Spain

MADRID (Reuters) - European banks are unlikely to recover from the coronavirus crisis before 2022, European Central Bank Vice President Luis de Guindos said on Tuesday.

The recovery of the bloc’s economy will be a fundamental factor in European banks’ solvency, de Guindos said in a lecture at the University Menendez Pelayo.

BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Not two months after battling back the coronavirus, Spain’s hospitals are beginning to see patients struggling to breathe returning to their wards.

The deployment of a military emergency brigade to set up a field hospital in Zaragoza this week is a grim reminder that Spain is far from claiming victory over the coronavirus that devastated the European country in March and April.

MADRID/DUBAI (Reuters) - Former Spanish king Juan Carlos has been staying at Abu Dhabi’s exclusive Emirates Palace Hotel since leaving Spain aboard a private jet on Monday under a cloud of financial scandal involving Saudi Arabia, newspaper ABC said on Friday.

United Arab Emirates officials and the Emirates Palace Hotel did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

MADRID, Aug 5 (NNN-AGENCIES) — There is intense speculation in the Spanish media about the whereabouts of embattled ex-King Juan Carlos, after his shock announcement on Monday that he was leaving the country.

The 82-year-old, who is the subject of a corruption probe, announced the move in a letter on the royal website.

It gave no details about his destination, but some reports suggest he has gone to the Dominican Republic.

However, officials there said they had no information that he was coming.

Madrid, Aug 4 (AP/PTI) Spain's former monarch, Juan Carlos I, is leaving Spain to live in another, unspecified, country amid a financial scandal, according to a letter published on the royal family's website Monday.

The letter from Juan Carlos to his son, King Felipe VI, said: I am informing you of my considered decision to move, during this period, out of Spain.

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain’s foreign minister Arancha Gonzalez Laya said on Monday it was important that Turkey’s Hagia Sophia remains part of humanity’s shared global heritage, after it was reconverted into a mosque from a museum last week.

“For us it is important that the spirit of this great monument of Hagia Sophia is maintained,” she said at a joint news conference with her Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu in Ankara.

MADRID, July 21 (Xinhua) -- Europe should resist U.S. pressure to isolate China and remain independent in its decision making in the face of so-called security concerns, a Spanish expert has said.

"If the U.S. wants to include Europe in its 'anti-China' strategy because it does not want anyone to threaten its hegemony, the EU must bear in mind that China is not a threat to its security," said Xulio Rios, director of the Spanish Observatory of Chinese Politics in Spain, in an analysis titled Huawei and the Mantra of Security.

MADRID (Reuters) - The speaker of Catalonia’s regional parliament Roger Torrent suspects he was spied upon by the Spanish state via phone tapping, a spokesman said on Tuesday, confirming a report first published by the Guardian and El Pais newspapers.

The newspapers said Torrent and two other separatist politicians were warned by researchers working with Facebook’s instant message service WhatsApp that their phones were broken into with a spyware called “Pegasus” made by Israeli company NSO Group.

BARCELONA (Reuters) - Two Algerian men were detained in an anti-terrorism raid in Spain’s second largest city Barcelona on Tuesday morning, police said.

The two Algerians were part of a cell, under investigation since 2017, which was planning an attack with explosives in Barcelona, the regional Catalan police said in a statement, adding that the cell had now been fully disbanded.

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain’s government is not planning to make the use of face masks compulsory nationwide where social distancing can be guaranteed, a Health Ministry source said on Monday, after several regions made them mandatory in all circumstances.

Spain’s regions already have the instruments they need to tackle the roughly 100 localised outbreaks that have sprung up around the country, the source added.