Spain

The European Commission on Tuesday stated the French government is allowed to contribute €4 billion to help keep Air France afloat.

In February, Ryanair lost a legal fight in the EU General Court against state aid being granted to Air France and Sweden's SAS through national schemes. Ryanair is still seeking to contest the German government's bailout of Lufthansa, as well as similar schemes in Spain, the Netherlands, Denmark and Portugal.

Spain's Health Minister Carolina Darias announced Thursday that the country will resume administering the AstraZeneca vaccine next Wednesday after the European Medicines Agency (EMA) deemed it "safe and effective."

"The decision was taken unanimously as the benefits outweighed the risks, in line with the findings from the European Medicines Agency," so Darias.

Spanish lawmakers on Thursday passed a law to legalize euthanasia and assisted suicide for people with serious and incurable illnesses who want to end their life. The ruling passed the lower parliament house with 202 votes in favour and 141 against and 2 abstentions.

"Today we are a more humane, just and freer country. The euthanasia law, widely demanded by society, finally becomes a reality" Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Twitter.

Germany on Monday halted the use of the AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine, the Health Ministry announced in a statement. Italy, France and Spain follow suit later in the day.

"After new reports of thrombroses of the cerebral veins in connection with the vaccination in Germany and Europe, the PEI considers further investigations to be necessary," the Health Ministry announced.

The European Medicines Agency will decide "whether and how the new information will affect the authorization of the vaccine"

The former regional president of Catalonia, Carles Puigdemont, loses his immunity as an MEP. The European Parliament voted on Monday evening to withdraw the right of protection, as has now been announced. Two of Puigdemont's comrades-in-arms in the fight for Catalonia's independence from Spain are also affected. The Catalans now face extradition to the Spanish authorities.

Joan Laporta, who was president from 2003 to 2010, was elected FC Barcelona's President with an absolute majority of 54.28% of the votes. Laporta will serve a six-year term upon taking the reins again.

"We experienced the same thing in 2003. We were losing, had a huge debt and were having to pay too many expenses and income was lower than revenue. The situation today is very similar and my formula to get out of it is very simple. We need to control expenses, restructure the debt and work to generate new sources of income," Laporta told the BBC prior to the election.

Spain's birth rate has fallen by 22.6% in the year following the start of the Covid-19 pandemic in March of 2020, with the country reporting 13,141 births between December 2020 and January 2021 compared to the same period previous year.

Spain has been seeing a decline in births in the past couple of years, with only 360,617 newborns in 2019 – the lowest figure since 1941.

Software developer and antivirus pioneer John McAfee is to stand trial in the U.S. on charges of cryptocurrency fraud and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The Justice Department published the indictment on Friday, and McAfee faces years in prison and heavy fines if convicted.

The 75-year-old was arrested in Spain in October at the behest of U.S. law enforcement officials, who had already filed charges against him for tax evasion and unfairly promoting cryptocurrencies. A statement from McAfee was not initially available. According to U.S. authorities, he remains in custody in Spain.

Four people were arrested on Monday morning for 'Barçagate' so far, including the club's former president Josep Maria Bartomeu, former board member Jaume Masferrer, Barça's current CEO Òscar Grau and the head of legal services, Román Gómez-Ponti.

In February 2020, Spanish broadcaster Cadena Ser revealed a scheme in which then-president Bartomeu hired the company I3Ventures, which specialises in mass dissemination of offences and misinformation on social media.

Next Sunday, on March 7, FC Barcelona will hold an election to designate the new president for the coming six years, with three candidates: former president Joan Laporta, Víctor Font and Toni Freixa.

Demonstrations of support for Pablo Hasél and free speech continued in Spain for the third night in a row, particularly in Catalonia. Deployment of riot police caused confrontations where a woman lost an eye to a rubber bullet.

The fallout from the rapper's conviction also continues in government and the judiciary. Government coalition parties PSOE and Unidas Podemos reacted to the events differently, while a legal reform is being called for by the Spanish Justice Ministry itself.

The mass vaccination of care homes – the first priority group of Spain’s vaccination drive – is beginning to have an effect, with contagions falling. According to the Health Ministry, last week 103 coronavirus outbreaks were reported in such residences, which include care homes for people with disabilities and senior residences. This is half the number recorded the previous week.

Spain's National Court sentenced Pablo Hasél to two years and nine months behind bars for two separate cases relating to the content of some of his songs and tweets as they were deemed to be "glorification of terrorism" as well as slandering the crown and Spanish law enforcement.

Hundreds of artists have signed a manifesto released earlier last week, entitled 'Without freedom of speech there is no democracy', including luminaries such as Catalan singer Joan Manuel Serrat, Spanish film director Pedro Almodóvar and actors Javier Bardem, Alba Flores and Aitana Sánchez Gijón.

Despite the socialist party (PSC) got more votes at the February 14th election, the independentists obtained 74 seats over 135 in parliament.

"I want to send a message to Pedro Sánchez, it is time to sit down to resolve the conflict and vote in a referendum and release prisoners with amnesty," were the first words pronounced, defiantly, by the ERC candidate, Pere Aragonès.

This Sunday's edition of the newspaper El Mundo exclusively unveils Leo Messi's contract with FC Barcelona. The contract dates to 2017, covering four seasons for a total of 555 million euros and it is "the sum of a fixed salary, image rights, a series of multi-million euro bonuses unheard of to date, allowances and a string of variables depending on various objectives".

According to the newspaper, Messi has already secured 92% of the contract, despite the team's setbacks in the Champions League's recent seasons, the competition that has the highest bonuses.

Barcelona denied "any responsibility for the publication of this document".

A 56-year-old woman has tested positive for Covid-19 in New Zealand, after being released from government managed isolation following two negative tests. The woman arrived in Auckland on 30 December after travelling in Spain and the Netherlands for four months.

The woman was released on 13 January and travelled around south Northland with her husband, visiting as many as 30 locations, including popular holiday spots, AirBnBs, and shops.

The head of the Defence Chief of Staff (Jemad), General Miguel Ángel Villarroya, resigned on Saturday after it was revealed the day before that he and other military commanders had already been vaccinated in the Covid-19 despite not being part of the priority immunisation groups.

In the missive, General Villaroya defends his decision to vaccinate himself and the generals and commanders of the Defence Staff (Emad), who were not among the groups established as priorities, claiming that "in fulfilling his obligations, by the established protocols and with the sole aim of preserving the integrity, continuity and efficiency of the chain of command of the Armed Forces" he had "recently taken decisions that he considers being right", but which are "damaging the public image of the Armed Forces and calling into question" his "own honesty".

A large explosion destroyed most of a building at about 14:00 (UTC) in Calle de Toledo, in the Spanish capital Madrid on Wednesday.

There are reports that firefighters, police and specialized emergency workers were at the scene, and residents were evacuated from the area.

Madrid mayor says at least two people have died in the explosion that caused the collapse of a building in the central Madrid area. A gas leak likely caused the explosion, the mayor said.

Spanish Health Minister Salvador Illa announced that Pfizer has postponed the delivery of a new batch of the coronavirus vaccine to the country by one day to Tuesday due to a logistics hurdle.

The cool boxes designed by Pfizer have GPS trackers so the company can deal with potential storage issues en route. The vaccine must be stored at ultra-low temperatures of about -70 degrees Celsius before being shipped to distribution centres in specially designed cool boxes filled with dry ice.

"Due to a minor logistical issue, we have rescheduled a limited number of our deliveries," Andrew Widger, Pfizer's director for media relations said.

After having lunch with French President Emmanuel Macron, Spain’s prime minister Pedro Sánchez announced all of his official engagements were suspended and he would self-isolate until 24 December. "The prime minister will undergo an immediate diagnostic test to determine his situation and will then decide, based on the results, how to manage his agenda over the coming days," so a statement of Sánchez’s office.

António Costa, Portuguese prime minister, met with Macron at the Élysée Palace on Wednesday and is currently awaiting his Covid-19 results in self-isolation. "The prime minister decided to cancel the trip [to Sao Tome and Principe and Guinea Bissau], as well as any public agenda that implies his physical presence. He will keep all executive activities and work schedule, which will be carried out remotely," Costa's office said.

This Monday, Felipe VI began a 10-day quarantine after learning that "a person" with whom he had "close contact" on Sunday had tested positive for Covid-19, according to a statement from the King's Palace.

Before it was known that his contact on Sunday had been positive, the King presided over the meeting of the Scientific Council of the Real Instituto Elcano on Monday morning at the El Pardo Palace; the meeting was attended by its president, Emilio Lamo de Espinosa, the director, Charles Powell, the director of programmes, Maria Solanas, and experts on Latin America (Susana Malcorra), Transatlantic Relations (Robin Niblett) and the EU (Elvire Fabry), among others.