Calls for Picasso’s Guernica to be ‘returned’ to the Basque Country, PM wears Spain’s football jersey to celebrate record number of workers, support for far-right Vox stagnates after five months of increases and more news on Tuesday April 7th.
Calls for Picasso’s Guernica to be ‘returned’ to the Basque Country
Basque Regional President Imanol Pradales has called for Pablo Picasso’s iconic Guernica painting to be temporarily moved to the Basque Country as a form of reparations for Franco’s repression of the northern region.
The giant painting, on display at Madrid’s Reina Sofía Museum since 1992, depicts the 1937 aerial bombings of the Basque town of Guernica by the Nazis during the Spanish Civil War, at the behest of Franco’s nationalists.
Pradales demanded “political courage” from Spain’s central government, and has asked why “they removed Franco from his tomb” at The Valley of the Fallen but “they are not capable of bringing a painting from Madrid to Euskadi.”
“The ball is in their court. Let them respond,” Pradales said about the plan for Picasso’s famous painting to be exhibited for nine months at the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, coinciding with the 90th anniversary of the bombing of the town.
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PM wears Spain’s football jersey to celebrate record number of workers
Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez celebrated on Monday that Spain has reached 22 million people affiliated with Social Security for the first time, doing so through a video posted on his social media accounts in which he appears wearing the Spanish national team jersey with the number 22 on his back.
“Spain has the best team,” Sánchez said in the video.
“You are the ones who raise the shutters, who take care, who teach. You are the ones who serve and who undertake. You are the ones who start and those who have been working for a while . You are the ones who work, who push and who raise and build this country”.
Support for far-right Vox stagnates after five months of increases
The latest voting barometer compiled by 40dB for Spanish radio station Cadena SER and national daily El País shows a certain stagnation for Santiago Abascal’s party.
Although Vox remains the fastest-growing party compared to the last elections, it is beginning to show signs of fatigue after five consecutive increases.
If elections were held today, Spain’s far-right party would still be the third largest party with 18.7 percent of the vote, one-tenth of a percentage point less than the previous month’s poll.
Both Spain’s conservatives (PP) and the Socialists (PSOE) have made slight gains over the last month, according to 40db, with Pedro Sánchez’s staunch opposition to the Iran War playing in his favour and Vox’s internal conflicts favouring Feijóo’s party.
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Ex-top aide of Spain’s PM goes on trial today for corruption
A former right-hand man to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is to go on trial Tuesday in a graft case that threatens the Socialist-led minority government.
José Luis Ábalos is a disgraced ex-Socialist heavyweight, a former transport minister who helped propel Sánchez to power in 2018. The case is one of several corruption affairs rattling the fragile coalition.
Ábalos and his former adviser Koldo García are suspected of having pocketed kickbacks for handing out public contracts worth millions of euros for sanitary equipment during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Supreme Court in Madrid will judge them for alleged bribery, embezzlement, influence peddling, membership of a criminal organisation and misuse of confidential information. The men deny the charges.
Spain’s La Liga condemn threats and intimidation by Sevilla fans to team’s players
La Liga on Monday condemned threats and intimidation by Sevilla fans aimed at their own players and directors after they fell to a third straight league defeat.
Sevilla, 17th in the Spanish top flight, lost 1-0 away at bottom side Real Oviedo on Sunday and some supporters met the team at the airport on their return to insult them, while others wearing masks were at the club training ground.
La Liga said in a statement this behaviour “unacceptably crosses the line of legitimate criticism and sporting expression”.
Earlier this season, some Sevilla fans tried to force their way into the training ground to remonstrate with the players.
With additional reporting by AFP.
