proud to say the newest variant might be Spanish

Scary virus or dirty dog chew-toy? You decide. Photo by Fusion Medical Animation on Unsplash

COVID has been back in the news (sorta) for a few weeks, ever since an X account that’s hub for Spanish Swifties took a super unscientific poll of its followers and 35% of the 10,796 people who answered said they had come down with COVID after one of Taytay’s May concerts in Madrid. So we’re now all self congratulatory about not going (fine, we didn’t have tickets).

• The numbers are up. Instituto de Salud Carlos III’s SiVIRA respiratory sickness watch service estimates that as of late June there are 151 COVID cases per 100,000 people in Spain, the ninth consecutive weekly rise. Which probably is not a positive thing.

• Let’s hear it for Cadiz. A new variant known as KP.3 (part of the FLiRT family of Omicron subvariants—someone had fun naming that) is said to be behind the bump—and it was first discovered in Cadiz in March. But don’t believe us! "It emerged in Cádiz, Andalusia, at the end of March and is the main driver of the current wave in Spain,” COVID researcher Federico Gueli said.

• Still, few people are dying. Which is good. 4.5 people per 100,000 are being hospitalized because of COVID, and 7.9% of those die. 

It’s also a handy excuse. Bertín Osborne, the sort of annoying TV presenter and singer, has canceled his musical tour because of a “post-COVID problem.” But but but… El País helpfully notes that his first concert, in Valencia, had only sold 200 out of its 2,000 tickets, and he recently canceled another show, outside of Madrid, after he went on stage—claiming technical difficulties, even though some attendees apparently told Antena 3’s Espejo público that there basically was no one there. So maybe a “post-COVID” problem is, like, not having fans.

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