The Spanish monarchy has been thrown into crisis after the king, Juan Carlos I, announced his decision to abdicate the throne after 39 years in favour of his son Felipe. The news was conveyed via the royal…
Very much like the rest of the European Union, two features define the European Parliament election in Spain: a lack of interest on the part of voters, and the supremacy of national issues over European…
After years spent securing funds and permissions, a team of forensic scientists and historians have launched an intensive search for the remains of Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote. Using the…
The Spanish government has approved a draft law that grants citizenship to Jews whose ancestors were expelled over 500 years ago. This follows the approval of a similar law in Portugal last year. In 1492…
Harald Sander, Cologne University of Applied Sciences (CUAS)
The EU Commission’s autumn economic forecasts are due tomorrow. What makes this event special this year is that there are rumours about a possible change in the Commission’s approach to calculating the…
An extraordinary event took place in Catalonia yesterday. Some 1.6 million people formed a human chain that covered the full stretch of the Catalan territory from north to south (400km), in a symbolic…
Whether it’s arguments over delays at the border or concrete blocks dumped in the sea, Gibraltar has been causing the UK and Spain lots of grief recently. It has gathered an awful lot of attention for…
Once again Britain and Spain have been at loggerheads this week over a 2.6 square mile rock which the former has occupied and the other complained about for 300 years. It would be over-egging things to…
As in the movie that led Pedro Almodóvar to become an internationally famous film director in the late 1980s, Spanish banks have been “on the verge of a nervous breakdown” during the 4 last years, facing…
Spaniards Fernando and Sara got married in 2007. With the help of their parents, the couple bought a house in the outer suburbs of Sevilla because they couldn’t afford one closer to the city. An art history…
Back in the early 1980s, the former Secretary of State for Education in Harold Wilson’s Labour government, Shirley Williams, alerted me to a remarkable instance of regional economic development through…
Up until fairly recently, Spain was a story of economic success. It was an example of how the periphery of Europe was quickly catching up with the core. Between 1995 and 2007, Spanish real GDP grew at…
We all know the global economy is down the toilet. Even if we overlook the financial debacle in Greece, Spain, Iceland, Ireland – and that’s not easy – the big problem is Uncle Sam. Currently, the US Government…
On 23 July, the rating agency Moody’s put the triple A debt of Germany, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg on a negative outlook. The day after, the outlook on the European Financial Stability Fund was also…
Comments by Campbell Newman that Queensland was on the way to bankruptcy are, unfortunately, true. His comment that “Queensland does not have the money…” is globally true - but clearly specifically arguable…
Half of Spain’s youth (that is, those under the age of 25) are now officially unemployed, while overall unemployment in Spain stands at 24.4%, according to the latest figures released by the Spanish Institute…
The positivity off the weekend’s news that Spain’s banks will receive rescue loans of up to 100 billion euros from eurozone finance ministers appears short-lived. Despite it being well-received in Asian…
This week marked the first anniversary of the 15-M movement, a precursor of Occupy movements worldwide. 15-M again mobilised its supporters for a 4-day long program of street protests culminating in a…
Spain’s general strike last week has sent a clear message to other Eurozone countries about how challenging it may be to implement labour market reform. The strike was mostly peaceful, with the exception…
The “Occupy” movement has swept the world in the last five weeks, as seems appropriate in this year of demonstrations by people tired of a clapped-out status quo. Of course, the Occupy movement is quite…