In an interview with Bild am Sonntag, Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann has “poured cold water on the European Central Bank’s timid economic stimulus policy,” notes La Vanguardia.

Weidmann argues that the ECB and France “are slacking in the fight against the causes of the crisis.” He is particularly critical of the reduction in interest rates decided by the ECB and the decision to allow France more time to meet its deficit targets.

The daily reports that, for his part, Mariano Rajoy has decided “to go on the offensive.” The Spanish Prime Minister is preparing for a June 5 meeting in Brussels in which he is hoping to convince the European Commission of the validity of his reforms.

Miguel Blesa, the former chairman of Caja Madrid, the main savings bank in Spain’s largest nationalised banking operation, Bankia group, was taken into provisional custody on May 16 in Madrid.

Blesa is charged with “dishonest management, falsifying official documents, and misappropriation and abuse of corporate assets” in connection with Caja Madrid’s purchase of the City National Bank of Florida in 2008. According to El Periódico, the deal resulted in €500m of losses for Caja Madrid.

The judge took the view that the former banker represented a “flight risk” and ordered him to post bail of €2.5m if he wants to be released from custody.

“Spain is under the European Union’s magnifying glass” states the Catalan daily, as the Spanish government tries to avoid being forced to take part in a new European Commission regulation system, as it struggles to implement economic reforms.

The “macroeconomic imbalances procedure” is designed to deal with the lagging competitiveness and overstretched banking systems that fuelled the debt crisis.

The procedure for Spain would include a host of new reforms that will be monitored periodically by inspection visits by EC experts. A decision on whether Spain will have to comply with the new procedure regulations will be announced on May 29.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy has proposed an “asymmetric deficit distribution” among the country’s regions, asking for "generosity” to allow Catalonia a 2013 deficit level higher than the 0.7 per cent of GDP currently set for each Spanish region.

But Rajoy is now facing a rebellion in his own People’s Party (PP), as leaders of three regions ruled by the PP – Extremadura, Madrid and Aragon, which complied with 2012 deficit targets – condemned the proposal, saying it would amount to “preferential treatment” for Catalonia.

Other PP-controlled regions are also likely to object to the special status granted to Catalonia.

The Swedish company H&M and the Spanish group Inditex, which owns Zara, “are to sign a legally binding building and fire safety agreement” for factories producing their clothing in Bangladesh, reports De Morgen.

The initiative has come three weeks after the collapse of a building in Dhaka, which resulted in the death of 1,100 people.

The daily notes that marketing experts believe the “move by the garment makers has mainly been motivated by pressure from consumers and public opinion, and fears that their reputations may be compromised.”

"The European Union prepares its entire arsenal to fight youth unemployment," writes the financial daily, as the French and German governments prepare to unveil a €60bn plan, known as the “New Deal for Europe”, on May 28.

The new scheme will mastermind a seven-year push to find jobs for people aged under 25, while Brussels will also ask European countries with high unemployment to go even further with their labour market reforms, continues the daily.

Meanwhile European Employment Commissioner Laszlo Andor prompted Spain on May 13 to adopt “a single open-ended contract” to fight youth unemployment, but Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy, refuses to introduce further labour market reforms.

Almost two years since the launch of the indignados movement on May 15, 2011, El Periódico de Catalunya reports on the Sunday demonstrations in some 20 cities across Spain. For the newspaper, the protests highlighted "the initial popular response to the crisis" and the first austerity measures adopted by the socialist government of that era.

The anniversary is an opportunity to assess the impact of the protests, notes the newspaper, which argues that the outlook for the demonstration’s 15-M Movement is not an optimistic one.

Although it still has a presence on social networks, the movement has been weakened to the point where it has disappeared from the media: a result of the absence of concrete goals, a lack of leadership, and the diversity or non-existence of spokesmen and women.

However, "something much more important" remains, continues El Periódico —

… the seeds of social protest it planted have grown into major movements that have occupied the streets in recent months. [15-M] paved the way for the power of the Platform for those Affected by Mortgages (PAH) and the massive groundswell of protest from across the political spectrum […] which has deplored cuts to health care, education and other sectors affected by a downsizing of the welfare state decided by those charged with the management of the crisis. The call to “unmask” the system, which was the watchword for these anniversary demonstrations is an apt expression of the transition from indignation to rebellion.

On May 8, the National Court of Spain rejected a request submitted by Bern to extradite Hervé Falciani with what amounts to a “very harsh ruling for Switzerland and the bank HSBC," notes El Mundo. The court took the view that none of the charges faced by Falciani, and in particular the theft of banking secrets and economic espionage, “were considered offences in Spain". The daily remarks that —

… the man who informed on tax evaders can continue touring countries concerned by the intricacies of the enormous quantities of data he amassed over several years he spent working as computer technician for HSBC in Geneva.

With regard to his next port of call, El Mundo points out that —

Falciani is now free to travel to the United States, which is ready to welcome him with open arms.

“Spain has proudly given the finger to Switzerland,” writes Libération, in a report that remarks on the poisonous impact that Falciani’s delivery of 130,000 HSBC records to French authorities has had on Franco-Swiss diplomatic relations.

Also in France, news website Mediapart notes that Falciani’s lawyer “is counting on the Spanish decision to encourage the European Union to assume its responsibilities”. Lawyer William Bourdon believes —

… it is a decision that looks to the future, which should pave the way for a common European legislation: that is to say a law which encourages and protects those who serve the general interest by disclosing secrets, and thereby reduce the capacity of banks to act as accomplices to tax evasion and havens for dirty money.

Public school teachers staged a strike on May 9 in protest of reforms proposed by Education Minister José Ignacio Wert, which were to be presented in Friday’s weekly cabinet meeting but have been postponed. Organisers claim 72 per cent of teachers and 90 per cent of students joined the protest, but the government says there was only a 20 per cent turnout. In its editorial, El Pais says there was “no consensus” and that “a reform so roundly rejected should not be imposed.” The reforms would impose an estimated €6.7bn in spending cuts.

A court in Palma, Majorca, has provisionally dropped charges against Princess Cristina relating to her alleged complicity in a corruption case involving her husband, Iñaki Urdangarin.

The court ruled that arguments offered by the prosecution were "insufficient", but nonetheless recommended that it pursue further enquiries to clear up any "doubt or uncertainty" about the possibility of money laundering via the company, Aizoon, which is co-owned by the princess and her husband, who remains under investigation.

For three out of four Europeans, “the worst of the crisis has yet to come,” points out El País in its report on a poll published on May 7 by several European dailies. Conducted in April in Germany, Spain, France, Poland and the United Kingdom, the survey reveals some surprises, notes the daily –

Paradoxically, the Spanish are the most optimistic: 40 per cent of respondents believe that the situation will improve within a year, as opposed to 60 per cent who do not. [...] The persistent belief that the worst has yet to come is probably based on the conviction that the many sacrifices that have already been made will cause the situation to continue to deteriorate.

"This is the only encouraging data for Spain," remarks El País, because it shows that the Spanish "are the most sceptical" about reforms and austerity: 76 per cent believe that such measures will have a negative influence on both the economy and society. They are closely followed by the Italians, 71 per cent of whom are also opposed to such policies —

In general, more than half of Europe’s citizens agree with this hypothesis, which calls into question the benefits of expected changes in the future. Only the Poles have a 76 per cent majority in favour [of austerity].

But the award for pessimism goes to France, points out Le Monde

On average, 92 per cent of Europeans feel negatively about the future of their country and the fate of their fellow citizens. In Metropolitan France, 97 per cent of households see dark clouds on the horizon. [...] Worse still, 85 per cent of French citizens, as opposed to 75 per cent of Europeans, believe that things can only get worse in the future.

The daily notes that “this gloom has reinforced French sympathy for the fate of Latin countries.” However, this sentiment

… is not accompanied by a radical rejection of Europe: EU membership is still perceived as an advantage by 55 per cent of the French, while 57 per cent of Germans believe it to be a handicap.

Even if the “dreaded catastrophe, which has been fed by ongoing discussion, turns out to be a fantasy, [...] it remains a testament to a fear that goes beyond the current crisis. [...] The “number one” concern is not the possibility of losing one’s job, but of being unable to grow old with dignity (47 per cent) or of being denied access to proper health care (25 per cent).

Meeting in Madrid on May 6, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy and his Italian counterpart Enrico Letta agreed to "pressure" the EU to approve a youth unemployment plan at the European Council summit in June.

The two leaders also emphasised the need for new policies to combat populism and anti-European sentiment, which is increasingly prevalent in all EU countries.

La Vanguardia remarks that the "Italian-Spanish front is still alive", and eager to exert pressure on northern countries and German Chancellor Angela Merkel to proceed with the implementation of measures decided at the Rome summit in June 2012. These include the progressive introduction of a banking and budgetary union in the EU.

“Mr Rajoy and the new Italian prime minister push for a European pact to promote growth,” writes the Catalan daily.

The new Italian PM, Enrico Letta, is today visiting Madrid as part of his European tour, after trips to Berlin, Paris and Brussels, in an effort to forge a strong front against Europe’s policy of austerity.

The visit comes ahead of Spanish PM Mariano Rajoy's Wednesday speech to the national parliament when he will outline the country’s new cost-cutting measures.

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy "will not change anything: neither the government or its economic strategy," remarks El Mundo, in the wake of meetings Granada and in Ireland, which currently holds the rotating EU presidency.

The announcement has come only a few days after the publication of Spain's latest unemployment figures, which now shows more than 6 million people are without work (the equivalent of 27.19 per cent of the workforce), and against a backdrop of economic austerity demanded by EU authorities.

However, “'patience' should be based on expectations,” complains the daily, adding that no expectations are possible "in the absence of any effort to implement indispensable structural reforms, and in an ongoing situation that is leading to disaster."

According to figures published on April 25 by the Spanish National Statistics Institute, there were 6.2 million unemployed (the equivalent of 27.19 percent of the workforce) in the country in the first quarter of 2013.

This is "a tragic record," reports an alarmed Cinco Días, which points out that in certain regions like Extremadura or Andalusia, the rate of unemployment has exceeded 35 per cent: "a national emergency demanding maximum attention."

Mariano Rajoy’s centre-right government will to present a package of measures on April 26, which includes: an increase in payroll taxes to boost state revenues, facilities to assist in the creation of companies, funding for SMEs, and a plan to modernise and reform public administration.

In a recent radio interview, Spanish Supreme Court President Gonzalo Moliner has said that “‘escraches’, or demonstrations to shame officials that are often held outside their homes, constitute a legitimate example of the freedom to demonstrate, provided they are not violent, which they are not.”

The protest technique is increasingly used by groups campaigning against the eviction of families that are unable to repay their mortgages. Spain's judges, who are mainly opposed to evictions, are divided on the issue of the legality of the protests, which can be viewed as a violation of the right to privacy.

The Supreme Court President’s remarks have spread like “political wildfire in an atmosphere that was already strained,” notes El Mundo, which wonders in its editorial how this kind of coercion can be considered legitimate.

“For the first time in history,” reports the newspaper, the Spanish royal family’s accounts will be made public following the coming into force of new transparency law. Currently under examination in in parliament, the law will make it possible to see how the funds attributed to King Juan Carlos I, the members of his family, and the royal household, the institution that manages the royal family's affairs, are sourced and utilised.

Until now, the royal household presented a summary of its expenses, but was not obliged to justify the manner in which funds were used.

Spain closed 2012 with the biggest shortfall in deficit reduction targets in Europe, with the public deficit reaching 10.6 per cent of GDP — including European aid to Spanish banks. According to European and government sources, Spain may be given two more years, until 2016, to cut the deficit to 3 per cent of GDP.

El País, in its leader article, says “those two years will favour growth and alleviate regional tensions” but warns that new deficit goals will have to be “obeyed scrupulously.”

Minister of Economy Luis de Guindos is warning that GDP will fall twice or three times as much as expected in 2013, by 1.5 per cent instead of 0.5 per cent.

The conservative government led by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy plans to create a new independent budgetary authority to monitor public finances in Spain’s heavily indebted regions and municipalities.

According to the daily, the "new public spending sheriff," will be formed by the National Statistics Institute, the Bank of Spain and the state audit authority.

The announcement comes in the runup to a meeting between Budget Minister Cristóbal Montoro and regional financial managers to discuss the possibility of greater flexibility in the 2013 deficit targets, which Madrid has set for the regions.

On April 18, the Spanish parliament approved a new anti-eviction law, which provides safeguards for homeowners unable to repay their mortgages, with the sole support of the conservative People’s Party (PP).

In application of a decision by the European Court of Human Rights, the law will prevent evictions in cases where loan agreements are found to contain abusive clauses. It will also enable borrowers to restructure their loans, but will not allow for dation in payment, which would have enabled homeowners to cease paying their mortgages if they were evicted.

The dation in payment procedure had been demanded by a popular legislative initiative submitted to parliament by the Platform for those Affected by Mortgages (PAH), which gathered 1.4 million signatures. Its omission was the reason why the socialist PSOE refused to vote in favour of the law.

“In all likelihood, Hervé Falciani will not be extradited to Switzerland,” reports Le Temps. The former employee of the Swiss branch of HSBC, who, in 2008, delivered details of 130,000 accounts held at the bank by EU nationals to French authorities, appeared before the National Court in Madrid on April 15.

The court will respond to a Swiss demand to extradite Falciani who has been charged with the theft of personal data and violations of trade and banking secrecy. “The court lept to the defence of Hervé Falciani,” notes the Genevan daily, which explains that the prosecutor “is basing his case on Spanish legislation, which stipulates that non-cooperation with tax authorities is in itself a crime.”

In Madrid, El País voices support for this position —

The fundamental question is to determine to what extent banking secrecy should be protected when it is used to hide fraudsters, and if the existence of tax havens and states whose banking systems are marked various levels of opacity does not place an unbearable burden on other societies. Nobody likes to depend on hacked data, but it would be much harder to find fraudsters without internal information from the entities that make fraudulent behaviour possible.

According to a report from the College of Property Registrars on the impact of mortgage default, the country’s banks filed for 65,000 foreclosures in 2012, of which 39,000 resulted in property owners losing their homes.

In a third of cases (14,200), repayment deals, allowing distressed borrowers to cease paying their mortgages once their properties had been repossessed, were negotiated with the banks.

Europe’s five largest economies – Germany, the UK, France, Italy and Spain – have signed a deal to automatically share bank details of account holders as part of a push to combat tax evasion, writes the EUobserver.

The new agreement puts “increasing pressure” on Austria and Luxembourg to drop their threatened veto of a similar EU-wide accord. The finance ministers from the five nations wrote to European Commissioner on Fiscality, Algirdas Šemeta saying they have agreed a pilot scheme, based on the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, which requires banks to notify US tax authorities of any American clients. The EUobserver says –

A similar EU-wide law has so far been held up by Austria and Luxembourg, both keen on preserving bank secrecy for domestic and foreign clients. [...] The collapse of the Cyprus banking system – which like Luxembourg's was much larger than the country's GDP – and a series of revelations about the offshore banking model have increased pressure on Austria and Luxembourg to change their position. Luxembourg has already signalled "openness" to discuss bank secrecy.

However, “the decision is not trivial”, writes Spanish daily ABC,

as it means a substantial advance in the fight against tax evasion, and so, against tax havens in Europe [...] but European reality concerning taxes is stubborn and any advance in Brussels becomes difficult as any decision, even at its minimum, requires unanimity — something impossible in practice taking into account that some countries within Europe, as Luxembourg or Austria, have policies which rely very much on banking secrecy, and mean huge profits for banks based in those countries and for their clients.

The Andalusian regional government, a coalition between the Socialist Workers Party and the United Left, is taking control of properties belonging to banks for a period of three years if families living there are "at risk of exclusion" and threatened with eviction.

The decision, which will come into force on April 11, has come at a time when the new mortgage law is under discussion in the national parliament. The legislation imposes fines on banks that own unoccupied housing, which they refuse to rent out.

Notwithstanding the European Court of Justice ruling which condemned the abuse of evictions in Spain in March of this year, "legal opinion as to the constitutional compliance of the [Andalusian government’s decision] is divided,” notes the newspaper, because “it could undermine the right to private property."

The Spanish Prime MInister has demanded "radical change" to EU austerity policies and intervention by the European Central Bank (ECB) to relieve countries like Spain and Portugal, which have implemented policies requested by the EU.

Mariano Rajoy wants the ECB to inject money into the economy, a policy already implemented by the US Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan. Rajoy’s declaration came shortly after German Minister of Finance, Wolfgang Schäuble, publicly stated that he did not believe such a measure would "adequate".

The daily calls for a "monetary revolution", and argues that ECB intervention could also boost the competitivity of the Eurozone.

“Everyone fends for himself,” begins Gazeta Wyborcza on its frontpage, summing up British Prime Minister David Cameron’s vision of the EU, which he laid out in an interview granted to five European dailies: Le Monde, El Mundo, Il Sole 24 Ore, Süddeutsche Zeitung and Gazeta Wyborcza.

In his view, faced with the competition from rising powers such as China, India or Malaysia, the EU has to be more “open and flexible”. The Warsaw daily notes that –

The word ‘flexible’ has came up several times in the conversation. It is a part of the European vision in which ‘not everyone in Europe does the same things at the same time’. Today, argues Cameron, Great Britain remains outside the Schengen area, while Poland and Sweden are outside the Eurozone.

GW writes that Cameron’s speech in January in which he called for reform of the EU has aroused fears among European politicians that other countries may seek to pick and choose elements of EU membership, thus undermining the Union.

For Christopher Hope, The Daily Telegraph’s senior political correspondent, Cameron’s interview has the feeling of an “apology”, while his ambition that his speech would silence Eurosceptics such as those from the UK Independence Party (Ukip) has not been achieved.

The fact that Mr Cameron has had to [repeat his EU reform strategy] all again, in five languages, less than three months later shows the Bloomberg speech failed and the rise of Ukip [...] has barely been slowed.

The daughter of King Juan Carlos, Princess Cristina, was charged on April 3, by the judge investigating the Nóos corruption scandal, in which her husband, Iñaki Urdangarin, has already been implicated. “For the first time, a judge is to investigate a member of the royal family for corruption,” remarks the newspaper.

According to the magistrate, emails revealed with the help of Diego Torres, Urdangarin’s former business partner, prove that the princess "cooperated" and “gave her assent” to her husband’s business activities.

Princess Cristina is due to appear before the judge on April 27. The royal household has expressed its "surprise" at the decision, and the anti-corruption prosecutor, who has already said he does not support with the prosecution, has announced he will file an appeal to have it cancelled.

Six of Europe’s largest data protection agencies launched a joint legal case against Internet search giant Google on April 2 over alleged breaches of EU privacy regulations. The action by France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and the UK is the first such coordinated privacy action by EU member countries against a company. The European Commission reported in 2012 that Google’s privacy policy did not comply with European law because it failed to sufficiently inform users of the data being gathered, and set a four-month deadline for the firm to update its policy. This has now expired without any policy shift from Google. Outlining the penalties Google may face, The Financial Times says –

European watchdogs can currently impose only fines below €1m but new EU-wide rules could soon empower them to inflict on companies penalties up to 2 per cent of their global annual turnover. In Google’s case that would add up to about $760m (€594m), based on its 2011 revenues. The new rules could be approved by the end of this year by EU lawmakers and member states.

While The Daily Telegraph underlines the different attitudes to privacy in the US compared to Europe, writing –

It would probably be too cynical to suggest that Europe’s adversarial approach to Google is, in some quarters, driven by crude anti-Americanism. A different attitude to privacy is ingrained into German culture, for instance. But it is also obvious that, even with the enormous scale of the common market, Europe will always be a secondary market for Google compared with the US. If regulators make it harder for the company to operate in Europe, it is easy enough for it to simply switch bits off. So, should you wake up one day to find that Street View is not available, but Microsoft’s equivalent is, you would have European regulators to thank for that surprising monopoly.

Spanish Economy Minister Luis de Guindos will meet with the European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs, Olli Rehn, next week to agree the deficit margins Spain must achieve to fulfill EU requirements.

De Guindos will request to meet the 3 per cent deficit goal by 2015 instead of 2014, with a 6 per cent deficit in 2013 and 4.5 per cent in 2014.

Given the country’s current situation of “internal weakness”, threatened consequences on the Spanish economy of the Cypriot haircut and new data revealing a likely 1 per cent drop in GDP in 2013, the newspaper supports de Guindos’s new deficit targets.

The daily, which is close to the left-wing Basque independence movement, publishes a press release in which the terrorist group warns against the “negative consequences” of the Spanish government’s refusal to negotiate.

The initiative follows Norway’s decision to expel three senior members of Eta who enjoyed diplomatic protection in the country — a move the group described as an "obvious step backwards" which could "cause delay and make the resolution of the conflict more difficult."

Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy responded by insisting that the definitive dissolution of the terrorist group was the only possible solution.

Hervé Falciani, the IT specialist formerly employed by the Swiss branch of HSBC, has provided the Spanish government with a new list of Spanish citizens with Swiss bank accounts. This follows an initial spreadsheet with details of 130,000 accounts, which he handed over to authorities in Madrid in 2009.

Members of the ruling People’s Party linked to the Gürtel corruption scandal are apparently mentioned in the latest list.

The first “Falciani list” enabled the Spanish government to recover €300m between 2010 and 2011, and this amount could be tripled by the latest disclosure, says the newspaper.

A new low-rate Spanish bank deposit tax, which will see banks rather than account holders pay levies, is being introduced to “impose order in the Spanish banking system,” the Treasury Minister Cristóbal Montoro said yesterday.

The new fees will see between 0.1 per cent and 0.2 per cent taxed from bank deposits and is expected to raise between €1.5bn and €3bn.

Spanish bank deposits currently total around €1.5trn and the new measure will take effect in the coming weeks.

Amid turmoil following the Cypriot Parliament’s rejection on March 19 of a plan to tax bank deposits as a condition of them receiving €10bn in EU-IMF bailout funds, there is a growing fear of capital flight from European banks in other countries.

The Cyprus decision to reject a plan to tax bank accounts containing more than €20,000 has nonetheless spooked savers in other countries. It has sparking concerns that account holders in other debt-hit countries, such as Spain, may race to withdraw their money and deposit it in accounts based in more financially secure countries.

In Spain, domestic savings total €864bn and represent 51.6 per cent of all money held in the country's banks.

"Government greenlights fracking," announces El País, following the March 1 approval by the Spanish parliament of a bill which will facilitate the use of the controversial technique for the extraction shale gas, which has already been contested by affected municipalities and environemental groups. According to estimates, Spain’s unconventional gas reserves, which have been valued at €700bn, are sufficient to supply 39 years of domestic consumption, and companies in the sector have announced that, over the next few years, they are planning to invest between €700m and €1bn to develop this resource. For El País “there is no incontrovertible reason to outlaw” its development Spain, if “the collateral impact on the environment is subject to strict controls.” However, the newspaper also reports that opinion on fracking remains divided —

For some, this gas extraction technique will needlessly turn Spain into a kind of gruyère cheese. For others, it amounts to a golden opportunity for a country that imports 99 per cent of the hydrocarbons it consumes.

Division over the issue is also prevalent in Europe, adds the Madrid daily —

Europe has no common legislation on the environmental conditions that should apply for the use of this controversial method, and apparently this is not about to be rectified anytime soon. There are glaring divisions between countries, and even between the responsible [European] Commissioners. France, Ireland and Bulgaria have imposed moratoriums on fracking. Poland has resolutely backed the method. [And] to date, the reports presented both by the European Commission and the European Parliament have reached divergent conclusions.

A delegation from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has begun a four-day visit to Madrid to evaluate the city’s suitability to host the 2020 Olympics.

Following unsuccessful bids to host the 2012 and 2016 events, this is the third time the Spanish capital has applied to host the games. Authorities are hoping that a winning bid will give a much needed boost to the region and the country in a time of economic crisis.

The IOC will announce which city has been selected to host the 2020 Olympics on September 7. Madrid’s main rivals are Tokyo and Istanbul.

The European Court of Justice ruled on March 14 that harsh property repossession laws in Spain, which have led to 400,000 evictions since the beginning of the country’s deep recession and crisis, are “abusive” and violate Directive 93/13 on consumer protection.

Activists said the decision could lead judges to halt thousands of bank foreclosure proceedings and experts believe that illegally evicted people may be eligible for compensation.

Last November, the Barcelona daily launched a campaign to ask for an end to the evictions.

A total of 104 regional MPs out of 135, 77 per cent of the Catalonian Parliament, support a dialogue with the Spanish government to agree on a legal self-determination referendum in 2014.

In January, 85 of them voted for a declaration to consider the region as “a political and judicial sovereign subject”, with the Catalan socialist party (PSC) voting against. Now the PSC, the third party in the regional parliament, voted in favour of the dialogue for a referendum. But the national division of the party, the PSOE, is at odds with the PSC on this matter, and opposes any referendum.

According to Spanish legislation, only central government has the right to call a referendum.

"Health is dividing Europe in two," notes El País commenting on the publication of The European Health Report by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

The Spanish daily highlights that "Spaniards are among the Europeans who live the longest." This longevity is explained in part by their Mediterranean diet and lower alcohol consumption. Spanish women live the longest in Europe, with a life expectancy of 85 years, 12 years longer than people from Moldova or Kyrgyzstan whose life expectancies are the shortest on the continent.

This is one of the indicators that demonstrate the major imbalances which still exist between Europe's 53 countries. Eastern Europe continues to have the worst mortality rates, rates of illness and rates of access to clean water. This paints the picture of a duel continent.

Despite this, "life expectancy is increasing in Europe," notes El País. And German daily Süddeutsche Zeitung also remarks on this situation.

Life expectancy is clearly increasing. In 2010, Europeans reached an average age of 76, five years more than in 1980. But a huge gap has opened between the countries in which life expectancy is the highest and those in which it is the lowest. The Swiss, Icelanders, and many inhabitants of the Mediterranean zone reach an average age of 82 years. People living in Russia can hope to live only 69 years.

The Süddeutsche Zeitung remarks that the highest cause of death is a heart attack and that the rate of death due to cardiovascular illness is 13 times higher in Eastern European countries than in the rest of Europe. For El País, which notes that the report does not take into account the health effects of the crisis, "one of the keys to improving these figures is to improve public health policies".

“The measures taken by European governments to save the single currency when it was on the brink may be all well and good, but they came at a very high cost when you consider the growing discontent with the European Union,” remarks the daily.

According to a recent Eurobarometer poll, citizens’ trust in the EU is in freefall in all member states, and not just the southern countries worst affected by the crisis.

“But there is one important caveat,” notes Ta Nea: “When they are asked if they would like their country to leave the Union or to give up the euro, the answer is negative.”

"Brussels investigates Spanish football," headlines El País, revealing that European Commission competition watchdogs are investigating three Valencia football teams – Valencia, Hércules and Elche – who listed the regional government, controlled by the centre-right Popular Party, as a guarantor against some €118m in bank loans. The clubs proved unable to pay their debts to Bankia, Banco de Valencia and CAM, which were later nationalised, meaning the government in Valencia – one of Spain’s most indebted regions – was forced to repay the loans.

If European Commission declares the financial aid irregular and in violation of competition law, the clubs will have to pay back the money, "which could leave them bankrupt," writes El País, adding that debts of all the country’s football clubs total €3.6bn –

For years there has been a wide variety of [public] financial supports that allowed the development of what Brussels has called "the Spanish football bubble”. [...] The respect for Spanish football is at its peak, but economically there are serious doubts about the future of many clubs [and] this apparent paradox between the clubs’ tremendous success and their disastrous economic situation has sparked suspicion in Europe."

Businessman Fidel Pallerols and two officials of the Unió Democrática political party (part of the regional coalition led by the CiU) have been found guilty of illegal political party financing, misappropriation of funds and will face prison.

On March 6, a Barcelona court rejected an deal previously agreed between the prosecution and the defence to limit sentences in the case to a maximum of two years, which would have allowed the accused to avoid serving time behind bars. In his ruling the judge explained that it was intended to "intimidate citizens and politicians" tempted by corruption.

According to a poll conducted by Spain’s Centre for Sociological Research (CIS), corruption is now the second-ranked issue that worries the Spanish, just after unemployment.

The Norwegian government has withdrawn the residents’ permits and diplomatic protection that it granted to three senior members of the Basque terrorist organisation, including its leader Josu Ternera, at the end of 2011.

The decision to throw out the trio was motivated by the fact that 18 months after its announcement of a "definitive cessation" of violence, Eta had not begun to disarm.

The three Eta leaders have apparently left Norway for France, where they will be obliged to live in hiding.

Martín Rodríguez Sol, handed his resignation to Attorney General Eduardo Torres-Dulce on March 5.

He insisted he did not support Catalan secession but simply the right to hold a "legal plebiscite", after the Spanish government took legal action against a declaration of Catalan sovereignty, which the regional parliament backed on January 23, branding it illegal. Proceedings to remove Sol had been initiated after his controversial statement about this plebiscite.

Catalan regional president Artur Mas responded by saying he will proceed to draft a law on plebiscites and propose a new sovereignty declaration in the regional parliament.

Attorney General Eduardo Torres-Dulce has initiated the proceedings to remove the chief prosecutor in Catalonia, Martín Rodríguez Sol.

Rodríguez Sol has stated he supports the Catalan people’s right to voice their opinion in a self-determination referendum to be held in 2014.

This referendum is illegal under Spanish law and the government has already announced it plans to take legal action against the January 23 declaration of sovereignty held in the Catalan parliament in support of the vote.