{"id":365901,"date":"2018-06-19T00:09:42","date_gmt":"2018-06-18T23:09:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-spanish-labyrinth\/"},"modified":"2018-06-19T00:09:42","modified_gmt":"2018-06-18T23:09:42","slug":"the-spanish-labyrinth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/newswire\/the-spanish-labyrinth\/","title":{"rendered":"The Spanish Labyrinth"},"content":{"rendered":"<div itemprop=\"articleBody\">\n<div id=\"attachment_103013\" style=\"width: 520px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-103013\" src=\"https:\/\/uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com\/wp-content\/dropzone\/2018\/06\/15093771616_e08239d0a8_z.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"510\" height=\"383\" srcset=\"https:\/\/uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com\/wp-content\/dropzone\/2018\/06\/15093771616_e08239d0a8_z.jpg 510w, https:\/\/uziiw38pmyg1ai60732c4011-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com\/wp-content\/dropzone\/2018\/06\/15093771616_e08239d0a8_z-300x225.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 510px) 100vw, 510px\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo by psoe extremadura | <a href=\"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/2.0\/\">Public Domain<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>As the socialist-led government takes over in Spain, newly minted Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez faces at least two daunting tasks: cleaning up the wreckage wrought by years of European Union (EU) enforced austerity and resolving the Catalan crisis exacerbated by Madrid\u2019s violent reaction to last fall\u2019s independence referendum. Unfortunately, his Party\u2019s track record is not exactly sterling on either issue.<\/p>\n<p>Sanchez, leader of the Socialist Workers Party (PSOE), patched together parties in Catalonia and the Basque region, plus the leftist Podemos Party, to oust long-time Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of the People\u2019s Party (PP). But is the telegenic former economics professor up to the job, and will his Party challenge the economic program of the EU\u2019s powerful \u201ctroika\u201d\u2014the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission?<\/p>\n<p>The answers to those questions are hardly clear, and in many ways the cross currents and rip tides of Spanish politics still resemble Gerald Brenan\u2019s classic study of the Civil War<i>, The Spanish Labyrinth.<\/i><\/p>\n<p>While the issue that brought Rajoy down was corruption\u2014a massive kickback scheme that enriched scores of high-ranking PP members\u2014 his Party was already weakened by the 2015 election, and he has been forced to rely on the conservative Ciudadanos Party based in Catalonia to stay in power. In short, it was only a matter of time before he fell.<\/p>\n<p>Sanchez promises to&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2018\/06\/18\/the-spanish-labyrinth\/\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Photo by psoe extremadura | Public Domain As the socialist-led government takes over in Spain, newly minted Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez faces at least two daunting tasks: cleaning up the wreckage wrought by years of European Union (EU) enforced austerity and resolving the Catalan crisis exacerbated by Madrid\u2019s violent reaction to last fall\u2019s independence referendum. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[519],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-365901","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-newswire"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365901\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}