
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.

There was both good and bad news for France in this week’s annual report on the outlook of the wine industry by the International Organization of Wine and Vine (OIV).

Spain's Minister of Agriculture, Food and Environment, MAGRAM, Isabel Garcia Tejerina, announced that 421 million Euros will be allocated to the Multiannual Aquaculture Strategic Plan 2014/2020. The plan outlines how aquaculture will be conducted in coming years in the framework of the new EU Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) and the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF).

Voters in Spain's Valencia region, a bastion of conservatism for two decades, are likely to desert Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's party in droves in May's regional election, a poll published on Sunday found, in a taste of nationwide politics to come.

The former director of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Spaniard Rodrigo Rato, has been detained by police in Madrid. Rato, who has also been Economy Minister during Spanish President José María Aznar’s administration, is accused of money laundering and fraud.

If tripartite talks were restarted between Gibraltar, Spain and UK and agreements reached, as they were under the ‘Cordoba’ experience, these would almost certainly need to take the form of treaties so that Spain can be relied on to stick to them. Nevertheless 2015 is year of elections in UK, Spain and Gibraltar.

Gibraltar Deputy Chief Minister Dr. Joseph Garcia highlighted the long and historic relationship between Gibraltar and the United States during a series of meetings in Washington. In a busy schedule Dr Garcia held meetings at the offices of both Democratic and Republican members of Congress on Capitol Hill.