🥇 This Week in Spain: Madrid Reigns Supreme

By @IanMount and @AdrianBono | December 21, 2023 | Madrid | Issue #38

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🥜 This Week in a Nutshell: Christmas is almost here so everyone’s totally checked out for the holidays. For once, the political drama seems to be (relatively) small compared to previous weeks so don’t expect anything major. Oh, and we’re off for the next two weeks, but fret not! Nothing will happen until after January 6. And if it does, we’ve got you covered.

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 A tale of two cities

📊 Spain’s Economic Battle Royale

Spain’s INE national statistics institute rolled out its official annual economic numbers by community for 2022, which in itself shouldn’t be a controversial thing. In fact, the news was downright good!

• Spain’s economy grew 5.8% in 2022, recovering its pre-pandemic size in the third quarter of the year. Good news!

• But the devil’s in the details. Once you break out the data by community, you see a wide disparity. 

• The GDP per capita in the Community of Madrid and Basque Country were not only #1 and #2 in Spain, they were actually above the EU average. Good news! But… at the other end, Extremadura, Andalucía and Mellia pulled up the rear at some 40% below the EU average. Not good news!

But what caught the eyes of the commentariat—and caused the most heat (if not actual light)—was the comparative figures of Madrid and Catalonia. The two came in third and fourth in GDP growth rates, at 7.2% and 6.0%, respectively, behind the tourism hot spots of the Balearic and Canary Islands which, in full post-COVID comeback mode, 12.5% and 9.7%. 

• Not a troubling thing at all, in itself. Unless you’re in the Catalan government, that is. Because the figures reinforce a recent trend: that the Catalan economy is falling further behind that of Madrid, which it led until really quite recently,.

Madrid passed Catalonia in overall GDP in 2018, when Catalonia was dealing with that whole post 1-O illegal referendum blowup. 

• The business world felt a lack of confidence in Catalonia's short term future, and several thousand moved their registered headquarters out of the community. This was mostly symbolic, because they’ve moved their registration but not their employees, but it was a modern first. Catalonia has long been Spain’s economic driver, and Madrid its parochial government hub. And now…what?

• As the numbers bounced back and forth, the blame game began. Catalan separatists had torpedoed their own economy, many in Madrid said. Catalonia’s Generalitat responded that Madrid was a paper-tiger, full of post office boxes for businesses but not their actual jobs—and the jobs it had were those of functionaries or stolen with tax breaks from other communities. 

But the expanding gap is increasingly hard to ignore. El Periódico blares that Madrid has grown twice as fast as Catalonia since 2010; ABC notes that Madrid’s GDP per capita has risen €1,000 more than Catalonia’s since the pandemic: and El País adds that Madrid has “amplified” its lead over Catalonia.

• What happens now? It seems unlikely that an agreement signed between PM Pedro Sánchez’s PSOE and Catalan separatists Junts to encourage companies to return to Catalonia will have much effect at all (after all, the deal is with the party that tried to break Catalonia away). In fact, Catalonia continues to lose more businesses than it gains. 

• Good for Madrid nationalists, but not for Spain. While Madrid’s growth is something to be proud of, getting that growth, even some, by shrinking another community is short term thinking. 

So what do we need? Probably some kind of basic long-term stability in the Catalan government. Likely to happen? Not right now! (So as to not end on a grim note—Merry Christmas Happy holidays!)

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💬 Five things to discuss at dinner parties this week

1.  👑 You may now insult the king

Left wing Sumar presented a bill in Parliament Tuesday that would decriminalize insults to the King and Royal Family as well as for justifying or celebrating terrorism. 

• The bill was accepted for debate by a vote of 177 to 169, with support from the PSOE socialists of PM Pedro Sánchez, Sumar’s coalition partner. 

Insulting the King? Celebrating terrorism? Yes, you guessed right. These are super sensitive issues in Spain, since at base they act as proxies for where people stand on monarchy vs republic, center vs regions, and pretty much any other issue that dogs Spain today. 

• So let’s dive in! Because we love controversy

First, the socialists. The PSOE has been avoiding making a stand on this question for a while—being pro-criminalization seems a bit right-wingy for them, but total decriminalization opens them to charges of being anti-Spanish institutions and insensitive to Spain’s many ETA victims. 

• The issue was such a minefield that back in October 2020 the PSOE rejected a Podemos/ERC proposal to decriminalize insults to the Crown—alongside the PP and Vox (!).

• What’s changed? Well, for one thing, this year the PSOE needed the votes of Sumar—and ERC and others—to return to government. So, as Spain’s political atmosphere has grown more partisan, they’re more dependent on the extremes. 

• The socialists’ plan: They say they are now open to decriminalize insults to the Crown—but not for justifying or celebrating terrorism. (We’ll see how long that but stands, in light of recent switches on amnesty, etc.)

Second, the right. It won’t surprise anyone that the PP and Vox harshly criticized the PSOE. The PP said the PSOE had taken on the legislative agenda of its “radical” associates and this was going one more step in the attempt to “erode the rule of law and attack the parliamentary monarchy that all the presidents of the Government have defended until now.” 

• PP boss Alberto Núñez Feijóo then suggested tighter laws to prohibit tributes to terrorists; ensure that they cannot be pardoned; and ensure that electoral lists do not include those convicted of violent crimes.

Our view (for what it’s worth). The PSOE was right to suggest, on Tuesday, that these laws impede on free speech rights (note: this doesn’t include when people are inciting violence, of course). 

• This seems especially true in terms of royal insults. Charges brought over insulting the Crown have largely served to unjustifiably elevate to stardom mediocre rappers who sing against the King/Bourbons (we’re talking about you, Valtònyc—see video above).

• Paying tribute to terrorists is a tougher issue, especially considering Spain’s history. Again, calling for violence? Nope, do not pass go. Saying a terrorist is a good person or making a joke about what they did? Arguably in very bad taste, but maybe it’s best to know what people think? 

• Cases like that of Cassandra Vera, who was convicted for tweeting jokes about the ETA killing of Franco’s head of government Luis Carrero Blanco show how muddled and unconvincing the imposition of these penalties can be. 

2.   📚 What’s going on at the Ateneo de Madrid?

Here’s a juicy mystery: Why would a government drop an annual subsidy to a 200+ year-old culture mainstay after 25 straight years, with no real explanation? Just asking for a friend—because that just happened in Madrid.

• What we do know: Madrid’s regional government, led by Isabel Díaz Ayuso, this week told the Ateneo de Madrid—a library and cultural center dating back 203 years that has counted among its members historic intellectuals from Unamuno and Valle-Inclán to Gregorio Marañón—that it wouldn’t be getting the €100,000 it got in 2023.

• Fight breaks out: Ateneo boss Luis Arroyo and Madrid regional cultural minister Mariano de Paco start hashing it out like all people who want an audience do—on X. 

• Basically, it went like this: Arroyo said de Paco told he the Ateneo would be losing its subsidy without any justification. De Paco answered that Arroyo knew full well he said they would be switching the Ateneo’s subsidy to per-event grants to spend the region's money more efficiently. Then Arroyo replies—but that doesn’t explain why.

There’s got to be more. And there is. The basic rumor is that a political fight between the PP and the PSOE is behind the drama. Arroyo used to work as a communications advisor to PSOE PM José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero and is involved with socialist politics, and supposedly Ayuso was tired of “the sectarian” who “dedicated himself to insulting her in private” and of the Ateneo being used for partisan purposes. 

• Arroyo defended himself in an interview with El País, noting that everyone knew his (left wing) politics but that he was “impeccable” in his broadmindedness, and that people of all political stripes were members of the Ateneo (including ex-PP PMs Rajoy and Aznar). Also, he says, he’s invited Ayuso several times.

But the cloud gets thicker! As Arroyo critics strike back.

• Some Ateneo members told other news outlets that the center had become a “branch of the PSOE” under Arroyo and that he had dictatorial tendencies—that, in fact, the last Junta de Socios ended with members shouting 'dictator, fascist, thug’ at him, and he was using the Ateneo like a “private club” for his left-leaning faction.

Ultimately, the subsidy cut hasn’t seemed to go over well with anyone (save, maybe, for these dissenting voices). It’s a shame to see an important cultural institution lose part of its budget (even if it’s only 7%) in a political fight—and this seems like one—even if Arroyo is annoying. Institution presidents come and go, after all. 

• It’s also worth noting that others on the right support the Ateneo. The PP-led Madrid city hall is still giving it €150,000 for 2024. And even Vox doesn’t like the subsidy cut, calling it an “embarrassment” as the Ateneo is the “cradle of liberty” through whose halls have passed “almost all the Spanish Nobels, the presidents, the liberals, those of the left, and those of the right.” 

For perhaps the first time, we think Vox has a point.

3. 🧚🏻‍♀️ ‘Tis the Season! (To Wear Clothes, Apparently)

Get ready to clutch your pearls, everyone! Because this story includes men in underwear and “inappropriate” Christmas lights.

• As a certain cartoon character would say:

Two funny (not in a ha-ha way) stories made the rounds on social media this week, and both of them involved partial nudity and what some are saying is blatant censorship.

• The first concerns a play called It’s So Difficult starring a group of men in their underwear that was supposed to be performed at the municipal theater of Quintanar de la Orden, a small town in the province of Toledo. But oh no! The town’s City Hall, currently under PP-Vox control, has decided to cancel the play because, according to both parties, the actors on stage appear semi-naked.

• According to Culture councilwoman María del Carmen Vallejo (PP), the decision was made because she “wasn’t sure the people from Quintanar de la Orden were going to like it”. Vallejo then said she would “go see it somewhere else, and if she likes it” she might approve of it being shown. The play was supposed to take place on Jan. 27.

• The production company behind the play is livid and is accusing the PP-Vox government of censorship using the hashtag #stopcensura on social media, adding that Vallejo herself told them she was worried that “the audience may be scandalized” by the sight of men wearing underwear. *gasp* 🙀

• They explain that the play has already been shown in 22 other towns and in front of over 3,000 people and not a single person has complained. Even PM Pedro Sánchez made a reference to the cancelation while addressing Parliament this week.

But that’s not the only puritanical scandal we’ve had to face this week. Let’s head to the town of Tordesillas, in the province of Valladolid, where something is keeping people awake at night.

• Pedestrians walking along the town’s Av. Valladolid realized that the Christmas lights that were decorating its streets this year were not christmassy at all. In fact, they were “inappropriate” because they not only featured butterflies (something that is obviously unrelated to Christmas) but also fairies that, according to the locals, were too “erotic” because they were “showing their nipples”.