Jim Lawley

The head of the Valencia regional government has just attempted an impossible task – justifying his administration’s conduct before, during and after the flash floods that killed over 220 people in the Spanish region last month.  Since the catastrophe on 29 October, relentless, richly deserved criticism has been heaped on Carlos Mazón’s right-wing Partido Popular administration, which last year scrapped a special response force for natural disasters. On the day of the floods, instead of monitoring the situation, Mazón enjoyed a leisurely restaurant lunch lasting until six in the evening and then took over an hour to reach the emergency command centre.

Spain’s King and Queen were pelted with mud yesterday when they visited Paiporta, epicentre of the flood disaster zone in the Valencia region. Over two hundred people have died in the flooding, dozens of them in Paiporta; more are thought to be trapped and, by this time, surely dead in underground garages and car parks. Local people are furious that the authorities were slow to issue flood warnings when the rains came last Tuesday and then very poor at coordinating what has turned out to be a seriously under-resourced relief effort. Locals seized the opportunity to vent their feelings of abandonment and desperation, chanting ‘Murderers’ and hurling slurry at the group Many people are still without electricity, gas and water. Streets remain blocked by huge piles of cars.

Believing that membership of the European Union was undeniably beneficial for the UK economy, many Remainers struggled to understand why the majority had voted against it. One hypothesis was that ‘Leavers’ felt they’d missed out on the benefits – that perhaps people who thought the wealth hadn’t been spread around fairly had voted for Brexit in order to teach the greedy elite a lesson. Here in Spain, it’s tourism that, to the authorities’ surprise, has suddenly proved unpopular. It’s easy to see why they considered tourism to be undeniably beneficial. After all, it accounts for about 13 per cent of GNP and a quarter of the new jobs created in the country last year.

Last week saw dramatic events in Catalonia as Carles Puigdemont, wanted for almost seven years by Spanish justice for spearheading the region’s illegal declaration of independence in 2017, reappeared in the centre of Barcelona and delivered a rousing speech to some 3,500 of his adoring supporters. Then, just as suddenly, he disappeared – to the massive embarrassment of the several hundred policemen who were standing close by waiting to arrest him (though two of them, it seems, may have connived in the escape).    Puigdemont says that he’s now back in Waterloo, south of Brussels, where he’s made his home since 2017: the Belgian authorities refuse to extradite him to Spain.

When has any nation’s government amnestied hundreds of people facing criminal charges in return for the votes that allow it to stay in office? That’s what Spain’s government has just done. After last July’s general election, Pedro Sánchez, the incumbent left-wing prime minister, discovered that he needed the 14 votes of two Catalan separatist parties in order to cling onto power. The price of those 14 votes? A general amnesty for several hundred people accused of criminal activities during Catalonia’s secession push, including 2017’s illegal declaration of independence. The amnesty bill, fast-tracked through parliament, was passed yesterday after a spectacularly acrimonious debate: 177 votes in favour and 172 against.

Is Catalonia's independence movement dead in the water? Elections held in the region on Sunday reveal that support for separatist parties dropped significantly. Between them, the hard-line Junts per Catalunya, the Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC) and two small separatist parties only managed 61 seats – of which 35 went to Junts. In the regional parliament, 68 seats are required for a majority. This is an anticlimatic end to an impassioned, and at times dramatic, saga for the region. On 27 October 2017, confident that the European Union would welcome a new, freedom-loving net-contributor to its budget, Catalonia boldly declared itself 'an independent and sovereign state'.