SPAIN: Puigdemont’s Appeal & more – 20th Nov 2025

Buenos días from Gracia! This is the Rorshok Spain Update from the 20th of November twenty twenty-five. A quick summary of what's going down in Spain.

Kicking things off, on Monday the 17th, Carles Puigdemont, the former Catalan president who is currently living in exile in France, has appealed to Spain’s Constitutional Court to suspend his arrest warrant and provisional detention.

Puigdemont says that maintaining the warrant violates his personal liberty and political rights, especially after the EU issued an opinion broadly supportive of Spain’s twenty twenty-four amnesty law.

Puigdemont is living in exile to avoid arrest for his role in the twenty seventeen Catalan independence referendum, facing charges of rebellion, sedition, and misuse of public funds.

The appeal comes shortly after Junts, his party, distanced itself from Spanish President Pedro Sánchez. Judge Pablo Llanera continues to uphold the Supreme Court’s active warrant pending EU proceedings.

Next up, on Tuesday, the 18th, Spain’s Civil Guard arrested five people, including Javier Aureliano García, president of the Almería Provincial Council, and Fernando Giménez, his vice president.

The arrests are tied to an illegal two-million-euro COVID-era contract for masks, protective suits, and gloves awarded in April twenty twenty to the company Azor Corporate Ibérica. Investigators believe officials received illicit commissions and manipulated competition by discouraging competitive bids and favoring companies to which they themselves were linked to. The case began in twenty twenty-one, and it’s ongoing as more news comes out.

On Sunday, the 16th, around 50,000 spectators attended a charity football match in Bilbao’s San Mamés Stadium, located in the western Pyrenees, where a selection of Palestinian players faced a Basque Country team to raise funds for the NGO Doctors Without Borders.

The event featured widespread displays of Palestinian and Basque flags, with thousands marching before kick-off amid ongoing protests in Spain against Israel’s military actions in Gaza.

Palestinian football has been devastated by two years of Israeli assault, leaving no league, destroyed infrastructure, and more than a thousand athletes and staff killed.

Also on Sunday, Storm Claudia caused renewed flooding in Portugal and Spain after moving slowly over the Iberian Peninsula.

Originating from a system that brought early snow and cold weather to eastern Canada and the northeastern US, the storm crossed the Atlantic before stalling off Spain.

Galicia (northwestern Spain) received significant rainfall in just twenty-four hours.

Most of Europe and North America felt Storm Claudia before it dissipated fully on Monday, the 17th.

Heading east to Catalunya, on Monday the 17th, Jaume Collboni, Barcelona’s mayor, has announced a major municipal plan to promote the purchase of electric mopeds.

Running from March twenty twenty-six to twenty thirty, the initiative aims to decarbonize the city’s small motorcycle fleet, with a total budget of 15 million euros to replace 20,000 vehicles. The plan also supports the creation of a network of battery swapping stations.

To apply, users must provide proof of purchase for the electric vehicle and proof of scrapping the old moped, which can be done free of charge through the city’s municipal service.

Barcelona currently has 32,000 registered mopeds, of which 18,000 are active. This initiative is part of the broader 1.8 billion-euro Climate Plan, aiming to make the city greener.

On Tuesday, the 18th, the government defended a large Catalan-language banner displayed in Madrid’s Gran Vía to mark the 50th anniversary of dictator Francisco Franco’s death.

Ángel Víctor Torres, the Territorial Policy and Democratic Memory Minister, called criticism from the conservative People’s Party incomprehensible, arguing that opposing a co-official language undermines Spain’s democratic values.

The banner reads: Being able to display an ad in Catalan in the middle of the Gran Vía, with a smaller Spanish line below stating: Democracy is your power, emphasizing linguistic rights guaranteed by democracy that weren’t permitted under the Franco dictatorship.

Apparently, Madrid is spending more than ever on sports. According to a recent article by news outlet El País, released on Tuesday, the 18th, the regional government, led by President Isabel Díaz Ayuso, has spent over seven million euros sponsoring major sporting events.

From NFL games at the Bernabéu to La Vuelta, padel tournaments, bodybuilding competitions, new disciplines like Hyrox and Pickleball, and the Laureus Awards, the city is putting on a huge display of sporting excellence.

The most expensive was the NFL match, funded with 1.5 million euros. While officials argue that these investments attract tourism and boost Madrid's global image, oppositional parties, including Más Madrid and the PSOE, have accused Ayuso of using public money to promote herself rather than focus on local problems like transport and living costs.

Meanwhile, on Tuesday the 18th, Spain announced an 800 million euro aid package for Ukraine during President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s visit to Madrid, reinforcing its commitment to Kyiv’s defence against Russia’s invasion.

President Pedro Sánchez said 300 million euros will go toward defense equipment under Spain’s long-term security pact with Ukraine, part of a ten-year agreement signed in twenty twenty-four. Spain will also purchase 100 million euros of U.S. military equipment through NATO’s PURL scheme and provide 200 million euros in credit for Spanish companies involved in Ukraine’s reconstruction, especially in energy, transport, and water systems. The remaining 200 million euros will be left in reserves to be divided later.

In blooper EU news, on Monday, the 17th, news outlet Politico reported that an ongoing EU debate over banning terms like burger for plant-based products could unintentionally affect the seafood industry in Spain and other EU countries.

Under the proposed rules, words such as steak or burger would be restricted to meat products only. In Spanish, steak can be translated as filete, a term widely used for fish cuts like filete de lubina, sea bass fillet.

Europêche, the EU seafood trade association, supports the principle of restricting meat-associated terms for plant-based foods but warns that the legislation could create confusion for fish labeling. They urge negotiators to ensure linguistic clarity across all EU languages so that traditional seafood packaging is not inadvertently affected.

Back on the peninsula, in Andalucía on Saturday the 16th, the town of Algarrobo in Málaga province honoured the late German agricultural researcher Dieter Wienberg by naming his children adoptive citizens in recognition of his pioneering work in modernizing agriculture on the Costa del Sol.

Wienberg, who died in December twenty twenty-three at ninety-four, introduced avocado, mango, hybrid tomatoes, and strawberries for large-scale European production, creating a sector now worth over 1 billion euros annually. His work also promoted Spanish-German scientific collaboration, including the purchase and development of the La Mayora experimental station, which became an international center of excellence.

In education, on Saturday the 15th, media outlet El País reported that Spain’s public secondary schools offer far fewer in-school remedial classes than other developed countries, leaving many students reliant on private paid tutoring.

According to the report, only 40% of Spanish secondary schools provide catch-up classes, compared with over 90% in countries like South Korea and the UK. Experts say this gap hinders academic performance, especially for students from less wealthy families.

According to reports across the country, students who access free remedial lessons in their own schools benefit both academically and socially, but unfortunately, the offering just isn’t enough. Programs that are available often only cover the first two years of secondary education and serve a small fraction of students, typically 5% per school.

And to close this edition, Los Reyes Magos or Three Kings, is coming up on the 6th of January, and cities are getting their promotional materials ready, but in Sevilla (in the south), there has been a little bit of heat over theirs.

Seville’s twenty twenty-six Three Kings Parade poster sparked controversy by showing a child with a Real Betis Balompié t-shirt and a Macarena tunic. Artist Fernando Vaquero says he meant to create an intimate, personal scene.

Supporters were split in their reactions; Betis fans and Macarena devotees praised it, while supporters of Sevilla FC and the Esperanza de Triana brotherhood felt excluded. Vaquero has denounced the backlash as aggressive cyberbullying, telling critics that he never meant to divide anyone.

Aaand that’s it for this week! Thank you for joining us!

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¡Hasta la próxima!