Spain learned the wrong lessons from the ‘yellow vests’

With COVID-19 ushering in a new era of social distancing, the idea of a mass demonstration seems as quaint as a delivery from the milkman. However, as recently as last month the memory of France’s gilet jaunes—the yellow-vested protesters who blocked French intersections over proposed fuel taxes—inspired Spanish farmers to block streets and wring ill-conceived concessions from the government. Continue Reading...

Alejandro Chafuen in Forbes: European elections

Alejandro Chafuen, Acton’s Managing Director, International, comments in Forbes today on the results of the European Parliament elections that concluded this past Sunday. Many European countries showed gains for nationalist, Euroskeptic and environmentalist parties at the expense of more traditional centrist groups and of socialist parties. Continue Reading...

What does Spain’s 2019 general election mean for Christians?

  Spain held a general election on Sunday, which saw Pedro Sanchez’s Socialist Party rout the center-right opposition. “For liberty-minded Christians, this was the worst possible outcome,” writes Ángel Manuel García Carmona in a detailed analysis of the process, and outcome, of the election posted today at Religion & Liberty Transatlantic. Continue Reading...

In Spain, collectivism is rising on the Right

Spain closed out 2018 by witnessing the rise of a new and growing populist party named Vox, writes Ángel Manuel García Carmona in a new essay for Acton’s Religion & Liberty Transatlantic website: Since 2016, right-wing populist parties have been on the rise in Europe: National Rally (formerly the National Front) in France, the League in Italy, the Party for Freedom in Netherlands, Vlaams Belang in Flanders, and the Alternative for Germany are but a few examples. Continue Reading...

Jaime Balmes: A Liberal-Conservative?

This article is written by  León M. Gómez Rivas and translated by Joshua Gregor. It was originally published by RedFloridaBlanca and is republished with permission.   It was with great pleasure that I received the invitation to contribute to this brief commemorative series on a great Catalonian—and therefore Spanish—thinker of the 19th century. Continue Reading...

Jaime Balmes: constitutional politics at the service of conciliation

This article is written by  Josep Mª Castellá Andreu and translated by Joshua Gregor. It was originally published by RedFloridaBlanca and is republished with permission. Nineteenth-century Spanish constitutionalism is usually interpreted as a pendulum swinging between liberal or progressive constitutions and moderate or conservative ones. Continue Reading...