Not even a partial strike by Spanish state broadcaster RTVE could prevent the latest triumph for Spain's national football team from being seen by the masses - it eventually proved to be the most-watched game in the station's history. The 2-0 win against France in Paris underlined the notion that there seems to be little that can stop Vicente del Bosque's La Roja at the moment. That said, an anaemic France offered very little to recommend Raymond Domenech's tenure at the helm of a badly listing team that was comprehensively sunk by a nation that had not won on French turf since 1968. Luis Aragonés found the net that day in a 3-1 win, and Del Bosque's predecessor left the incumbent a group of … [Read more...] about La Roja steals France’s crown of dominance
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Morocco edges closer to Europe
Question: Which country applied for EU membership the same day as Turkey in 1987? Answer: Morocco. While full membership for the Maghrebi nation is viewed as impossible, the weekend of March 6-7 does signal a landmark on the long road toward a truly advanced status of integration into European structures and political realities onto which the Moroccan ruling elite is pinning so many of its hopes. The EU-Morocco summit, held within the architectural gem of Al Andalus, Granada’s Alhambra palace, is designed to celebrate the achievements of the past few years; Rabat has secured an advanced partnership status with the EU, unique in the Arab world, and agreed to an extensive trade deal – … [Read more...] about Morocco edges closer to Europe
How long can ETA ride on?
Few pieces of news can have more effectively conveyed the notion that ETA is on its knees than the arrest in mid-February of an alleged member of the violent separatist group while he was cycling through Guipúzcoa with a handgun and false papers in his backpack. Interior Minister Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba insisted that Ibai Beobide was on no innocent jaunt. “He wasn’t practicing sport, because nobody does sport with a gun and a pen-drive,” he said, adding that the detained man had “the worst intentions.” With Spanish and French security forces making a seemingly never-ending string of arrests of ETA militants and leaders over recent years, often in stolen vehicles, this seemed to be an … [Read more...] about How long can ETA ride on?
Laporta: first we take Barcelona
What do you do after making one of the world’s most successful football clubs even more successful? If you’re outgoing Barcelona president Joan Laporta, you think about going into politics. Catalan politics. Bound by the football club’s two-terms-only rule, the 47-year-old will be out of a job by June 30, by which time Barcelona’s 100,000 members must elect a new president. Press reports suggest that Laporta will announce his intention to run in the regional elections due in Catalonia this autumn. Over the last year, his political ambitions have gradually taken shape. He briefly flirted with the two main nationalist groupings, the Catalan Republican Left (ERC), and the conservative … [Read more...] about Laporta: first we take Barcelona
Saving the pension system
For many years politicians, economists and demographers have been nervously watching a slowly ticking economic and social time-bomb. It is set to detonate – depending on your calculations – sometime after 2025 as an aging population and shrinking workforce combine with explosive effect, undermining the financial foundations of the Spanish pension system and rupturing the welfare state. Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who might like to imagine himself as a Hollywood action hero putting his life on the line to cut the red wire and defuse the bomb, has decided to risk his political future to reform the pension system and soften the retirement blow to today's and tomorrow's … [Read more...] about Saving the pension system
American breakfast and prayers for Zapatero
The decision by Spanish leader José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero to accept Barack Obama’s invitation to the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington on February 4 has sparked plenty of controversy and even outrage on the political right, as critics accuse the “lay” prime minister of hypocrisy. The Prayer Breakfast is seen as a meeting place for political, economic and social figures and while it does have a clearly religious dimension, Zapatero’s decision to attend has nothing to do with prayer and everything to do with his relationship with the US president. Putting aside the Spanish political furore over the breakfast, the invitation itself looks like a significant development as Zapatero … [Read more...] about American breakfast and prayers for Zapatero
Spain, Europe and the world: Zapatero’s moment
The six-month rotating presidency of the European Union passed on 1 January 2010 from Sweden to Spain. At the formal ceremony of transition in Madrid on 8 January, the Spanish prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero outlined a bold agenda: he reaffirmed that his country’s tenure would be one of action and initiative in which financial recovery and the boosting of the EU’s place in the world would be his foremost priorities. It sounds like the expression of confident leadership that a Europe buffeted by the economic crisis, the failure of the Copenhagen summit and its shrinking global role badly needs. But what are the prospects of Zapatero fulfilling his lofty aims? The centre-left … [Read more...] about Spain, Europe and the world: Zapatero’s moment
If language be the food of understanding, talk on
"Why are you interested in learning Arabic?” the teacher probed. It was a question intended to get us talking, to introduce ourselves and explain why we had chosen to give up two hours of our lives twice a week to sit in a drab high school classroom in Palma de Mallorca. For travel, said some of my classmates; an interest in Arabic culture and music, answered others. A few wanted to learn the mother tongue of a husband or wife. The first two of those reasons were also in part my own. But I also had other motives: “Because of the world we live in,” I said. As a journalist writing about Spanish and European politics and social issues for the last decade, I have borne witness to the … [Read more...] about If language be the food of understanding, talk on