I expect to see Spain in the news more as political turmoil mounts over policies to remain in the E.U., ECB debt/austerity measures (keep an eye on the developing Podemos anti-austerity political party), and banking connections with Venezuela & Nicolas Maduro… ~Ron
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By Tokunbo Salako With REUTERS
Former head of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) Rodrigo Rato has been released by Spanish police after being arrested over a tax and money laundering inquiry into his personal wealth.
Rato, who previously served as Spain’s deputy prime minister and minister of economy and finance, was held for seven hours while his home and office were searched on Thursday.
Investigators are looking into the alleged widespread misuse of company credit cards for personal expenses during Rato’s tenure as chairman of Spanish banking conglomerate Bankia, which was rescued by a government bail out in 2012.
Rato is one of several former managers accused of fraud as courts separately decide whether Bankia’s 2011 stock market flotation was flawed. He denies wrongdoing in both cases.
Rato was long a leading light of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s centre-right Popular Party (PP) before being implicated in two other judicial cases.
He is the highest-profile target yet in a series of legal probes against top Spanish bankers and politicians and his arrest comes as a fresh blow to the country’s already discredited political class.
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Venezuela, Colombia and Cuba
The European Union-Latin America relations were assessed
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Speaking of Catalonia & Independence
http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-04-16/catalonias-leaders-plan-secession-spain
The leaders of Catalonia, the autonomous region in northeastern Spain that includes Barcelona, have announced that they will put in place a roadmap to secession and independence if pro-independence parties win an upcoming referendum in September.
“My commitment is to hold a referendum on independence, and we’ll see if the majority of the Catalan people vote yes or no,” says Catalan President Artur Mas. “The country was born in the Middle Ages and we have a very deep sense of self-government and we want to protect it for the future.”
Mas says the people of Catalonia want independence in order to protect and develop the unique heritage of the region, which is home to about 7.5 million people. While Catalonia shares many political and economic ties with Spain, it also has its own language, culture and identity, all of which were repressed under the dictatorship of Francisco Franco.
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“We also have a collective project to develop from the social, the economic and the cultural points of view,” Mas says. “To carry out all of these, we need tools, the legal capacity to make decisions and resources. This is something we have to build again. This is why we are seeking independence, or a new state for Catalonia integrated into the European Union and eurozone. We don’t want to be an isolated country.”
The Spanish government strongly opposes Catalonian secession. It calls the upcoming referendum illegal and is working hard to gain support from its allies in the European Union to quash the independence movement. But Mas and pro-independence politicians are undeterred, despite their long odds.
“I think when things become real, then attitudes will change,” Mas says. “We are already in the European Union, we belong to the eurozone, we use the euro as our currency and it is not easy for another European country to try to expel us out of the European Union. It’s a tactic game in a sense, but when the reality comes I’m sure they will change their attitude.”
Mas spoke to the The Takeaway in New York, where he’s seeking meetings with investors and hedge funds to convince them not to pull away from the region.
Read More: http://www.pri.org/stories/2015-04-16/catalonias-leaders-plan-secession-spain
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