cant speak for the uk, but freelancers are not affected by the minimum wage here so its not against the law
according to the german institute for economic research around 25% of people having their own shop make less than 8.50€ an hour and i bet that most of them are craftsmen like floor tilers for example
people with the same problem in the uk certainly did not find it hard to vote for "leave"

Since some of you guys asked for more spanish-related news, I bring you these 3:

1. The now former president, Mariano Rajoy, has stepped down as leader of the centre-right party PP. He had a strong and uncontested leadership in the party, and even after being ousted from the government the loyalty of his party colleagues was unquestioned, but he has decided it's best for him to leave. He has asked the party to summon a congress "soon", so that there can be a new and fresh leader. The problem is that right now there don't seem to be any good alternative candidates... some of the bigger names (like VP Soraya Sáenz de Santamaría) are too "contaminated" by Rajoy, and wouldn't be a true renewal that could excite the traditional party voters. There is one guy though... Feijóo, who is president of the Galicia region... he has won 3 elections by a landslide and he's the only regional president with an absolute majority in parliament... he'd be a great candidate and the press has spent years trying to get him to replace Rajoy, but he has always denied interest in leaving regional politics. Let's see what happens. The party could be in trouble if it's not someone who can glue together the different ideological branches of the party (conservative christian democrats, right-wing neo-liberals, unitarianists, etc).

2. The new president, Pedro Sánchez, will officially announce his government team tomorrow. However, several ministers have already been announced, and many others leaked (reported by different ad credible sources). It seems like it will be a very progressive government, pretty left leaning, but nothing too revolutionary. It will also be more technocratic thatn Rajoy's, and many of the ministers have decent amount of experience in their fields. Our foreign policy will be under Josep Borrell, who was president of the EU parliament a bit over a decade ago, so maybe he rings a bell to you guys. He's also a unionist catalan that gave a very inspirational and memorable speech in Barcelona after the independence referendum, which rallied catalan unionists to demonstrate in the streets for days like never before, and he has heavily criticized Rajoy's lack of initiative in speaking to foreign press about the separatist issue (letting separatists take much of the space), so this will likely be one of the main focuses of his foreign policy. It's important for PSOE to take care of that, because the centrist party C's had already began taking matters in their own hands by translating the racist and fake history texts sponsored by the catalan government into different languages, and delivering them to foreign press.

3. Last week the Catalan president Quim Torra eventually gave up on the idea of having prosecuted people in his government, so now he has formed a clean government. With that condition met, which Rajoy had said was what would lift article 155, this new government can now function normally, as Pedro Sánchez decided to keep Rajoy's promise and has decided to lift article 155 (despite there being no promise by Torra to abide the law). Let's see how things develop from now on. Over the last year PSOE has been strict regarding the separatist issue, and Pedro Sánchez promised to remove any room for interpretation to the penal code in regards to rebellion and make it applicable in any case where constitutional order is defied... however now he runs the country with only 84 seats in parliament, and will likely need the help from catalan separatist parties to pass some laws, so he will likely have to juggle a bit if he doesn't call for elections soon.


Bonus:



Looks like De Gea isn't a fan of our new president

This post was edited by zarkadon on Jun 5 2018 10:55am

Is Pedro gonna give Catalonia the right to self determination?

This post was edited by dro94 on Jun 5 2018 11:04am

Neither Pedro nor any other spanish president, can do that. Only the spanish people, through a constitutional change, can do it.

His party PSOE has always defended the unity of Spain, so don't expect any changes in regards to that. Pedro is a federalist and is willing to make other types of concessions though.

This post was edited by zarkadon on Jun 5 2018 11:10am

Sounds like the equivalent of: Scotland can only leave the UK if the people of England vote for it. Totally backwards way of thinking.

not in the case of spain

the whole country has voted for the current constitution so its only logical that everyone must decide about changing it

textbook democracy

Well it would be more like if the whole UK agrees on it, but regardless, we've been over that already... the history, culture, context, etc of Scottland and the UK are very different to that of Catalonia and the rest of Spain, so trying to make comparisons doesn't really work.

You can't compare Scotland to Catalonia to West Sahara to Kosovo to Kurdistan to Transnistria to Quebec to Northern Cyprus, just because these regions are involved in matters related to independence movements... they each have their unique and different contexts. It would be silly to back them all, or back none of them... you have to analyze each one of them separately, and avoid comparisons between them. I know it takes a lot more effort, but you can't simplify the complex matter of geopolitics... it's like trying to apply the German unification process to Korea... it won't work. You can't just apply the same logic all around the globe.



With a landslide backing in Catalonia too... far greater than the natioanal average.

This post was edited by zarkadon on Jun 5 2018 01:37pm

yep, 95.15% voted in favour of the constitution there, doesnt get much better than that

Are you having a laugh?

European news of the day:

- Secret report from officials released (Time) regarding a brexit without a deal: "mad max / armageddon brexit" with food, fuel, and drugs shortage possible: panic, death.
- Italian governement guaranted today that Itaxit was not planned at all. € value increased on markets.

Ty