Tag: Spain

• Monday, February 3rd 2014 - 19:42 UTC

  Spain hassles Gibraltar on UN hazardous waste convention

  

  The European Union is not the only place where Spain punctiliously continues to press its position on Gibraltar as a clause in every international agreement. As recently as November 2013 amendment to the Basel Convention on the control of trans-boundary movements of hazardous wastes and their disposal, Spain introduced, via the office of the UN Secretary General, a communication relating to the territorial application by UK to Gibraltar.

• Friday, January 31st 2014 - 06:47 UTC

  One in three children in Spain lives in poverty, according to Save the Children

  

  One in three children in Spain lives at risk of poverty, the international charity Save the Children said in a report. The charity said austerity measures and cutbacks in public spending had worsened the situation and said the number of under-18s “at risk of poverty or marginalization”, an official EU measure of various aspects of economic hardship - soared to more than 2.8 million in 2012.

• Sunday, January 26th 2014 - 12:17 UTC

  Spain has “not taken one step back” regarding its Gibraltar policy, rather the contrary

  

  The Spanish Government has “not taken any step back” in relation to its Gibraltar policy “but it has taken many steps forward”, the country’s foreign minister Jose Manuel Garcia Margallo has declared. Despite the issue having dropped profile in the news since recent weeks, it is an issue “permanently” on the Spanish agenda, the Spanish official told Onda Cero radio.

• Saturday, January 18th 2014 - 04:58 UTC

  Catalonia lawmakers have asked Madrid for a referendum on the region's future

  

  Lawmakers from the Spanish region of Catalonia voted to seek a referendum on breaking away from Spain on Thursday, setting themselves up for a battle with an implacably opposed central government in Madrid. The Catalan Parliament in Barcelona voted 87 to 43, with 3 abstentions, to send a petition to the national parliament seeking the power to call a popular vote on the region’s future.

• Monday, January 6th 2014 - 19:17 UTC

  King of Spain admitted in 1983 advances in Gibraltar would reactivate Moroccan Ceuta claims

  

  As negotiations over Spain’s entry to the European Union grew tense in 1983, King Juan Carlos twice told British officials it was not to Spain’s advantage to recover Gibraltar, according to newly declassified documents released to the UK National Archives.

• Friday, January 3rd 2014 - 23:25 UTC

  UK prepared to veto Spain's entry to the EC over Gibraltar restrictions in 1984/85

  

  British officials thought Spain could “not be trusted” to keep its promises to lift restrictions on Gibraltar prior to joining the European Community, according to declassified documents released to The National Archives.

• Friday, January 3rd 2014 - 23:05 UTC

  Spain steps in to try to resolve cost dispute over Panama Canal expansion

  

  Spain stepped in on Friday to try to resolve a cost dispute over the expansion of Panama's canal, which has triggered a sell-off in the shares of Sacyr SA, the Spanish builder leading the project. Spain's Public Works minister, Ana Pastor, and Sacyr Chairman Manuel Manrique are due to travel to Panama on the weekend, Panama's president, Ricardo Martinelli, said.

• Friday, January 3rd 2014 - 06:02 UTC

  Catalonia president takes vote on independence case to EU heads of government

  

  Catalonia's president has called on European Union prime ministers for support as the region seeks a vote on independence in November this year, the source of an increasingly bitter fight with Spain's central government.

• Monday, December 16th 2013 - 17:16 UTC

  Spain finally prepared to tackle political corruption: bill to control political parties finances

  

  Spain’s government proposed a law to control more tightly the financial activities of political parties, after corruption scandals in recent years involving both left and right. The law will ban legal and corporate entities from making donations to parties, and banks will no longer be allowed to cancel their debts or negotiate with them interest rates that would be below market levels. Donations are currently allowed up to a limit of 100,000 Euros a year.

• Friday, December 13th 2013 - 13:14 UTC

  Madrid vows to block any independence referendum in Catalonia

  

  The Spanish government has vowed to block plans by parties in Catalonia to hold a referendum on independence on 9 November of next year. “The poll will not be held,” Justice Minister Alberto Ruiz-Gallardon told journalists moments after Catalonia's President, Artur Mas, announced a deal.