...but rather through the coalescing of a left-leaning, plurinational majority — one which included the very forces which only a few years earlier seemed to represent an existential threat to Spain's post-Franco constitutional order.

Apple:
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In 2014 Spain seemed in the midst of full blown regime crisis as the traditional two-party political system imploded. In this 1st part, I discuss how institutional politics stabilized around the figure of Sánchez, not, as was the case elsewhere in Europe, in terms of some grand coalition arrangement

Thanks so much for all your input and support during the investigation, Thin!

@simonguichard.bsky.social @joseuf.bsky.social @pascalemueller.bsky.social @meriemm.bsky.social @frnzskschwrz.bsky.social @silvialazzaris.bsky.social

“That the EU is funnelling large sums of public money into farms accused and even convicted of labour abuses is scandalous,” said @deschuttero.bsky.social. "Public funds continue to subsidise farms implicated in exploitative food production, including modern-day slavery."

Italy’s state police anti-terrorism unit DIGOS found the pair had underpaid wages as part of a tax evasion scheme. The son received more than €90,000 in subsidies the year of his conviction, and €110,000 the following year.

In the years since the lawsuits were brought, the two farmers have collected around €63,000 in CAP funds.

Case 6: In 2022, a court in Piedmont, northern Italy, sentenced a poultry farmer and his mother to three years in prison and an 8,000 euros fine for exploiting migrant workers...

Case 5: In 2021, 18 Georgian strawberry-pickers in Germany sued their employers after finding themselves housed in dirty, mouldy accommodation and paid only a fraction of what they’d been promised. While one case was settled, the second is yet to be resolved....

...verbal and physical violence, constant surveillance, and forced to live in cramped, dirty conditions. ...In stark contrast, Mohammed’s employer was paid over €270,000 in public funds between 2017 and 2024, including €15,000 in 2024 – the year workers filed complaints about their treatment.

...paying migrant workers just €4.50 an hour to work 11-hour days, seven days a week.

Case 4: “We were treated like slaves, working shifts of up to 14 hours,” recounts Mohammed, a graduate from Morocco who in 2023 worked as a fruit-picker in southern France, where he was subjected to...

Case 3: In Campania, Italy, a farmer convicted of exploitation in 2023 received nearly €200,000 in CAP subsidies the following year – almost enough to cover the €250,265 fine imposed as part of his sentence. The farm, which collected over a million euros in subsidies since 2015, was found to be...

Case 2: a farmer in Jaén, Spain – convicted of exploitation in 2016 and twice charged with murder over the alleged deaths of two different migrant farmworkers a decade apart – was paid €118,000 in public funds between 2014 and 2022.The sum includes €17,000 paid, a year after a 2nd worker disappeared

The three convicted farmers were ordered to were ordered to pay the workers a total of €44,000 in compensation, but their family-run farm received €41,000 in CAP subsidies that same year. Since their initial arrest, they have been paid €283,000 in EU funds.

Case 1: In 2024, a local politician for the Popular Party in Galicia, Spain, was sentenced, along with 2 family members, to 9 months in prison after forcing 2 migrant workers to work 13 hours a day 7 days a week – without a contract, breaks or benefits...