History was made this week in Spain. For the first time that anyone can seem to remember, a political party admitted to corrupt practices. The party was Catalonia’s Unió, part of the region’s CiU governing coalition, and the corruption was the funnelling of €388,000 of EU funds meant for job training into the party’s coffers in the 1990s. Much of that cash was spent on furniture in Unió’s offices and on paying wages to party staff who, it transpires, didn’t actually do anything. So the admission of guilt was welcome at a time when corruption seems to have become such an endemic part of Spanish politics. But the reason for Unió’s admission is that it is part of a pact with the State … [Read more...] about Leaving the water running