Old age pensioners (OAPs) have been protesting across Spain at their ‘miserable’ pensions which since 2014 have stopped being automatically indexed to inflation and have risen by only 0.25% a year under reforms aimed at making the creaking system sustainable.
The companies that comprise the Ibex 35, the benchmark index of the Madrid Stock Exchange, generated a record 67.7% of their revenues abroad in 2017.
The election of Donald Trump has generated new tensions around the public use of Spanish in the US and, above all, over multiculturalism.
With its current seat on the Human Rights Council (2018-20), Spain should strive to continue and revitalise its foreign policy in respect to reinforcing both the UN and multilateralism.
Spain’s exporting prowess continued in 2017 when sales of goods abroad increased and notched up a new record of €277.1 billion.
The election clearly showed the depth of pro-independence sentiment and the profound polarisation of society.
Spain maintains its 12th position in the Elcano Global Presence Index, although it has lost some measure of global presence in all of its dimensions (as have the other countries of the region).
The Elcano Global Presence Index results show the co-dependence of the United Kingdom and Spain particularly in the economic and soft dimensions.
During the independence referendum in Catalonia, Russia used the ‘combination’ (kombinaciya), an operation can integrate instruments such as cyber warfare, cyber-intelligence, disinformation, propaganda and collaboration with players hostile to the values of liberal democracy.
This working paper is a joint project by Spain’s Elcano Royal Institute and India’s Observer Research Foundation in the context of the commemoration of 60 years of diplomatic relations between India and Spain and the recent official visit of Prime Minister Modi to Madrid.
The crisis in Catalonia, sparked by the regional government’s illegal proclamation of an independent state last month, is already exacting a toll on the Catalan economy.
This special dossier aims to provide an overview and background information on Catalonia’s independence bid, the attempts to ‘internationalise the conflict’ and its European dimension, and the possible future scenarios.