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“The Invention of Spain” and a prickly question
A radio show that looks at Spain’s regional diversity from a historical perspective is currently being aired on the BBC. You can listen to the three episodes here. This show, “The Invention of Spain”,...
View ArticleSOS Spain: It’s the transition’s fault!
On top of the never-ending financial crisis, we now have a political crisis. The Bárcenas (ex-treasurer of the governing Partido Popular (PP)) and Ana Mato (Minister for Health) corruption scandals...
View ArticleEuropean court points out the bleeding obvious
The European Court of Justice yesterday ruled Spain’s eviction laws to be incompatible with EU law on unfair terms in consumer contracts. The decision will give Spanish judges the power to rule on...
View ArticleWhat’s an escrache?
An escrache is what you do when politicians aren’t listening to your pressure group—not even to your rallies, proposals for acts of parliament and other methods for exerting public pressure. First seen...
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The confusing and mysterious world of being an imputado
What is an imputado? So many politicians in Spain are imputados that a recently arrived Martian might assume you have to be an imputado to be a politician. Of course, an astute Martian who did a little...
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You gotta do what you gotta do: Classic polispeak from Spain
Here’s a fantastic bit of polispeak from a PP (Partido Popular) party rally in Spain. It’s from a couple of years back, but it’s a classic. The offender is José Ramón Bauzà, president of the Balearic...
View ArticleNot that effective changes to Spain’s eviction law
As an occasional topic on this blog has been the wave of evictions of mortgage defaulters in Spain brought on by the financial crisis (see here), I wanted to flag this article (in Spanish) by Olatz...
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Aforamiento: making us unequal before the law and wreaking havoc in bilingual...
When the King of Spain Juan Carlos de Borbón decided to call it a day and abdicate, he put everyone into a frenzy, the media especially, but also the Spanish Government, which had to rush about making...
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La casta política and where it came from
Here’s an interesting term that’s become popular in Spain: la casta as in la casta política. Literally, it’s the “political caste”, or the old guard on both sides of the political fence. A catchword of...
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What’s in a name? Spain’s great faith in public servants
Like most civil services, Spain’s bureaucracy wants to bring order to the world and everything in it. But while in other places they seek to do this simply with laws and regulations, Spain adds a wild...
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