Welcome to the Euro Intelligence Podcast.

I'm Wolfgang Munchau, and with me are Zuzana Munchank and Jack Smith.

Today, we would like to talk about Spain.

Sanchez has struck a deal, a coalition deal with Pukdemont.

This is a big step towards him, possibly.

Jack will explain this in a second to us, but how likely this is, but possibly

to forming another government. This would be just looking at it from three or four months ago,

a massive surprise that Sanchez is still back in the saddle. Jack, you wrote about Spain

all week long. Explain to me where we are and where we are not. Okay, yeah. So the first thing to say

about this is obviously this is a pretty contentious topic and I am going to be focusing just on

where we are and where we are not. As our listeners can probably tell, I am not Spanish. And I think

that in terms of whether Sanchez was right or wrong to cut this deal, that's really a matter

for Spain and its judicial and political institutions as well as its voters to decide.

I don't want to pass judgment on this, and I just want to kind of talk about the facts, so to speak,

you know, what we do know and the questions that we have. In terms of the deal that has been

struck, you know, the first thing

to say is that in as much as this will potentially lead to a future government, it will be a

minority government of two components. The first central component will be a coalition of the Socialist

Party, which Pedro Sanchez leads, and a left-wing party called Sumar, which Yolanda

Diaz, who has been the Minister for Labor and the previous government leads.

So that's the actual coalition, in as much as they have ministers in government itself.

The other parties, which are mostly regionalist and separatist parties, support the government

...