Barcelona's new mayor is picking a fight with home rental websites as she tries to crack down on uncontrolled tourism that she fears could drive out poor residents and spoil the Catalan capital's charm. Ada Colau is threatening to fine firms like Airbnb and Booking.com if they market apartments from tourists without a number showing that they are on the Catalan tourism register.
The Spanish Government’s measures toward Gibraltar are ‘bearing fruit, Spain’s Foreign Minister Jose Manuel García-Margallo said in a weekend interview in which he vowed to maintain pressure on the Rock. Although the minister’s tough language on Gibraltar was nothing new, it was the second time within the space of a week that he had spoken out on the Rock.
Pushing Spain’s claim over the sovereignty of Gibraltar is “a fundamental objective” for Spanish foreign policy, according to budget plans presented by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs in Madrid this week.
Spain has been accused of an “outrageous” and “unlawful” violation of British sovereignty after boats entered UK waters in Gibraltar on Sunday. Helicopters were also flown over a beach on the British territory as Spanish police chased criminals on the water, a move branded extremely dangerous by the Government of Gibraltar.
The leader of Spain's wealthy Catalonia region President signed a decree on Monday calling parliamentary elections for 27 September, a year earlier than necessary and according to political analysts, a proxy vote on the much debated controversial independence.
The Gibraltar Government has included the long queues of last Thursday afternoon at the frontier with Spain in its latest report to the European Union. Deputy Chief Minister Dr Joseph Garcia said the report will be presented “in order to draw attention to the manner in which the Spanish government is implementing the recommendations made by the commission”.
Spain will call on the European Commission to include Gibraltar on the EU blacklist of tax havens published last week, it emerged over the weekend. The list names the 30 top tax havens as identified by EU countries, but Gibraltar is not on it. Only nine of the EU’s 28 members - among them Spain - view the Rock as a harmful jurisdiction for taxation.
Left-wing coalitions formally took power in four out of five of Spain's biggest cities on Sunday, marking a major political change in municipal politics a month after voters registered their anger at austerity and corruption in local elections.
Spain's King Felipe VI has removed the title of duchess from his sister Cristina ahead of a trial in which she stands accused of tax fraud charges, in a new move designed to distance the royal family from the case.
One of the founder members of Podemos, the one-year-old leftist party that has up-ended Spanish politics, has resigned in a surprise move that questions its strategy just as opinion polls show it may have peaked.