🚨This Week in Spain: Will Sánchez Resign?

Also: We may be running low on Cava, and—whoops!—we lost a mafia boss.

Apr 25, 2024

By @IanMount and @AdrianBono | April 25, 2024 | Madrid | Issue #54

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

🥜 This Week in a Nutshell: Well, we had prepared one version of today’s issue, which was going to focus on overtourism and the housing crisis. Then last night Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez (dramatically) announced that he was suspending official activities to think about whether he wants to stay in office. Never a dull day (or night), we tell ya.

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Definitely not on our bingo card

🍿 PM Pedro Sánchez Cancels Public Appearances, Threatens to Resign, Takes Unapproved Time Off

If you’re wondering what the hell is going on, fret not. So is the rest of the country.

Completely unexpected turn of events: Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez posted an open letter to the citizens of Spain last night, saying he was taking some time off to decide whether he wanted to remain on the job. The announcement came hours after news broke that his wife was being investigated for corruption and influence peddling. (No news on who granted his vacation time off request.)

Wait, back up! WHAT?! Start from the beginning.

It all started yesterday morning when newspaper El Confidencial reported that a Madrid judge had launched a preliminary investigation into Begoña Gómez, Sánchez’s wife, over alleged use of her government connections to further her private business interests.
Far-right platform Manos Límpias (Clean Hands) filed the complaint. Ol’ Clean Hands defines itself as a “union of civil servants” but really just files tons of dumb legal complaints against left-wing leaders that eventually lead nowhere (its record is like 0 wins, 99 losses in court cases). The group’s filings are such crap that it itself has been investigated a few times for making false accusations.
The complaint comes to light. El Diario got a copy of the complaint. and it’s a total meh (surprise!). No hard evidence is presented, and the accusation is based on information presented in “several digital and print newspapers, and later on TV talk shows”. (One comic piece of “evidence” is a debunked story about a certain Begoña Gómez “secretly getting government funding”. Turns out that—whoops!—it was a different Begoña Gómez). Likely outcome? Another nothing burger (in fact, Manos Límpias admitted this morning the accusation may be based on false evidence).

OK. Then how do we go from there to Sánchez’s “I need to reflect on whether this is worth it” pout? Well, it may have to do with his efforts to keep his personal life separate from his political life and that he believes his wife should be off limits. The last few months have seen an increase in (very) personal attacks involving partners or spouses of both right and left wing political leaders and perhaps yesterday’s news really was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

As he entered the Parliament floor yesterday for the regular oversight session, something was off. He seemed… different.

Sánchez looked “irritated”, as if “he wanted to be done with it”, according to El País. During the session, the PP and far-right Vox avoided directly asking the PM about the investigation into his wife, focusing instead on Basque Country election results. At the same time, PSOE leaders avoided raising tax-evasion allegations against the romantic partner of Madrid governor Isabel Díaz Ayuso, in what El País calls a “tacit pact of non-aggression”.
The only semi-direct allusion to the investigation came when Catalan separatist MP Gabriel Rufián, known for his constant trolling, asked Sánchez if he still believed in the justice system. Sánchez, looking genuinely annoyed, responded: “In a day like today, and spite of the news I’ve learned, I still believe in my country’s justice system”.

And then, the letter. A few minutes after 7 p.m. last night (when we thought our work was done—thanks, Pedro), Sánchez posted on his socials a four-page letter in which he said that he was suspending public duties to “reflect”, as he is seriously considering resigning after the "unprecedented attacks" on his wife.

“I need to pause and reflect. I urgently need to answer the question of whether it's worth it, whether I should continue leading the government or resign from this honor." (Come to think of it, Tapa management would also like to “pause and reflect”. Who do we talk to?)
The entire political world was thrown into turmoil. Local media said the letter came as a shock to everyone, including PSOE leaders who apparently had no idea this was coming (in case you forgot, the regional election in Catalonia is around the corner and this weekend was the official kick off in Barcelona, which he was supposed to attend).
Sánchez will take the rest of the week off and will reappear on Monday, when he will rise from the ashes like a phoenix and tell us whether he’s decided to remain in office or resign and leave Deputy PM María Jesús Montero in charge (turns out we’d need to wait at least until May 29 to call for new general elections).

What a mess! Is he serious or is he bluffing? Well, it depends on who you ask. Both the PP and Vox were quick to criticize his announcement, while lefty leaders all came out to support him (We know: we’re all shocked by this partisan outcome).

PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo said he was “trying the play the victim and polarize even more” while Vox’s Abascal said maybe Sánchez is retiring “to prepare his legal defense”.
PSOE leaders closed ranks and defended Sánchez on social media, asking him not to resign. Yolanda Díaz (Sumar), Gabriel Rufián (ERC) and Ione Belarra (Podemos), among others, quickly came out to support him.

Not so big demonstration. Last night, less than a hundred people gathered outside the PSOE headquarters in Madrid to express their support for the PM, while the PP headquarters was being evacuated over a bomb threat (unclear whether it was an actual threat or just a joke). Fun times!

But let’s get to the fun part—the speculation about what the hell Pedro’s doing! We promise to be respectful and serious (maybe).

Here are theories, some real, some tongue planted firmly in cheek.

EU job. Europe’s socialists are expected to pick up the European Council president position in November 2024, after Charles Michel steps down. Former Portuguese PM Antonio Costa was short-listed there, until he resigned after the country’s attorney general said he was being investigated in a corruption probe. Pedro could get some sympathy points among Europe’s socialists if he quits over rightwing harassment. (He was also listed as a possible NATO boss, until he unexpectedly managed to repeat as PM with backing from Catalan separatists. Maybe he regrets repeating now? Just asking.)
But if he got a baño de masas… After so many weeks of open political fronts (Unholy alliances! Amnesty! Corruption probes! Personal attacks!) Sánchez maybe has had enough and is real about quitting. However, he might remain if hundreds of thousands of people react by taking to the streets and beg him to stay (better hurry if that’s the plan).
…or a reaffirming parliamentary vote. Sánchez may just ask parliament for a vote of confidence to re-confirm him. Which would be nice.
PTO—Use It or Lose It. Sánchez realized he had several outstanding vacation days he had to use by the end of April, and everybody knows that only a fool (or an American) doesn’t use all his Paid Time Off. (This is the tongue-in-cheek part).
Pedro is just so over this PM thing. He’s taking a page from Estanislao Figueras, first president of the First Republic, who in 1873 said to his Council of Ministers/cabinet: “Gentlemen, I am going to be frank with you: I am fed up with all of us” (“Señores, voy a serles franco: estoy hasta los cojones de todos nosotros”), and then fucked off to France.
Be Like Xavi. FC Barcelona coach Xavi Hernández just said he was going to quit at the end of the season but the team started to play better and management begged him to stay and now he said ‘yes’—and Pedro is soooo jealous.
How do you say Quiet Quitting en español? The PM got a lesson from his Gen Z daughters on what to do when you feel under-appreciated at work: Go to work, but don’t do work.

In all seriousness now… What will happen on Monday? Honestly, no one has any idea. But we do know one group that is seriously peeved right now: Journalists in Spain. Not only this caught all of us by surprise, but we once are once again forced to consider the possibility of a summer election.

Yes. Again.

More news below! 👇

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💬 Five Three things to discuss at dinner parties this week

1. 🚨 Let’s release the mafioso on bail. What could go wrong?

Karim going into custody. SOURCE: Policía Nacional/Cadena SER

Truly, this was not the finest week for Spain’s justice officials. The only good part of the screwup is that it lets us say “Mocro Maffia” repeatedly as we wonder why they're using a double-F in mafia.

Big arrest: A major mobster/billionaire Dutch drug lord named Karim Bouyakhrichan—whose group in fact threatened to kidnap and kill the Dutch king’s daughter—was arrested in January in Marbella after a five year investigation, the Policía Nacional announced with much fanfare. Nice work Mr. 👮!
Next up, the courts. Karim was arraigned and put into pre-trial detention by a Marbella judge. This kicked off a huge back-and-forth between courts in Marbella and Málaga, where the Málaga court wanted to send him to the Netherlands once the Dutch got their extradition order ready, while the Marbella court suggested he be tried in Spain first, for a standing money laundering charge. And Karim’s defense files a motion to be released on bail. Uh-oh!
Sort of a flight risk. The anti-drug prosecutor in Marbella, Carlos Tejeda, warns that Karim has, like, tons of money, a Moroccan passport, and plenty of motive to flee, so please don’t let him out of jail, okay?
Mistakes made. A three judge panel says, “Nah, Karim’s lawyers are right. We can let him go with less invasive measures.” And they give him €50,000 bail and tell him he can’t leave the country and has to check in with the courts the 1st and 15th each month.
Really? Agents involved in the case say ~~are you fucking kidding me?~~ “It surprised us they freed such a massive criminal” because, “a bail of €50,000 is pocket change for him.” The authorities in the Netherlands, where Karim is public enemy #1, are also, um, alarmed. (Context: when Karim was arrested, the authorities seized 172 properties valued at €50m as well as €3m in bank accounts. So, dude’s got some 🤑.)
Guess what? Total surprise here. He’s disappeared! Like a ghost. Turns out Karim fulfilled his April 1 check-in but not for April 15. Justice folk begin to worry that this might be bad, and in an epic bout of understatement, Minister of the Presidency Félix Bolaños says, “This is worrisome.”

So who are Karim Bouyakhrichan and the Mocro Maffia? As El Diario explains, Mocro Maffia is composed of hired killers and drug traffickers from poor neighborhoods in Belgium, the Nordic countries, and most of all the Netherlands. Many are from Maghrebi families (hence Mocro, from Morocco). They bring hashish to Europe from Morocco and also distribute cocaine from Latin America. In Spain, they’re a big deal on Costa del Sol. So… great people!

The Dutch king’s daughter bit? Catalina Amalia, Princess of Orange, was a college student in 2022 when the threats from the boys of Mocro cut short her fun (“She practically can’t leave the house,” her parents the royals said).
Madrid connection: Amalia moved to Madrid to study and avoid the dangers of Holland (a move we wholeheartedly endorse for pretty much anyone, even those not under mob threat). She apparently stayed for about a year, studying, as speaks fluent Spanish because her mother — aka Queen Máxima — grew up in Argentina.

To the Málaga court, we have one childish 1980s thing to say: Smooth move, Ex-Lax.

2. 🥵 It’s official: It’s just too damn hot!

We know what you’re thinking: it must be a slow news week if The Tapa is talking about the weather again. Well, it was until last night!

But we’re serious about the heat—not only is it killing more people, it may also take away our cava 🍾.

The new European State of the Climate report released on Tuesday by the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) and the World Meteorological Organization found that “2023 was the joint warmest or second warmest year on record.” Which is not good. Even if you’re a super friolero.
Specifically: Temperatures in Europe were above average for 11 months of the year, including the warmest September on record, and 2023 saw a record number of days with ‘extreme heat stress’. These cannot be good things!
Killer heat: Heat-related deaths in Europe have increased by about 30% (‼️) in the past 20 years and are “estimated to have increased in 94% of the European regions monitored.” One estimate holds that there were 2,155 heat-related deaths in Spain in 2023 which is bad, but oddly not as bad as 2022 (3,012)!

So what does this have to do with cava, you are wondering. Well, “terrible drought, originated by climate change, has been affecting us since 2021 but especially since 2023,” Pedro Ferrer, VO of cava-maker Freixenet wrote in a note to fellow execs. That’s bad, got it. But so…?

It’s bad to be a cava man. Drought means ~~never having to say you’re sorry~~ never haven’t to harvest grapes—because there aren’t any. With few grapes, Freixenet is asking the regional government in Catalonia (where cava production is concentrated) to approve the furlough of up to 615 workers, starting in May.
It’s that dry? Yes it is, Maricarmen. Catalonia’s inland reservoirs are only 18% full according to the best website of all time (for those who follow reservoirs), Embalses.net.

Death might not have gotten a big government response, but cava layoffs did.

To keep the wineries running (and employing), the Government will give the Cava Regulatory Council access to grapes that are not classified in the records of the Cava DO. Like, undocumented, not exactly qualified grapes for your cava. But at least you’ll have cava, whether it’s up to snuff or not.

And it may not matter. At least if you believe Bloomberg, which snidely noted that Freixenet produces “millions of bottles every year out of their estates in the Penedès region in Catalonia, with a large share of their production sold abroad at relatively cheap prices.” Another 🔥! So very hot in here.

3, 4 & 5. 🏖️ The housing crisis edition comes home to roost

(BTW this was meant to be our big article until Pedro had his moment).

Bet you wish you were on a jaunt to the Canary Islands right now, considering this surprise “cold snap” ❄️ in peninsular Spain, right?

Oh, wait, we take that back! Thousands of Canary Islands residents made it abundantly clear last weekend that really the last thing they want is more tourists (i.e. you) hogging up housing units and driving up their rent. And they’re not alone: Catalonia passed a decree Wednesday to stop landlords from using seasonal leases to get around rent caps, and the Bank of Spain just said Spain is like a bazillion homes short of what it needs.

Welcome to Tapa’s Housing Crisis Edition! Where everything sucks unless you own a house, in which case you just think people should calm down and let the market take care of things.

The festivities kicked off Saturday when some 50,000 Canary Islanders gathered under the banner Canarias tiene un límite (The Canaries have a limit) to protest tourist saturation on the archipelago and say, basically, “Tourist Go Home.”

As Friend of Tapa Sam Jones noted in The Guardian, in 2023, 13.9 million people visited the islands, which have a population of 2.2 million and where tourism accounts for about 35% of GDP. So, like, the islands live off tourism and you might think islanders would like it for that reason, right? Wrong. People say the industry is “stressing natural resources and pricing them out of the rental market.” We know the feeling.
What do they want? A tourism “moratorium” while the tourist load each island can take is studied; a cap on tourist rentals; limits on the home purchases by non-residents; and an “ecotasa”—basically a tax on tourists to finance ecologically friendly projects.
Hungry for change. Activists from the group Canarias se agota (The Canaries Have Had Enough) have spent two weeks on a hunger strike to protest against a tourism model "that devastates our territory and exploits our people".

Not to be left out, Catalonia’s regional government cracked down on rental housing. On Wednesday, the regional government passed an urgent decree limiting “seasonal” apartment rentals, a categorization landlords used to avoid new caps intended to slow rent rises.

How does this work? This class, meant for short term work or educational stays—from 32 days to 11 months—was being used for regular long-term renters. Now, these rental contracts will be subject to regular rental rules—and price caps.

Why now? Landlords don’t like a new national rental price reference system meant to contain prices—which Catalonia was the only autonomous community to sign up for. How much did they not like it? Well, the week after the reference system debuted, up to 90% of rentals listed online in Barcelona were seasonal.
Catalonia does have a major housing accessibility problem. Prices have risen 66% in the last decade and 10% in 2023 alone, and half of those between 18 and 29 cannot afford a rental in half the towns in the region.
But so far the medicine hasn’t worked. Early signs point to landlords continuing to avoid the caps, either by not registering temporary rentals, not listing properties online, or just giving up on renting and putting apartments up for sale.

The big problem? No houses. The Bank of Spain (or BdE, as it’s known in Spanish) stepped up on Tuesday to put a number on the problem. That is: 600,000.

600,000 what? The BdE says that’s how many housing units need to be constructed between 2022 and 2025 to fix the current housing deficit.
But there’s a problem. 275,000 new households are formed in Spain each year, while non-residents demand another 60,000 units. On the flip side, only 90,000 housing units are built and 109,000 new rentals are put online annually. And by our math…nope, that doesn’t work.
Empty houses too. There are 4m empty houses in Spain, and 400,000 are in cities of 250,000+ residents. So maybe some could be useful, but no one knows if they’re livable.
And those damn tourists. 10% of Spain’s housing stock is set aside for tourists, and another 10% for seasonal rentals.
QED no house for you! No wonder only 1-in-6 Spanish youth move out of their parents house by age 30 😭.

At least we have Fran and Marta. In the midst of all this housing panic, El Confidential (did we mention we love “El Confi” for being different?) has a darkly ironic story about Fran and Marta.

But who are Fran and Marta? They are definitely not the real people someone wants you to think they are—that is, a couple with baby Azahara who “love hosting guests from all over the world”, studied at the University of Murcia, and apparently have 2 dogs, Nala and Leah.
But in reality… El Confi found that they actually run 336 apartments just in Madrid, and their company, The Key Host, has more than 400 around Spain. And they aren’t the owners, but rather the manager of properties for others. They take some 20% of the profit for handling the keys, cleaning and the like, “Fran” tells El Confi.
Just helping the little guy. “Fran”, whose business makes about €1m annually, says they are helping private homeowners who want to make some money from their second homes. "We don't take an apartment and kick people out of their homes to set up an Airbnb,” he said (we imagine in an offended tone).

Still, wouldn’t it be easier to blame the housing crisis on Fran (and Marta and little Azahara)? Glad we solved that!

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