2nd May 2018. The Festival of the Community of Madrid. Presided over by a surrogate since the title holder until recently, Cristina Cifuentes, resigned hastily after a video from 2011 in which she was seen robbing two pots of cream from a supermarket in the Spanish capital became widely known. Cifuentes, who nobody now wants to remember, is recovering in Salzburg. That's the PP. Nor were her three immediate predecessors there, also from the PP: Alberto Ruiz-Gallardón, Esperanza Aguirre and Ignacio González, all under investigation in different corruption cases. Madrid is a party this 2nd May, whilst deputy prime minister Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría and defence minister María Dolores de Cospedal, sat next to each other, didn't even say hello. Madrid.
2nd May 2018. The UN and the EU embarrass the Spanish judiciary over the Manada sentence. UN Women’s executive coordinator and spokesperson on Sexual Harassment has said that the sentence is a failure to fulfil clear obligations to respect women's rights and diminishes the severity of the crime. In the European Parliament, there has been a call for better training for judges on sexual violence. The European Commissioner for Justice and Gender Equality, Věra Jourová, has called for the appeal process in the Supreme court to be "quick and just". Spain, bruised and the institutional crisis has ever more tentacles abroad.
2nd May 2018. Barcelona's plaça Sant Jaume, like numerous squares in different Catalan towns and cities, is the centre of remembrance for the six months that Oriol Junqueras and Joaquim Forn have spent in Estremera prison near Madrid. Six months unjustly stolen from two good, honourable people. Catalonia doesn't forget and continues taking to the streets to call for the release of the political prisoners. Remembrance as a shield against injustice. Time passes and the streets and squares remain full. Is it so difficult to understand?
2nd May 2018. Terrorist group ETA announces its dissolution by letter. The text says that it has taken the decision to completely dissolve all its structures and to bring to an end its historical cycle and its role. Democracy has beaten brutality, but now has to move on. Basque society started to do so some time ago. Healing wounds has to be the main objective and its politicians have to push for it. The Spanish government and a good part of its political class, from PP to PSOE, has to contribute to this and stop manipulating the victims. The terrorism which emerged during the Franco era is dying out just when behaviour more typical of that era is coming back. The so-called sociological Francoism might be something more than that.