With the communidad elections less than a week away Caroline Gray and Eoghan Gilmartin both join me to discuss the political earthquake that led to the elections and why this election is about more than just the capital.

This week, the European Super League launched but it hasn't gone smoothly. In the UK all 6 big teams were forced to pull out by their fans, the media and even Boris Johnson. Here in Spain the reaction has been very different. Tommy Hay joins me to discuss the issues behind this league and the Spanish reaction to it.

Tommy Hay is a football commentator here in Spain. He is the presenter of Speaking Football on Vaughan radio, co-host of

the Get Spanish Football News podcast, and he also appears on the show Aprende inglés para futbolistas on Radio MARCA

Sonia Cuesta joins me to discuss the treatment of sexual minorities by the Spanish state during the late period of the Francoist dictatorship.

Sonia Cuesta Maniar is a doctoral research student at St Antony’s College, University of Oxford. Her research focuses on the relationship between Francoist repressive practices and accelerating socio-political change in the 1960s and 1970s Spain. More broadly, she is interested in the history of memory, violence, and repression.

Feminism is huge movement in Spain, but why?

Gender violence is a polemical topic in Spain. Dr Deborah Madden joins me to discuss how, in recent years, there have been several high-profile cases of rape that have brought about needed reforms to the Spanish law. This, along with a number of femicides in the country, has brought gender violence into the public domain.

Dr Deborah Madden is a Leverhulme Postdoctoral Researcher at the Instituto de Investigaciones Feministas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid. Her research interests centre on the intersection of culture, politics and history in twentieth-century Iberia, with a particular focus on feminist and leftist politics. Current projects include research into representations of the Spanish Civil War in popular culture, the intersection of feminist and memory politics and bio-politics in contemporary Spain.

In recent years feminism has boomed in countries such as Argentina and Mexico. Likewise, in Europe the movement has been most active in the south, mainly in Italy and Spain. Since 2018, when the first massively followed International Women Strike took place, the movement hasn´t stop growing, and its effects are beginning to be felt. What are some of today’s discussions in Spanish feminism? and where was Spanish feminism before 2018?

I am joined by researcher Elia Romera-Figueroa to discuss the history of Spanish feminism, past and present debates within the movement and where it is going.

Happy International Womens' Day!! ¡Feliz y combativo 8 de marzo!

Elia Romera-Figueroa is a PhD candidate at Duke University. Her research focuses on female singers from the 1950s until the late 80s in Spain. She studies the engagement of protest singers with Second-Wave Feminists movements. At Duke she has been a graduate fellow at the Social Movements Lab directed by Michael Hardt and Sandro Mezzadra. Her latest publication is focus on the memory of the Spanish Civil War in contemporary music and its titled “Voiced Postmemories: Rozalén’s “Justo” as a Case Study of Singing, Performing, and Embodying Mourning in Spain”.

The Spanish government recently announced 11 billion euros for small, medium sized companies in the hard-hit tourism sector. Will it be enough? And what is the longer term plan for the Spanish economy?

In the longer term, Spain has seen the need to reform its economy as the current model, heavily reliant on tourism, is unreliable. Many in the country also want self employment red tape cut and costs reduced.

Joe Haslam joins me to explain the long term cultural and systematic problems Spain faces in reforming itself into a country of start ups.

We also discuss 'Spain Entrepreneurial Nation' the new 10 year plan to set out by the government to help start ups in Spain grow.

Joe Haslam is the Executive Director of the Owners Scaleup Program at IE Business School in Madrid, Spain. This is a program specially designed for small and medium sized companies that want to scale. He is also the presenter of the High Impact Online Program "Scaleup! How to Successfully Manage Growth" and the Academic Director of the Global Scaleup Program, a joint course offered by IE with the American University of Beirut. In the International MBA, he teaches an award winning elective called "Scaling Up Your Startup".

Article discussed: Spain’s ten-year plan to put startups in the economic driving seat

https://techcrunch.com/2021/02/23/spains-ten-year-plan-to-put-startups-in-the-economic-driving-seat/

Nationalism has made a comeback in the 21st century and Spain is not exempt.

Often people mistake Spain for a large country, when in fact it is a large block of several regional identities. Famously, the Catalan independence movement has highlighted this fact and also caused a rise in the national Spanish identity.

However this is not a new phenomenon. Spain's regional identities have challenged Spanish nationalists desired unity since at least the 19th century

Whilst the regional identities often get along well together, this has not always been the case. During Franco's era, regional identities were suppressed, and following his death the rise of ETA in the Basque country and beyond came to overshadow any talk of the Basque identity.

Maria Reyes Baztán, a researcher from Warwick University, joins me to explain the history of Basque nationalism and the origins of the anti-colonial rhetoric they still use to this day.

Andrew Dowling joins me again to discuss the Catalan election results.

We also discuss and analyse the protests/riots that have followed the arrest of Spanish rapper Pablo Hasel.

On Sunday the 14th February, Catalonia will go to the polls, this time to elect a regional government.

This is the second regional election since the October 2017 independence referendum. The first in December 2017 was called by then Spanish President Mariano Rajoy, in that election the biggest party Cuidudanos won the most seats but could not form an administration. A regional government was formed by independence forces JuntsxCats/ERC/CUP. Quimm Torra was elected as regional president.

In the April 2019 general election, Torra went against Spanish election rules. After many long judicial battles, Torra was dismissed as regional premier and forced to call regional elections. These are those elections.

Since the 2017 elections much has changed in Catalan politics and national politics. Both are intertwined and can effect each other.

Here is my interview with Andrew Dowling. A lecturer at Cardiff University and author of the book The Rise of Catalan Independence

Spain’s Territorial Crisis. Here he explains recent developments in Catalan politics and the build up to these elections.

Vicente Rubio-Pueyo is a Spanish academic based in New York.

In the second part of my interview with him we discuss Spanish nationalism and the rise of far right party Vox.