Theme: Spain

The toll of the Russian attack on Komyshuvakha has risen to 40 dead, with the search in its third day, Zelensky announced, according to Le Monde. Zelensky arrived in Madrid on his fifth visit to Spain and meets Pedro Sánchez and other leaders on Thursday on the sidelines of an Ibero-American summit, with strengthening air defense as the top priority. He lamented “very few reactions around the world” and urged allies to bolster the country's air defense “right now”. The European Commission praised Ukraine's progress toward membership but urged faster rule-of-law reforms to conclude negotiations by the end of 2028.

Europe’s far-right leaders began to distance themselves from Donald Trump after the Democrats’ victory in the US midterm elections, but mostly avoided directly criticizing the president, according to Reuters, in a text republished by Al-Monitor. Jordan Bardella, leader of France’s National Rally, said Trump’s second term was less isolationist than his first, from 2017 to 2021, and that “American intervention regarding Iran carries very heavy consequences” for economies around the world, without mentioning Trump as being behind that intervention. Santiago Abascal, leader of Spain’s Vox, made little attempt to temper his move away from Trump, telling reporters he was “in Spain and not in Michigan,” and that he cares “very little about what happens in other places.” Rupert Lowe, leader of the British party Restore Britain, blamed the decision to attack Iran for the Republicans’ defeat, calling it a “catastrophic mistake,” and wrote in his X post: “What has this war achieved? Absolutely nothing of worth.” Lowe did not include in the text the name of the president who launched the war.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot called the outcome “very good news for American democracy”, saying it is further proof that in a democracy the people write their own history. Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said voters had rejected hatred, sexism, climate change denial and privileges for elites, and that the far-right wave “is no longer growing: it is crumbling”. German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) “must become more European in order to be able to remain transatlantic”, and that Germany is taking on more responsibility and a larger share of the burdens within the alliance. British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said the world now has an opportunity to unite around the cost of living and expressed hope that the Strait of Hormuz would reopen. Austrian Foreign Minister Beate Meinl-Reisinger said Austrian and European security and prosperity must not depend on how people in Kansas or Iowa vote.

Spanish energy firm Moeve, majority owned by Abu Dhabi fund Mubadala, said on Wednesday it had agreed to sell its Algerian oil assets to Indonesia’s state energy firm Pertamina. The deal includes Moeve’s minority stakes in the Rhourde el Khrouf, Bir el Msana and Ourhoud onshore oilfields in Algeria’s Berkine Basin. The company has also agreed to sell its minority stake in Algeria’s Timimoun onshore gas field, a person familiar with the matter said. The sale of its Algerian upstream assets will complete Moeve’s withdrawal from the exploration and production business.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said US voters voted against hatred, sexism, climate change denial and the privileges of the elites. “It happened in Brazil. It has just happened in the US. And it will happen soon in Spain,” he wrote, referring to the November 29 elections in the country. Sánchez also said the far-right wave represented by Feijóo and Abascal is “crumbling”. The statement was posted on X and carried by international outlets, among them Asharq Al-Awsat.

Spain’s transport minister, Óscar Puente, resigned from his post and from frontline politics to try to save the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) campaign, badly damaged after the second fatal high-speed rail accident in nine months. The crash in Toledo province killed 69 people and came just nine months after a similar accident on the same high-speed line; the earlier one, on the Madrid-Seville line, left 46 dead. Spain is holding a snap general election on November 29, with Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez running for re-election; he brought the date forward following a wave of social protest over housing affordability. Puente also announced that he is giving up the socialist candidacy in Valladolid.

Spain Transport Minister Óscar Puente resigned six days after the high-speed train collision in which at least 69 people were killed and dozens injured. In Congress, he said a transport minister cannot remain in office after two serious accidents in less than a year, in reference to the January crash on the same line that left 46 people dead, and withdrew his name from the lists for the early legislative elections. The crash happened when a train run by state-owned Renfe hit the back of a stationary train run by private operator Iryo, outside the village of Urda, south of Madrid. The failure of an automatic safety system halted all trains on a 39-mile stretch of track, but a control center authorized the Renfe service to resume its journey. Puente announced a 30-million-euro aid package for the families of the dead and the injured.

Unions and housing-rights associations from seven European countries, meeting in Paris, called for coordinated demonstrations against the cost of living for November 20, 21 and 22. Organizations from France, Spain, Italy, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Greece and Belgium are taking part, and they hope to bring “millions” of people into the streets. Their demands include guaranteeing public services such as education, healthcare and public housing, defending the “right to work” without “excluding migrants,” “taxing the rich” and an “end to rearmament policies” and to the expansion of “fossil fuels.” In Spain, the death of 87-year-old pensioner Maricarmen Abascal after an eviction in September triggered a wave of protests and led Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to call early legislative elections for November 29; the country’s main unions have called a general strike for November 11. In the European Union, housing prices rose more than 60% between 2010 and 2025 and rents by about 29%.

Óscar Puente resigned as Spain’s transport minister six days after the high-speed train collision that killed at least 69 people. He announced the decision in Congress, after giving evidence on the previous Wednesday’s disaster near Urda, south of Madrid, when a train smashed into the back of another that had stopped on the same line. Puente justified his departure by citing two serious accidents in less than a year, and mentioned January’s crash on the same line, which killed 46 people. He also withdrew his name from the candidate lists for the early legislative elections on November 29. According to Puente, the control center run by Adif, Spain’s state-owned rail infrastructure manager, allowed the AVE train to keep running even though its LZB automatic safety system had failed, and the train covered about 25 kilometers at more than 160 km/h before the collision. Around 200 people were injured in the crash, in addition to the 69 dead.

Spanish police cleared the housing protest camp at Madrid's Puerta del Sol in the early hours of Tuesday, and municipal cleaning staff swept away remaining debris, tents and tarpaulin in the morning. The central government delegation in the Madrid region said the eviction took place overnight “without incident or episodes of violence”, with 334 people removed and two arrested. Firefighters, social services and 400 national and municipal police officers took part in the operation. In a post on Telegram, protest organisers called it “a violent police operation” that left several people injured after being hit or as a result of tear gas. The camp began on September 26, after the eviction and subsequent death of Maricarmen Abascal, 87, who had lived seven decades in the same home. Major unions called a general strike for November 11 in defence of housing and wages sufficient to afford it.

At least seven migrants have died aboard a boat carrying 139 people bound for the Canary Islands after a storm hit. Rescuers reached the boat early on Monday, about 150 km from Arrecife. Five bodies are missing at sea and two have been recovered.

At least 69 people were killed when two trains collided near Urda, a town close to Toledo in central Spain, according to Al Jazeera — only 10 months after another collision on the same line, in Adamuz near Cordoba, killing 46 people; next month's snap poll “is no longer the contest it was”, as Pedro Sánchez is pressed to defend the government's safety record, according to the Guardian.

At least 68 people were killed and more than 100 injured when the Renfe train rear-ended a stationary Iryo train near the town of Urda, in Toledo province, on the high-speed line between Madrid and Seville, CNN reported. Twenty-four people died on the Renfe train and 44 on the Iryo train, both traveling between the two cities. Transportation Minister Óscar Puente said a computer failure affected the LZB safety system along 63 kilometers (40 miles) and automatically stopped all trains in the stretch; state rail manager ADIF took manual command and authorized the Renfe train to continue southbound despite the red light and with no speed restrictions, on an erroneous order from a controller. “There was a red signal prohibiting movement, yet the train was authorized to proceed,” Puente said. Audio released by El País shows the controller telling the AVE driver to resume “la marcha normal”, instead of the “marcha a vista” of 40 km/h set out in the protocol.

The death toll from the train collision in Toledo rose to at least 74, according to Spain’s transport ministry. The independent transport accident investigation authority AITAT published a preliminary report with the same figure, still provisional, and King Felipe VI expressed his sorrow over the “terrible accident” as he and Queen Letizia visited a hospital where injured victims were being treated.

The investigation into the train crash that killed at least 69 people near Toledo on Wednesday morning is examining why controllers told the driver of a Renfe AVE train to restart the journey after a signaling failure, according to The Guardian. Both trains had been halted when the signaling system failed; the driver of the state-owned train was told to restart and crashed into the train in front, run by the private operator Iryo. The instruction to proceed “con marcha normale” — under normal operations rather than at low speed — was described by Transport Minister Óscar Puente as an “inexplicable decision”.

Spain's second rail disaster this year has put the safety of the country's rail network back at the center of the national debate, ahead of a national election, according to AP. In the crash, a high-speed train struck a stationary train from behind, killing at least 68 people and injuring dozens, the agency reported.

The Renfe train traveling from Madrid to Seville, with 397 passengers on board, struck the rear of the stationary Iryo train, which carried 147, on Wednesday morning near Urda in the province of Toledo, according to the BBC. The collision killed at least 69 people and injured dozens, and Spain began three days of national mourning. Audio recordings between drivers and the control center released on Thursday appear to show the Renfe train was cleared to move even though the Iryo train had stalled about 25 km ahead; according to the transport minister, the Renfe train was ordered to proceed in error. Emergency crews continued operations at the site, with the death toll at 69, France 24 reported.

Oscar Puente told reporters in Madrid that the red signal was triggered by a computer communications failure, which automatically stopped traffic, and that an erroneous decision was then made to restart the Renfe train. At least 68 people died when a Spanish high-speed express slammed into a stationary train on Wednesday, Spain's second fatal rail crash this year and Europe's deadliest since 2013, according to France 24. Sánchez said the tragedy will be investigated and that the country will strengthen high-speed rail safety if needed to rebuild confidence in the system.

The provisional toll from the train collision in Urda rose to at least 68 dead, 24 in the AVE train and 44 in the Iryo train, according to Le Monde, citing the announcement by the president of the Castile-La Mancha region, Emiliano García-Page. Spain’s socialist leader decreed three days of national mourning, from Thursday to Saturday.

The failure of the line's main signaling system and the subsequent decision to resume service manually are at the centre of the early findings on the train collision in Toledo, which may have been triggered by human error, according to Spanish government sources, as reported by El País. Eight trains were brought to a halt in the area after the failure; the control center then switched to manual operation and instructed all trains to resume their journeys. Spain's transport minister pointed to an “inexplicable” decision as a possible cause of the collision, according to Xinhua.

The death toll from the train collision in Urda, in the province of Toledo, has risen to 64 dead and 58 injured, according to the local government's update on Wednesday. Forty of the dead were traveling on the Iryo train and 24 on the Renfe AVE, according to the same tally. The regional government of Castilla-La Mancha, the region where the crash happened, confirmed 64 dead, according to the BBC. Emergency services sources told El País that a Renfe AVE train hit the rear of an Iryo train stopped on the tracks, and two cars fell down an embankment.

A high-speed train slammed into the rear of another train that had stopped, derailing two cars and killing at least 30 people in central Spain, according to local media, NPR reported. Spanish authorities initially reported 10 deaths, and Esther Padilla, spokeswoman for the Castilla-La Mancha region, said “that number will surely rise,” according to NPR. The accident involved a train from state-owned RENFE and one from the private company IRYO.

At least 10 people are feared dead and many injured after two high-speed trains collided in Toledo province in central Spain, according to The Guardian. Services between Madrid and the southern region of Andalusia were suspended following a rear-end collision between two trains on Wednesday morning. A local government spokesperson told TVE that the death toll “will almost certainly rise.”

Soldiers guard central Milan as thousands of protesters march in cities across Europe, The Hindu reports. The protests run from Milan to Madrid, with security forces curbing clashes, and include campus, pension, housing and anti-corruption demands, the paper says. In several Italian cities, the demonstrations drew tear gas and water cannon fire, according to TRT World.

One hundred people were arrested in Barcelona on Saturday evening after hooded demonstrators at an anti-establishment rally looted shops and set fire to street furniture around the city's central Plaza de Catalunya, Reuters reported in a text republished by the Jerusalem Post. The rally was called in social media posts under the slogan “against the system”, using the phrase “Institut Indignats”, a translation of “Lyceés Indignés”, the banner of student protests in France in recent weeks. Núria Parlon, the interior minister for the Spanish region of Catalonia, said more than 30 fires were set and 14 stores were vandalized or looted, adding that around 25% of those arrested were minors.

Thousands of people marched in Madrid in defence of the public pension system, with 25,000 present according to the government delegation and 50,000 according to the organisers. The protest comes five weeks before the November 29 general elections, with pensions at the centre of the campaign and a warning to all parties: “Whoever governs, pensions are defended”.

A political ad from Spain’s main opposition party used a deepfake video of the prime minister’s wife and sparked outrage, according to The Guardian.

Argentine President Javier Milei called Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez a “dictator” during a visit to Madrid on Wednesday and urged voters to oust the Socialist leader in upcoming elections, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported. Spain’s foreign ministry “strongly” condemned Milei’s insults and alleged defamatory remarks against Sánchez, Spain and its citizens, according to TRT World.

Torrential rain battered eastern Spain, leaving at least four people dead in recent days, flooding streets and forcing many residents to stay indoors, authorities said. In some areas of the Valencia region, as much as 700 liters of rain per square metre fell in just 24 hours.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said the war on Iran has already cost Europeans more than 100 billion euros, according to the Middle East Eye. Sánchez said the Spanish Congress ratified a social shield of more than 12 billion euros to protect citizens and the affected sectors, according to the same outlet. The statement was made after he arrived in Brussels for the European Union (EU) summit, according to 1news.az.

Latvia ordered 84 combat vehicles from Spain’s GDELS-Santa Bárbara Sistemas for about €800 million, with all of them due to be delivered by 2029, according to Middle East Eye. The Mednieks infantry fighting vehicles carry UT30 MK2 unmanned turrets produced by Israel’s Elbit Systems, despite the arms embargo Spain declared on Israel last year.

King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia are visiting Ceuta months after more than 70,000 migrants arrived from Morocco, France24 reported. The visit has divided residents and risks reigniting diplomatic tensions with Morocco, which claims sovereignty over Ceuta and Melilla.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said Moroccan navy vessels entered Spanish waters off Ceuta without permission after late July’s mass migrant crossing, according to Reuters, in a text republished by The Straits Times. Sánchez played down the incidents, calling them isolated.

Thousands of people marched in Madrid in homage to Maricarmen, an 87-year-old woman who became a symbol of the struggle against evictions, in a march from Sol to her former home, according to laSexta. The Government Delegation put the number of participants in the housing protest at 20,000. The three-kilometer route featured banners such as “el rentismo mata” and the chant “no son muertes, son asesinatos”, with events also in Valencia, Seville and Santander.

Madrid’s tenants union announced the death of Maricarmen Abascal, 87, whose eviction sparked nationwide protests over Spain’s housing crisis and a political row that triggered early elections. Abascal was forcibly removed on a stretcher from her apartment of more than 70 years in September after she was unable to afford rent increases. The apartment had been purchased by an investment firm that sought to hike her rent by 230%, according to The Guardian. The wave of outrage led Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez to call a snap general election after rightwing and far-right parties voted down two emergency decrees.

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called an early general election on Monday, bringing forward a vote scheduled for 2027, according to Deutsche Welle (DW). The vote was set for 29 November, in an announcement made on Monday, 5 October 2026, according to Vocemundi, in an agencies compilation.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez called a snap election for 29 November after a parliamentary defeat, according to the BBC. The conservative People’s Party (PP) and the far-right Vox voted against the government’s housing measures, which sought to prevent the eviction of tenants. Sánchez called for voters to mobilise for a much bigger progressive majority to defeat the elites and conquer social rights.

Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced a snap general election in a televised address on Monday morning, three days after right-wing parties torpedoed emergency housing legislation, according to The Guardian. The announcement followed Parliament's rejection of housing relief measures, according to Al Jazeera.

Fresh protests over housing flared in Madrid and other Spanish cities on Saturday, a day after parliament narrowly rejected the government’s proposed relief measures for tenants, France24 reported. The government introduced the measures after nationwide protests following the eviction, on a stretcher, of 87-year-old Maricarmen Abascal from a Madrid apartment she had occupied for around seven decades.

Tens of thousands of people marched through Madrid on Saturday to protest the eviction of Maricarmen Abascal, an 87-year-old woman, calling for greater protection for tenants, according to AFP, in a text republished by RFI. Government authorities put the turnout at around 25,000, while the Madrid Tenants’ Union, which organised the protest, said over 300,000 had taken part; at the end, activists set up a camp in Puerta del Sol. According to the union, Abascal left the apartment where she had lived for 70 years after a real estate firm acquired the building and raised the rent by 275 percent to 2,650 euros.

Tens of thousands of people protested in Madrid on Saturday over the government’s handling of the Ceuta migrant crisis, in a rally organised by Sociedad Civil Española and backed by the conservative People’s Party (PP) and the far-right Vox, according to Al Jazeera. The government put attendance at 20,000, while organisers said 180,000; demonstrators called for an early election. At the end of July, more than 70,000 migrants crossed into the Spanish enclave of Ceuta from neighbouring Morocco, and most were later returned.

Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said Spain intends to comply with the European Union’s ban on importing Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) from 1 January 2027 despite long-term contracts held by Spanish companies, according to TASS, the Russian state news agency, which carried his remarks at an Atlantic Council event in Washington. “LNG supply contracts are concluded years in advance. These are very long-term contracts. This is not something that can be decided at the last minute,” Albares said. He added that Spain has one of Europe’s largest LNG storage and processing capacities and that this “opens up opportunities for the rest of Europe,” which Madrid can supply with LNG from “reliable partners, such as the United States.” The European ban on Russian LNG imports takes effect on 1 January 2027 for long-term contracts, and the ban on pipeline gas on 30 September 2027; the European Union Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER), in a 2026 report, records that Russian LNG imports rose 17% year-on-year between 18 March and the end of May 2026, despite the ban on short-term contracts in force since 25 April.

Spain’s Council of Ministers on Tuesday, 22 September 2026, allowed a US extradition request against activist and donor James Cox Chambers Jr., known as Fergie Chambers, 41, to move to the judicial phase, a decision his defence calls a “dangerous precedent” for the Palestinian cause, according to Middle East Eye. Chambers was arrested in Ibiza on 10 July 2026 at Washington’s request and remains in pre-trial detention in Madrid. The sealed indictment charges him with international money laundering, riot and conspiracy to riot over transfers of about $7.5 million to a company in Tunisia and over 2023 protests at the US facilities of an Israeli arms manufacturer in New Hampshire and Massachusetts, according to The National and The Straits Times, which published a Reuters dispatch. It is the first time the US has sought the extradition of a citizen over alleged support for Hamas, The National says. Government spokesperson Elma Saiz said the decision was “purely procedural” and that the final word rests with Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s cabinet, after review by the Audiencia Nacional, the Spanish court that handles extradition requests. Chambers’s lead counsel, Baltasar Garzón, said: “Spain cannot defend international law, the rights of the Palestinian people and the protection of those who provide humanitarian aid while at the same time allowing a request to proceed with an extradition that shows clear signs of political persecution by the US government.” The Sumar party, a junior partner in the governing coalition, had urged the government to block the request; Podemos lawmaker Ione Belarra called Chambers “the first political prisoner in Spanish history being imprisoned because of his support for Palestine”. His defence says the transfers funded humanitarian projects in Gaza, including a bakery and a medical clinic.

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez said on Tuesday, 22 September 2026, that a failure of Morocco’s border controls was to blame for the mass entry of migrants into Spain’s North African enclave of Ceuta. He said Spain was investigating what happened in July and had asked Rabat for “actions and also for answers because it is also clear that its border control failed”, in an interview with the US broadcaster CNN in New York, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Le Monde. More than 70,000 migrants entered Ceuta on 30 and 31 July 2026 in an unprecedented and deadly rush, AFP reported. Most returned to Morocco in the following hours; several thousand remained in the enclave, where the situation has since deteriorated, leading to episodes of violence and almost daily demonstrations by residents. A Spanish police report seen by AFP said the number of Moroccan police officers around the border crossing was “clearly smaller than usual” and that officers “made no serious attempt” to stem the surge, based on satellite images, open-source videos and testimonies from migrants. Speaking in parliament on 3 September 2026, Sánchez had said Madrid needed to ask Morocco for “explanations and changes” to avoid a repeat, while stressing there was no “solid proof” that Morocco had orchestrated the influx, according to AFP and Le Monde.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday, 22 September 2026, called on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to expel Spain, a day after Madrid said it would not take part in security for the event where he was to speak. Spain has had an arms embargo on Israel since 2023 and recognised the Palestinian state in May 2024. Sources: The Times of Israel and Middle East Eye.