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Madrid, 13 March 2013 – It’s been 228 days since Spain’s transparency law entered the national parliament (Congress) and since then there has been no information about the current state of the law, although we do know that the deadline for presenting amendments has been amended no less then twenty (20) times. The Constitutional Commission which has been given responsibity to consider the draft has not published a timetable nor has announced if there will be more hearings on the law: to date eight “experts” have been invited to speak to the parliamentarians (one of them stated in his intervention

Madrid, 12 March 2013 — Spain’s Ombudsman (Defensor del Pueblo) has severely criticised the secrecy of the Madrid regional government (Community of Madrid), the regional government of Madrid, in regards to the macro project Eurovegas and demands total transparency on this topic. The Ombudsman has singled out this project as one of “exceptional public interest”, therefore the Community of Madrid needs to be transparent regarding how much they know about the future leisure centre, and must inform interested parties.Since the intention to build Eurovegas in Madrid came to light, the Plataform Eurovegas No (the Platform) has made 12 requests to

Madrid, 27 February 2013 – The picture says it all: a government embattled by corruption scandals is so reluctant to answer questions that it puts journalists in a separate room during a press conference. This happened on 2 February 2013 for a press conference given by Spanish premier Mariano Rajoy. The objective was to avoid being put on the spot by uncomfortable questions about the governing Popular Party’s finances. It’s sometimes hard to follow what is going on in Spain: The leading political party and even the royal household are embroiled in corruption scandals. In response, everyone is talking about

De aprobarse con su contenido actual, es papel mojado Madrid 19 de febrero de 2013 – La Coalición Pro Acceso, que reúne a 65 organizaciones, hace un llamamiento a realizar una mejora integral al proyecto de ley de transparencia ya que, de aprobarse como está, perpetuará la opacidad que rige la vida pública española. De esta manera, se exige que no se excluya del debate a una sociedad civil que lleva desde 2006 divulgando sus planteamientos de manera estructurada.

Madrid, 31 January 2013 — In the midst of a major scandal involving possible irregular payments to leading members of Spain’s governing party using money from major companies, a European opinion poll conducted just a few days ago reveals that 82% of Spaniards believe that lobbying from the business sector may lead to government policies which are not in the public interest. Also conducted in Austria, France, the Netherlands, the UK and the Czech Republic, the survey asked about the influence and regulation of lobbying in Europe. In response to this poll, 80% of Spaniards said that they believed that lobbyists