Belgium held nationwide local elections yesterday and while the Socialists held on in Brussels, some big shifts still happened. Quick thread on the major developments and what they mean:
As happened in last June's regional election, the big winner of Sunday's vote was the economic-liberal Reformist Movement (MR) party. During the campaign the MR painted a fairly dire image of the region's communes, arguing that a return to order was imperative.

On the Puigdemont saga: This may not seem clear to a lot of folks who are unfamiliar with Spanish politics, but the biggest winner in everything that happened in the last 24 hours may be ... Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez.

Quick explanation... Last year Sánchez was able to form a minority government thanks to the votes of Carles Puigdemont's Junts party. In exchange for their MPs' backing in the Spanish parliament, Sánchez's Socialist Party filed a controversial bill to amnesty all involved in the separatist movement.

Alright, so, it's the morning after: What happened in Catalonia yesterday? The Socialists won big, the separatist movement suffered a big defeat and the right made significant advances. A curious mix of results that all appear linked to Sánchez's handling of the Catalan dilemma.

https://twitter.com/aitorehm/status/1789618981688541369

The big winner is Salvador Illa, the former Health Minister who oversaw Spain's handling of the COVID crisis. A subdued, exceedingly polite politician, Illa's campaign centered on restored the region's public services and the importance of social welfare instead of independence.

It's a crucial election day in Catalonia: Will voters signal that quality of life issues are more important than self-determination, or will they instead give power back to separatist leader Carles Puigdemont and endorse a renewed push for independence? 🧵
politico.eu/article/catalo… Around 5.4 million residents of Catalonia are called to participate in today's regional election. The final official polls published ahead of the vote have Socialist candidate Salvador Illa in the lead, followed closely by separatist leader Carles Puigdemont, of the Junts party.

Given it's an overcast Easter Monday in Brussels and there's absolutely nothing to do, here's a tale of attempted regicide, bloodthirsty retribution and almost psychotic pettiness from Lisbon to brighten a day that's our calendar's equivalent of the doldrums. Between the world-famous Pastéis de Belém shop and Lisbon's Mosteiro dos Jerónimos there's a dank, smelly alleyway where a single pillar rises, bearing tribute to the vanished Palace of the Dukes of Aveiro and the damned Távora dynasty.

Spain's new government was sworn in this morning, which means that throughout the day one of my favorite protocolary acts will be taking place: The handing over of the briefcases. Since Spain's transition to democracy, every minister serving in the cabinet has been provided with a leather briefcase manufactured by a select group of Madrid-based leatherworkers.

Everyone was caught off guard by Portuguese PM António Costa's surprise resignation yesterday. Now that we've all had a second to catch our breath, here's a quick run-through through what happened — and what comes next — courtesy of @POLITICOEurope. 🧵
politico.eu/article/politi… In power since 2015, Costa was seen as one of the EU's most stable PMs. Portugal's recovery from a devastating economic crisis had taken place under his watch and he was been reelected with an absolute majority in 2022. Many saw him as a future European Council President.

A defiant Luis Rubiales begins what's expected to be his resignation speech saying that more people support him than those that are against him. He follows by saying that he grabbed his groin — while standing beside the Queen of Spain — to cheer on football coach Jorge Vilda.

https://twitter.com/aitorehm/status/1694772790321148132

Insists that the unwelcome kiss he gave soccer star Jenni Hermoso was really just a "pico" (a peck) and says he would have done the same to his daughters. He claims he is a victim of "false feminism" — and is applauded by the audience. He adds his daughters can be proud of him.

#Spain Update: It's all over for Alberto Núñez Feijóo. Tonight the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV) told the leader of the center-right Popular Party that it will not even sit down to discuss his hypothetical candidacy to be Spain's next prime minister, which is now impossible. Earlier today Coalición Canaria's sole MP was even more brutal, categorically ruling out supporting Feijóo's "ghost investiture" and adding that the Popular Party's leader "has no chance of becoming prime minister."

#Spain held elections yesterday. No one secured a governing majority and the center-right Popular Party got the most votes — but Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez is the big winner and best positioned to lead Spain. Confused? @POLITICOEurope explains.
politico.eu/article/pedro-… We started the night with projections (*not exit polls*) that indicated the center-right Popular Party and its preferred partner, the far-right Vox party, would secure a majority of seats in the Spanish parliament, paving the way for a hard-right coalition government.

Final debate of the Spanish elections on public TV channel @rtve: Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Sumar party leader Yolanda Díaz and Vox's Santiago Abascal are facing off.

Popular Party leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who is leading in the polls, has refused to attend. First block: Job creation, finance and... Europe.

Abascal kicks off by calling Sánchez a liar and predicts that that the Prime Minister will level insults against him to try to distract from the fact that Spaniards are poorer today than they were four years ago.

World's Fairs are a devil's bargain for host-cities: After the party ends communities are left with big bills and empty buildings. But Seville managed to evade that fate and in this @POLITICOEurope story we examine how it made Expo '92 a long-term success.
politico.eu/article/sevill… After the death of dictator Francisco Franco in 1975, Spain entered into a profound period of transition and reinvention: Decades of stagnation gave way to a new spirit of progress and a will to be a more modern, European, internationally integrated country.

Today is the 25th of April, 49th anniversary of the Carnation Revolution🌹

Salazar's regime may be long gone, but it very much shaped the way the country looks today.

Here's a thread on how the Estado Novo used urbanism and architecture to impose its vision of Portugal. António de Oliveira Salazar, chair of Economics at the University of Coimbra, first joins the Portuguese government in 1928, when the country's military dictatorship essentially begs him to take control of the nation's beleaguered finances.

Intriguing figures out of the reg. elections in Salzburg: The Communists have jumped from having 0,4% of the vote to 11,6% and will reenter the state parliament *for the first time since 1949.* Their rise is especially notable in the city, where they're slated to come in second.

https://twitter.com/Wahlen_AT/status/1650171073877385219

The party's sudden success appears to be thanks to Kay-Michael Dankl, the 34 year-old historian who is heading up the KPÖ's regional list of mostly young activists.

From 2015 to 2017 Dankl, a cultural mediator at the Salzburg Museum, was federal spokesman for the Young Greens...

In the 1970s Madrid sacrificed its main waterway, the Manzanares, to build a ring road.

But 20 years ago the city unexpectedly decided to bury that highway and restore the ecosystem it had lost.

In this year's final thread: How Madrid got its river back.
politico.eu/article/madrid… As far back as 1929 there had been talk of building a ring road around Madrid to connect the highways radiating from Spain's capital, which lies at the heart of the Iberian Peninsula. But political instability, the Civil War and the poverty of Franco's regime delayed those plans.

Getting more trees in European cities should be a no-brainer.

Climate experts say we need them; city residents say they want them.

So why are local leaders having such a hard time greening our streets and squares?

@POLITICOEurope looked into it...

politico.eu/article/why-eu… Let's start with the basics: Trees have a key role to play in our cities. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's latest report, in the age of climate change urban trees can be a huge help in storing the carbon generated in urban landscapes.

It can be hard to get in a celebratory mood in the midst of endless global turmoil but this week we've got *one* reason to smile: Today marks the successful wrap of Chapter II of @POLITICOEurope's Living Cities project, which this season focused on urban mobility.

🍾🚶🏽‍♀️🚲🚗🚌🚎🚇 Movement is integral to our relationship with our cities: Bus lines, tram networks, metro systems, bike paths and sidewalks are the threads that bind our urban fabric, linking neighborhoods and people to one another.

One of the things that continues to disturb / fascinate me about Italy is that while countries like Germany and Spain have laws in place to erase obvious traces of their respective totalitarian regimes from their streets, that kind of regulation doesn’t appear to exist here. That shiny inscription appears on the side of the Palazzo delle Poste, a remarkable, rationalist block built between 1928 and 1936. Seriously, it’s so sleek and modern on the outside that I thought it must be a mid 90s edifice and not one of Mussolini’s signature buildings.

Many of you may be on vacation but @POLITICOEurope's Living Cities newsletter soldiers on. Looking for a fun beachside read? Check out this week's issue, in which we discuss Brussels' break-up with cars, Europe's best public spaces and creative crosswalks.
politico.eu/newsletter/glo… In this week's newsletter we discuss Brussels' plan to slash car use.

You can read more about that in this thread:

https://twitter.com/aitorehm/status/1557655205315059712

Brussels is notorious for being one of Europe's most car-choked cities, but starting next week the streets of its central core are going to become a lot less auto-heavy and a lot more livable. @POLITICOEurope digs into the big changes that lie ahead.
politico.eu/article/brusse… At the beginning of the XX century Brussels was once a rather nice place to live in, but during the post-war period urban planners and policy makers decided to prioritize the needs of automobiles over that of the people who lived in the city.

Today in @POLITICOEurope my colleagues @l_guillot, @ashleighfurlong, @hcollis and I look at how unequal access to the monkeypox vaccine across Europe has led some members of the LGBTQ community to travel to countries where they can get the shot.
politico.eu/article/monkey… Last month the @WHO declared the current monkeypox outbreak to be a "public health emergency of international concern" — the body’s highest level of alert.

Over half of the known cases have been detected in Europe, with the highest infection rates reported in Spain.