Future Timeline

6 hours ago

César Nebrera pours out a cup of coffee he has brewed on a stove in the boot of his car. The old green Kia saloon sits in the shade of a carob tree just off the main road near Ibiza Town.

"I miss the basic things that make life comfortable, like being able to stand up in your own home, being able to cook properly, or even open a drawer and pull out some socks," he says.

"Those are the kinds of things that you miss out on when you live in a car."

César's Kia has been his home for the past three years. He works as a chef, but with rental costs on the Spanish island of Ibiza having spiralled, he cannot afford to live in a flat.

"In Ibiza, accommodation is very expensive, and it's getting more and more expensive," he says. "And the cost of renting is completely out of kilter with what you earn. So living like this is an alternative. It's less comfortable, but it allows me to keep living on the island."

April 16, 20242:35 PM GMT+1



PERPIGNAN, France, April 16 (Reuters) - Catalonia's former president Carles Puigdemont, who has been living in self-exile since a failed independence bid seven years ago, believes his party is "neck and neck" with Spain's ruling Socialists to win control of the region in an election in May.

Puigdemont said that if it failed to do so, he may reconsider his party's critical support for the national government.

Puigdemont fled to Belgium in 2017 after his attempt to secure Catalonia's independence collapsed, with Spain's then conservative government sending police to quash a referendum that courts had annulled and prosecuting its leaders for sedition and misuse of public funds.

Now, with an amnesty bill due to exonerate him and hundreds of others, he is running for his hardline Junts party in the regional election from over the border in France. If he succeeds, he plans to return to take up his position.

He said that despite early April polls showing the Socialists leading in Catalonia ahead of the May 12 vote, his party's internal polls show the race narrowed after he threw his hat in the ring.

Thu 8 Aug 2024 15.30 BST

Catalan police have launched an operation to find and arrest Carles Puigdemont and set up roadblocks on routes to the French border after the fugitive former regional president returned to Spain for the first time in seven years to address a crowd of a few thousand in Barcelona before promptly disappearing.

The owner of the car in which he escaped – an officer in the Mossos d’Esquadra, the Catalan police – was arrested amid serious questions for the force, which was at the rally in strength, as traffic in Barcelona was brought to a standstill in the search for the former president.

The case could also have political ramifications as the leader of Puigdemont’s party, Jordi Turull, is expected to be summoned by police as a witness who, a spokesperson said, were looking into “any potential offences” committed in relation to the former president’s escape.

Spain’s Socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, depends on the support of Junts per Catalunya’s seven MPs in the Spanish parliament, leaving the separatist party with the power to torpedo key legislation.

Puigdemont, who has been living in self-imposed exile in Belgium after fleeing Spain to avoid arrest for masterminding an illegal independence referendum in Catalonia in 2017, had declared earlier this week he would be at the Catalan parliament in Barcelona on Thursday as it swore in the region’s new leader.

On Sunday locals in the Basque city of San Sebastian plan to take to the streets under the banner: “We are in danger; degrow tourism!”

And in November anti-tourism protesters will gather in Seville.

Thousands turned out last Sunday in the Canary Islands, so the problem is clearly not going away.

This year appears to have marked a watershed for attitudes to tourism in Spain and many other parts of Europe, as the post-Covid travel boom has seen the industry equal and often surpass records set before the pandemic.

Spain is expected to receive more than 90 million foreign visitors by the end of the year. The consultancy firm Braintrust estimates that the number of arrivals will rise to 115 million by 2040, well ahead of the current world leader, France.

(Common Dreams) Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez on Wednesday appeared undaunted by President Donald Trump’s threat to impose a full trade embargo on Spain in retaliation for its refusal to allow the US to use its military bases to wage war on Iran.

In a 10-minute televised address, Sánchez told the Spanish public that the country “will not be complicit in something that is bad for the world and contrary to our values and interests simply out of fear of reprisals from someone.”

Despite Trump’s threat, the Spanish government’s position on the US and Israel’s attacks on Iran, the prime minister said, can be summarized as “no to war.”

The address came hours after Trump claimed the US military would use Spain’s military bases to launch warplanes “if we want,” despite Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares’ earlier statement that the facilities could not be used “for anything that isn’t covered by the [United Nations] Charter.”