Today I’ve been looking at a different newspaper, La Vanguardia, which is based in Barcelona and covers both Catalan and Spanish news from a centrist perspective (it has good international coverage too, with articles and blogs from international correspondents covering everywhere from Korea to Shetland).
As the scheduled but disputed Catalan independence referendum comes ever closer, La Vanguardia includes an analysis of the draft legislation that pro-independence parties hope will govern the early stages of the new state if it does break away (La ley de desconexión catalana, en 19 preguntas y respuestas). The proposed new law sets out, among other things, who should have the right to Catalan citizenship (any Spanish citizen who has been living in Catalonia since December 2016, anyone not now resident but who has lived there for at least five years at some stage in the past, anyone born there and any child of Catalan parents). It also lays down an impressively detailed process for the formulation of a Catalonian constitution, starting with six months of work by representatives on proposals and culminating in another public referendum. Helpful, but as the author, journalist Jaume Pi admits, many of the really big questions around independence, including the issue of EU membership, would be for negotiation not legislation.
Today’s issue also gave the latest instalment of another story that has been getting a lot of coverage in the Spanish press – the fight by Juana Rivas to win custody of her two younger children from her Italian ex-partner, who was convicted of abuse against her in 2009. Rivas, who is accused of absconding with the two children, aged three and eleven, has been released on bail but yesterday had to comply with an order to hand them over to their father (Juana Rivas entrega a sus dos hijos a la Guardia Civil).
Finally, someone on the paper is a dog lover. The article Rescatado con vida a un perro que cayó por un acantilado desde 30 metros de altura is about a dog that had to be rescued by firemen after a thirty-metre fall off a cliff near Cadiz (the dog is doing well), while El abandono de un cachorro desnutrido al que arrancaron el chip indentificativo publicises the Guardia Civil’s appeal for help in identifying the owners of an abandoned puppy that was found in Almería, sick, starving, dehydrated and minus its chip. The puppy was taken to an animal rescue centre which is now looking for a new home for him.
Spanish press review 