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Bloomberg
09-07-2025
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Spain's Sanchez Announces Anti Corruption Laws Amid Graft Probe
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez announced a barrage of anti-corruption mechanisms as he seeks to overcome a graft scandal involving two close collaborators that has rocked his government. Speaking in parliament on Wednesday, the Spanish premier said he considered resigning following revelations of corruption in his party, but will stay in his post because he didn't do anything wrong and he has a political project to work on.
France 24
05-07-2025
- Politics
- France 24
Spain ruling party bars members from hiring sex workers
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". © 2025 AFP
Reuters
05-07-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
Spanish PM Sanchez's shake-up of Socialist party eclipsed by new sexual harassment scandal
MADRID, July 5 (Reuters) - Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez's attempt to draw a line under a corruption scandal, opens new tab 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.
Yahoo
05-07-2025
- Politics
- 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.
Irish Times
15-06-2025
- Politics
- Irish Times
Spanish kickback revelations cast doubt on future of prime minister Pedro Sánchez
New revelations that senior figures in his Socialist Party were allegedly involved in a kickback scheme have thrust Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez into his deepest crisis since taking office seven years ago. Audio gathered by investigators and made public on Thursday appeared to show Santos Cerdán, the Socialist Party's number three, discussing large sums of money to be charged in exchange for public contracts. Two other men appear to take part in the recorded conversations: José Luis Ábalos, a former senior figure in the party and transport minister who is already being investigated for corruption, and Koldo García, a former adviser of his, who reportedly recorded the audio and is also being investigated. In one of the recordings, Cerdán and García appear to acknowledge that Ábalos is due to receive about €1 million in exchange for the awarding of several contracts. The scandal surrounding Ábalos exploded last year. Although it was damaging for the government, his departure from the cabinet in 2021 and swift removal from the party when he came under suspicion limited its impact somewhat. But the implication of Cerdán, a close ally of Sánchez who he had defended for months from accusations published in the media, comes as a severe blow. READ MORE On Thursday, Sánchez apologised to Spaniards eight times in a televised appearance in which he appeared to acknowledge his former colleague's guilt. 'Until this morning I considered all Santos's explanations to be true,' he said, explaining his mind had been changed by evidence that was 'very, very serious'. 'The Socialist Party and I should not have trusted him,' Sánchez added. Cerdán has resigned from the party and said he will give up his parliamentary seat, although he has insisted on his innocence. Until now, the government had warned that a right-wing witch hunt was being waged by judges and the media to fabricate corruption scandals. Sánchez's wife, Begoña Gómez, has been investigated for possible business irregularities and his brother, David Sánchez, is due to go on trial for alleged influence peddling. Attorney General Álvaro García Ortiz, a Sánchez ally, is also likely to go on trial for revealing confidential information. Meanwhile, a former Socialist operative, Leire Díez, has been caught on tape offering favourable treatment to a businessman in exchange for incriminating information on the police unit carrying out inquiries into several cases affecting the government. The latest development has emboldened the leader of the opposition conservative People's Party (PP), Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who for months has been casting the government as inherently corrupt. 'If anyone had any doubts about what we considered to be a mafia-like network behind the party of government and behind the government itself, I imagine they have now disappeared,' he said. Núñez Feijóo has been calling for Sanchez to call a snap election. Despite the Cerdán revelations, Sánchez has said he intends to see the legislature through until 2027. The Socialist's fate is now in the hands of his parliamentary allies, most of whom supported him in 2018 when he took power by winning a no-confidence motion against a corruption-ridden PP government. His coalition partner, the left-wing Sumar, is among those to express deep concern at the Cerdán scandal. If any of his leftist and nationalist allies were to withdraw their support, as the Catalan Republican Left (ERC) has hinted it might consider doing, depending on how the case progresses, it would almost certainly bring down the government. However, an alternative administration would likely be formed by the PP and the far-right Vox, both of which have alienated Catalan and Basque nationalists with their aggressive unionism. Sánchez's immediate future, therefore, looks bleak but still hard to determine.
