2025 was the year Spain stood out in Europe over its clear opposition to the Israeli genocide in Gaza, as well as over its critical stance towards the Trump-led military spending spree in NATO.  With the fall of the Social Democrats in Germany, the country’s prime minister Pedro Sanchez also reinforced his position within the EU as the major figurehead of the continent’s centre-left. 

Yet, at home Sanchez has faced a series of crises and scandals within his own Socialist Workers Party while his complicated parliamentary majority hung by a thread while far-right Vox surged in the polls.

To discuss the year’s events, Alan and Eoghan are joined by regular end of year guest IE university professor and Galician beach bar owner Joe Haslam.

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Spain is the European Union’s largest fruit and vegetable producer, with exports topping €18 billion in 2024. Yet those whose work sustains this lucrative sector face widespread underpayment and labour rights violations - with some facing extreme exploitation bordering on modern slavery.

As Eoghan tells Alan, this model should not be seen as some antiqued part of the Spanish economy but rather in its employment of digital surveillance techniques and with the growing financialization of the agricultural sector, Spain is at the cutting edge of European farming.

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The investigation discussed in this episode:

1. Revealed: EU Farm Subsidy ‘Bankrolls’ Widespread Labour Abuse

https://www.desmog.com/2025/09/29/revealed-eu-farm-subsidy-bankrolls-widespread-labour-abuse/

2. In Spain, Farmworkers Are Dying in the Heat https://jacobin.com/2025/10/spain-farmworkers-heatstroke-climate-crisis

As Spain marks the fiftieth anniversary of the death of dictator Francisco Franco, Eoghan sits down for a wide-range interview with Sebastiaan Faber, Professor of Hispanic Studies at Oberlin College and author of Exhuming Franco. They discuss the very contested institutional, political and ideological legacies of the dictatorship - as well as the continued fascination with Franco on the far-right in the United States. 

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In this episode of The Sobremesa Podcast, Alan McGuire speaks with historian Dr. Jorge Marco, author of Paradise in Hell: Alcohol and Drugs in the Spanish Civil War (University of Wales Press).

They explore how intoxication shaped the Spanish Civil War. Not just on the battlefield, but in propaganda, gender roles, and moral control. From the image of the “drunken enemy” to the ideal of the sober, disciplined soldier, Marco reveals how alcohol and drugs became tools for defining masculinity, nationhood, and the enemy.

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This week we discuss the use of football as a propaganda tool under the Francisco Franco dictatorship, concentrating in particular on the cases of Real Madrid and Barcelona.

Eoghan speaks to historian Alejandro Quiroga, author of the book the book ‘Football and National Identities in Spain’.

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In the later years of Franco’s regime, Spain was beginning to change socially, culturally, and economically. But beneath the surface of so-called “soft dictatorship” the state continued to torture, imprison, and silence those who didn’t fit its moral order and catholic ideology.

In this episode, we revisit a conversation with Sonia Cuesta Maniar, a doctoral researcher at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford, whose work examines how the Spanish state persecuted gay and trans people during the late Francoist period, turning them into public enemies that threatened the social order of the country.

We talk about how the regime used psychiatry, imprisonment, and humiliation as tools of control, and how these acts of violence were justified.

Re-released as part of our Francoism series, this episode reminds us that the dictatorship was not the “soft” authoritarianism it’s sometimes remembered as, but a system built on fear, repression, and the erasure of those who lived outside its narrow vision of Spain.

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In this episode of The Sobremesa Podcast, Alan McGuire and Eoghan Gilmartin are joined by Barcelona-based Italian journalist Tiare Gatti Mora. they discuss Spain’s relationship with Palestine and Israel.

The conversation explores the political and moral dynamics behind Spain’s arms embargo, its efforts to help stop the genocide in Gaza, and the possible calculations shaping Pedro Sánchez’s stance on Palestine. This, of course, takes into account Spain's membership of NATO, its relationship with the Trump administration and European politics.

Later they also compare Spain’s position with Italy’s response to the crisis, reflecting on how both countries’ left movements and governments have engaged with the question of solidarity.

This episode offers a deep, timely analysis of how the European left have acted, and what its limitations are, when responding to one of the biggest war crimes of our time.

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In this episode of The Sobremesa Podcast, we explore the complex and often contradictory history of Catalonia under Franco with historian Dr. Andrew Dowling.

We unpack how the Francoist regime initially crushed Catalan language and culture, only to later co-opt selective elements for its own purposes — reshaping Catalan identity under authoritarian rule.

We also examine the uncomfortable truths of the period: the early support of the Catalan upper class for the Franco regime, and how this changed in the face of growing repression and political decay.

As the dictatorship entered its final, violent phase, a surprising alliance emerged — Catalan communists and the Catholic Church working together to organise resistance and push for democratic change.

This episode is about memory, identity, collaboration, and struggle — and how Catalonia’s past continues to shape its present.

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This week's guest is historian Nicolás Sesma whose book on the francoist dictatorship, ‘Ni Una, Ni Grande, Ni Libre’, was named by El País as one of the top ten books published in Spanish in 2024.

The book offers a brilliant re-telling of the four decades of the Francoist regime, placing particular emphasis on how a changing international context impacted its development. It also interrogates and dismantles many of the cliches and received truths around the dictatorship - such as its supposed transformation into a milder or softer dictatorship in its later decades.

Nicolás is Professor of Spanish History and Civilization at the Université Grenoble Alpes.

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Ten days ago Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez’s Socialist Party was rocked by a major corruption scandal - when the party’s head of organization Santos Cerdan became implicated in a massive graft operation involving the Spanish construction giant Acciona.

The case has called into question Sánchez’s political judgement and credibility - in what is the most serious crisis of his seven year stint as head of government. It also brings to mind the worst crony capitalist practices that have plagued Spanish institutions for decades.

To discuss the political importance of this scandal, Alan and Eoghan are joined by Joe Haslam, professor at IE University. And please remember if you like what we are producing and want more, think about supporting us at our buy me a coffee page here: https://buymeacoffee.com/thesobremey