👋 This Week in Spain: We're Back!
August saw a new regional president in Catalonia, Puigdemont's vanishing act, a new migration crisis and upside down pineapples at Mercadona. What a time to be alive!
By @IanMount and @AdrianBono | September 5, 2024 | Madrid | Issue #68
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Recap
🏖️ Here’s What You Missed While Sunbathing in Mallorca
📍 Catalonia has a new regional president
Socialist Salvador Illa managed to get appointed as the new regional president of Catalonia after forming a government with help from the lefty separatists of the ERC. He becomes the first Catalan leader in 14 years who does not support Catalonia’s independence, putting an end to over a decade of separatist rule.
Illa promised to “govern for all Catalans”, emphasizing unity and inclusivity while maintaining Catalonia’s cultural identity without it being divisive (you can watch some highlights from his speech below). So, like all happy stuff without really saying anything specific.
Drama! The session in Catalonia’s Regional Parliament included (of course) lots of drama, especially because the righty separatists in Junts tried to sabotage it (unsuccessfully). No one cared and Illa was appointed to much of their chagrin.
📍Puigdemont reappeared in Barcelona (for, like, two seconds)
Carles Puigdemont, the former Catalan regional president who spearheaded the 2017 illegal independence referendum and later fled Spain to avoid being arrested, was not happy with Illa’s appointment (or how much attention he was getting—”LOOK AT ME!”).
In an effort to stay politically relevant, he decided to break his self-imposed exile in Belgium to attempt a triumphant return to the streets of Barcelona and fire up the base to show that the separatist movement (along with his leadership) was alive and well. As Spain’s legal system is still debating whether the recently passed (and widely disliked) amnesty law exonerates him from all of his past separatist peccadilloes, the arrest warrant for him remains active. So there was a real chance he would be arrested. Fun! 👯
The result was… strange. He appeared briefly on the morning of Illa’s appointment, addressing his followers right under the Arc de Triomf in downtown Barcelona to try to somehow derail or delay the process. In the end, the whole thing amounted to not much. He repeated “We’re still here!” a few times and disappeared, a speech that seemingly backfired as media outlets and pundits said he sounded like he was fighting to stay relevant.
And then he ran away (again)! It was his quick escape that ended up eclipsing his own words and getting all the attention: After addressing the crowd on live TV, he managed to avoid arrest and head back to Belgium. The scandal was big, with everyone in Spain pretty much showing (or at least feigning) outrage at Catalan security forces and the government for dropping the ball (he may have had help from three mossos [police officers], who were allegedly involved in his disappearing act and have now been suspended).
📍And a few other things you missed…
August heat was a killer—literally. At least 1,386 people died in Spain in the month. That was the third worst August figure since data has been kept, only surpassed by 2022 (1,607) and 2023 (1,990).
Shakira wants you to know that she didn’t plead guilty to tax fraud in Spain because she was, like, guilty—she did it to protect her kids and just get it done with. In fact, she wrote a long letter to the world to say just that.
Pedro Almodóvar’s first movie in English, The Room Next Door, was apparently so damned good the Spanish director got a 17-minute standing ovation at the Venice film festival. Now, we doubt any movie is so good it deserves a 17-minunte Standing O. But we do think the amazing cotton-dandy pink suit he was wearing definitely did!
You know who wasn’t 17-minute-standing-ovation happy? Well, neither Madrid Mayor José Luis Martínez Almeida nor Real Madrid star Vinicius Jr.
First, Vinicius—who has had a series of ugly experiences with racism in Spanish football stadiums—told CNN Brazil that if the situation with racism in Spain didn’t improve by 2030, “the World Cup will have to move” out of the country.
And Almeida? Not happy at the idea of his city losing its major role in the event. He demanded that Vinicius “rectify” his statement, saying, “We are all aware that there are indeed still racist episodes in society and we must work very hard to eliminate them," but, "It is deeply unfair to Spain, and particularly Madrid, to say that our country is racist."
And the case against Begoña Gómez, PM Sánchez’s wife, is still ongoing (in case you have forgotten). Not much has happened in August, but Sánchez has expanded the legal complaint for malfeasance against Judge Juan Carlos Peinado, who is overseeing the case against her.
While the PM refused to testify right before our summer break (because who wants to mess up the summer vibe?), his statement was caught on camera by Peinado and he has ordered for copies to be provided to all parties involved in the case (despite the defense’s insistence that they would offer nothing new). So a leak of the short video is now a very real possibility. Woohoo! 🎉
More news below. 👇👇
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💬 Five things to discuss at dinner parties this week
🍍 1. Goodbye, Tinder. Hello, evenings at Mercadona
We’ve heard that Gen Zers are ditching dating apps such as Tinder, Bumble or Grindr and going back to good old dating. But this, we didn’t see coming.
In case you’ve been living under a rock, Spain has been making headlines all over the world (for real) after the media heard about a new dating trend taking the country by storm: cruising for love at the supermarket (at Mercadona, to be exact).
The premise is simple: You go to any Mercadona supermarket between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m, grab a cart and head over to the fruit section. Pick up a pineapple and place it in your cart upside down, then start stalking the aisles. If you see someone you like with a similar pineapple, bump your cart onto theirs! That’s the modern day equivalent of a “like” or a “swipe right” (try explaining that to your grandmother). If they respond with a smile, it’s a match! (If they look at you with disdain, they probably have no idea of what’s going on).
But how did this whole meet cute craze start? To put it all together, we need to do some pop culture archaeology and head back to the year 2017 AD, when Lea, a contestant in the (in)famous dating show First Dates said that she would go to Mercadona between 7 p.m. and 8 p.m. because that was the time when single people did their grocery shopping.
Fast forward to August 2024, when actress and TikTok star Vivy Lin posted a video from a Mercadona supermarket explaining why singles like to show up at this particular time. The video quickly went viral.
People started showing up in droves at Mercadonas all over Spain, grabbing pineapples and not buying much. “Chaotic scenes”, says the BBC. In Bilbao, the police was called after “hopeful singles overwhelmed” one of the supermarkets.
Mercadona employees allegedly started removing pineapples during dating hour because the whole thing was becoming a nuisance (no official confirmation from the company though).
So does this whole thing work? Meet us today at 7 pm to find out! (We’ll just be going as mere observers, of course.)
2.🆘 Canary Islands face a major migration crisis
The Canary Islands are at a “breaking point” as they deal with a massive migration surge from West Africa. Over 25,000 people have arrived since Jan. 1 (3,200 in recent weeks), breaking all records (these numbers represent a 126% annual increase in arrivals). Humanitarian organizations are warning that the system is overwhelmed.
Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez wants a reform of the Ley de Extranjería (“Foreigners Law”) to distribute the responsibility of hosting unaccompanied minors across different autonomous regions. He has urged the PP to support the reform (the party rejected it in July).
Last week, Sánchez visited Mauritania, Gambia, and Senegal (see video above) to forge agreements aimed at managing legal migration and repatriating irregular migrants.
Parties on the right such as the PP and far-right Vox have rejected Sánchez’s proposals, saying that the government’s policies are contributing to the crisis and called for stricter immigration control measures.
Fernando Clavijo, regional president of the Canary Islands, said that he planned to sue the national government, accusing it of neglecting the Canaries amidst this crisis.
Clavijo highlighted overcrowded facilities housing 5,200 unaccompanied minors in the Canary Islands and warned of an expected influx of 3,000-7,000 more children in the coming months.
Clavijo is from the Coalición Canaria party which, in case you don’t remember, is a part of Sánchez’s coalition government in Parliament (they have one seat).
3. 🪦 Britain does not find that #BalconLeague death table very funny
Feeling tourismophobic as your town is invaded by hordes of drunk guiris is totally understandable. Poking fun at tourist deaths? That may be a bit too far.
Christina McKelvie, the Scottish government’s minister for drugs and alcohol policy, last week called for the closure of the “utterly vile” website of the Federació Balear de Balconing (Balearic Balconing Federation, in Catalan) after it “celebrated” the death of a 19-year-old Scottish woman, Emma Ramsay, who fell from a sixth-floor hotel balcony.
Celebrated? Well, yeah. The group uses its website and X account to tally the number of people who die or are injured while balconing—jumping from balcony to balcony or from balcony to pool, a common (drunken, dumb) tourist pursuit on the Balearic Islands—and then ranks them by nationality.
Unfriendly “Go 🇬🇧!” Upon Ramsay’s fall, the group, which declares itself Darwinistically tourismophobic, “congratulated” the U.K. for rising to the top of the rankings with her death (a death is 2 points, and injury 1, and year-end ties are split broken by number of floors fallen), saying, “Everyone trusted that the kings of this sport would once again be leaders of the #BalconLeague, and even if this moment has been long overdue, the British NEVER disappoint!”
So, yeah, that didn’t go down well. It comes amid a big pushback against mass tourism in some of Spain’s most popular hot spots.
On the Balearic Islands themselves, Palma de Mallorca saw 20,000 people demonstrate against massive tourism and its problems (high housing prices, drunks in the street) in July, and another 10,000 back in May.
Barcelona protestors famously sprayed tourists with water pistols in July. They also carried signs saying “Dear Tourists: Balconing is fun!” (The Times locates the Balcoining Federation in Catalonia).
He said; She said. The Balconing Federation says it’s not the problem—the “model of massive booze tourism” is, while some English pubs note that maybe locals should be thankful for the tourism 💰. Most people seem to agree that balconing is sorta stupid, though.
4. 🎙️ Priest sorta defends mayor who sings pederasty song and… now, was that a good idea?
Fiesta de pueblo fun recipe: Give a small-town mayor a few drinks, put him on stage at the annual town party, hand him a mic, and odds are he’ll say something kinda ridiculous. But there’s ridiculous, and there’s Antonio Martín Hernández.
Martín is the mayor of the town of Vita (Ávila), Pop. 79, and Aug. 25 was his little town’s big day. There, well into the evening, he got on stage and started to sign.
But it wasn’t just any song. The lyrics (which he sorta mumble-slur-sung—see above), were: “I found a little girl alone in the woods, I took her by the hand and took her to my bed. I pulled up her skirt and pulled down her panties.” Which is, um… Well, which is.
This would not have been a problem, though. Like, small-town mayors say crazy things all the time, right? But a video of the festivities found its way to the leaders of Podemos (a formerly important lefty party in Spain) who got very excited (the mayor is from the right-wing PP and, formerly, Vox) and denounced Hernández as a “Pederasty apologist”...”Shame. Disgust. Infamy.” And who can really disagree?
But it gets “better”. The controversy earlier this week found Martín on a Greek cruise, from which he apologized in that politician non-apology way. It was a song that was traditionally sung “during the Vita festivities" for one thing, but he gets it—really!
"I have always respected women, girls, and boys… if anyone has felt offended, I am very sorry and for my part that song will not be sung again."
You guessed it: Things did not end there. Podemos and the PSOE demanded Martín’s resignation, and the PP expelled him from the party’s municipal group. But he didn’t leave right away. And then…life threw us a curveball!
Spain’s Catholic church got involved! Really? Yes. The archbishop of Valladolid Luis Argüello said, “Praise of any kind of violence seems reprehensible to me” and then he said “but” as in:
“But I also think that we have to put things in context, that is, knowing what the festivals of many towns are like, knowing what happens in the early hours of the morning after having drunk this or that, we have to put it in that context.”
Now, Argüello went on to make a probably good point about old Spanish songs. “We should review many lyrics, many songs, many of them in English, that are sung at our festivals, …to deal with anything that is especially negative, but also be able to put things in context and not grow into what could be an excessively puritanical society.”
But just to be clear. If Spain’s Catholic Church, which is in the midst of its own pedophilia controversy, was trying to clean up its reputation, well, this probably wasn’t the way to do it. Note to Argüello: Keep your head down next time.
Although the video above says Martín has resigned, it appears he has not and will decide when he returns from vacation.
5. 🧑⚖️ Sánchez has a not-great judge news week
We’re going to dive into the weeds of the Spanish justice system for, like, 30 seconds. We’re just going to serve a little spinach. Please excuse us!
You see, PM Pedro Sánchez got justice news that on the surface might seem good. But deeper down? Maybe not so much.
First, there’s Isabel Perelló. The Catalan judge was elected as president of Spain’s judicial oversight board, the Consejo General del Poder Judicial (CGPJ, or General Council of the Judiciary), which chooses judges on various courts (including ones on the big ones—the Supreme and Constitutional courts—which basically decide what’s law).
Perelló’s naming as the CGPJ’s first woman president is the first step to normalizing the board, which had an expired mandate for, like, 6 years. The PP and the PSOE had been fighting over the 20 CGPJ members because whoever controls the CGPJ, controls the judges, and therefore the whole justice system. (It’s like choosing U.S. Supreme Court justices—If you’ve got any ties to America, like we do, you know what we mean.)
Finally a deal. The deal they came to allowed the PSOE and the PP to chose 10 members each, and called on the members to choose the president.
Perelló should make Sánchez happy, at least on paper. The last CGPJ president, Manuel Marchena, was conservative, so it was the left’s turn. And Perelló is a member of Judges for Democracy, a lefty legal group.
But, but, but… Sánchez and his government were pushing another “progressive” judge, Ana Ferrer, who presumably they expected to be solidly in their camp. Seeing Perelló as more independent of Sánchez, one of the conservative judges nominated Perelló, and in the end she won the vote 16-4 (13 votes were needed). That’s how they get ya.
And then more bad imperfect news for Sánchez. Constitutional Court Judge Juan Carlos Campo announced that he would abstain from the court’s review of Sánchez’s controversial amnesty law.
Campo had been Sánchez’s Justice Minister and has said that amnesty would be unconstitutional (so confusing!), so whatever he ruled would be questioned.
That might not be so bad for Sánchez/PSOE however. The court has a 7-5 left/PSOE majority, which only drops to 6-5 with Campo’s abstention.
But the PP wants two other judges to recuse themselves. Court Chief Justice Cándido Conde-Pumpido, who was said (by the right-wing press) to have helped Sánchez’s gov write the amnesty law. And Laura Díez Bueso, who also worked in the Sánchez government (though in a lower post than Campo).
6-5. In the end, they will probably both stay, leading to a preordained (though superficially close) victory for Sánchez’s amnesty law. Though you never know—back in 2007 when the constitutionality of Catalonia’s Estatut was being considered, the PP pushed a series of abstentions and a PSOE-appointed judge crossed the aisle to support the conservatives. Exciting times!
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We're eagerly awaiting the first wedding vows that mention "la noche de la piña"!
And will there be a race to the bottom, fruit-wise? Día and a Granny Smith apple...
Great stuff guys - always so entertaining (and informative!) to read. I must have been living under a rock, because I'd never heard of the Mercadona dating craze. How fun! Welcome back! 💃