German Coalition Resists Calls for Wider Electricity-Tax Cut
In their blueprint for government, Merz's conservative CDU/CSU bloc and the Social Democrats pledged to cut electricity levies for all consumers to the European minimum. However, the draft 2025 budget presented last week only included an easing of the burden for larger manufacturers, farmers and the forestry sector.
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Yahoo
22 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Spain ruling party bars members from hiring sex workers
Hit by a corruption scandal involving alleged kickbacks and sex workers, Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's party shook up its top leadership Saturday and banned members from paying for sex. Sanchez, 53, is facing the biggest crisis of his seven years in power. That was heightened on Monday by the detention of a former top official in his Socialist party, Santos Cerdan, in an investigation involving allegations of corruption and hiring sex workers. In a bid to right the ship, the Socialist party announced that "soliciting, accepting or obtaining sexual acts in exchange for money" was now banned for party members, punishable by "the maximum sanction, expulsion from the party". "If we believe a woman's body is not for sale, our party cannot allow behaviour contrary to that," Sanchez said. "These are difficult times for everyone, without a doubt," he told party leaders at a meeting in Madrid, once again apologising for trusting those caught up in the growing scandal. But he also reiterated his refusal to step down. "The captain doesn't look the other way when seas get rough. He stays to steer the ship through the storm," he said. The party also announced a leadership shake-up, replacing Cerdan as its number three official with 44-year-old lawyer Rebeca Torro. The meeting started behind schedule after another close Sanchez ally, Francisco Salazar, who had been due to take a top leadership post, resigned. Online news site said Salazar had been accused of "inappropriate behaviour" by several women who had formerly reported to him in the party. Former transport minister Jose Luis Abalos has also been implicated in the investigation into kickbacks for public contracts. The conservative opposition People's Party (PP) held a meeting of its own, looking to capitalise on the Socialists' stumbles. "We're the only alternative to this state of decline," said PP leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo, calling his party the answer to Spain's divisions and "political fatigue". "Spaniards deserve a government that doesn't lie to them, that doesn't rob them but serves them," he said. al/jhb/jj
Bloomberg
10 hours ago
- Bloomberg
Spanish PM Sanchez Announces Party Reshuffle Amid Graft Probe
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez vowed to 'defeat corruption in and out' as he announced a reshuffle within Socialist Party ranks — even as an ally was forced to resign over sexual harassment allegations. 'My biggest mistake has been to trust who I shouldn't have trusted, but my determination against corruption is total, wherever it might come from,' Sanchez said in an address in Madrid on Saturday to the party's federal committee, a key decision-making body.
Yahoo
11 hours ago
- Yahoo
Spanish PM Sanchez's shake-up of Socialist party eclipsed by new sexual harassment scandal
By Charlie Devereux MADRID (Reuters) -Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's attempt to draw a line under a corruption scandal was thrown into disarray on Saturday as one of the officials he was set to name in a shake-up of his Socialist party resigned over sexual harassment allegations. Francisco Salazar offered his resignation as a deputy in the organization's secretariat and asked for the allegations to be investigated, the Socialist party (PSOE) said in a statement. The PSOE said it would begin an investigation immediately, adding that no allegations had been made through it usual channels. Online left-wing news website quoted a PSOE employee who accused Salazar of making obscene comments about her clothes and body, invitations to dine alone with him and offers to sleep at his home while working in a role junior to him at Moncloa Palace, the prime minister's official residence. Reuters was not immediately able to contact Salazar for comment. The scandal involving Salazar came just as Sanchez was scheduled to speak at the PSOE's headquarters in Madrid, where he was due to announce measures to assuage members of his party concerned about the damage to its reputation and its ability to survive. On Monday, a Supreme Court judge ordered that former PSOE official Santos Cerdan be held in pre-trial detention after he was accused of orchestrating kickbacks in exchange for awarding public works contracts. Cerdan denies the allegations, which are part of a wider corruption inquiry threatening to destabilise Sanchez's government. The minority coalition led by the Socialists relies on a loose alliance of nationalist and far-left parties to pass legislation. Until now, those allies have said they do not plan to support the conservative People's Party's call for a no-confidence vote that would precipitate an election. Senior party figures arriving at the PSOE headquarters were met with boos from protesters gathered across the road and were forced to raise their voices when declaring their support for Sanchez as the crowd chanted "out!, out!" While some said they were confident that the measures Sanchez was set to announce would defuse the scandal, others appeared more sceptical. Castile-La Mancha Governor Emiliano Garcia-Page described the scandal as one of the most serious in the half century since the restoration of democracy in Spain following the death of dictator Francisco Franco. "The leadership needs to understand that if it doesn't offer an exit, if it doesn't offer solutions, then it's part of the problem," he said.
