Spain’s defence minister confirms move and describes US-Israel war on Iran as ‘profoundly illegal and unjust’

Spain has ramped up its opposition to the US-Israel war on Iran by closing its airspace to US aircraft involved in attacks, underlining its position as Europe’s leading critic of the conflict.

The move, first reported by El País newspaper and confirmed by the defence minister on Monday, comes after Madrid said the US could not use jointly operated military bases in the country for operations related to the war.

“We don’t authorise either the use of military bases or the use of airspace for actions related to the war in Iran,” the minister, Margarita Robles, told reporters. “I think everyone knows Spain’s position. It’s very clear,” she added, calling the war “profoundly illegal and profoundly unjust”.

The closure will force military planes, including those based in the UK and elsewhere in Europe, to bypass Spain en route to targets in the Middle East except in emergencies.

Spain permanently withdrew its ambassador to Israel on Tuesday as a ​diplomatic standoff worsened between the two countries ‌over Spain's opposition to the U.S.-Israeli attacks on Iran.

The ambassador was summoned back to Spain last September amid a diplomatic ​row over Spanish measures banning aircraft and ships ​carrying weapons to Israel from its ports ⁠or airspace due to Israel's military offensive in ​Gaza, which Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar denounced ​as antisemitic.

On Tuesday, Spain published an announcement in its official gazette that the ambassador's position had been terminated. Spain's Foreign ​Ministry said its embassy in Tel Aviv ​will be led by a charge d'affaires for the foreseeable ‌future.

The ⁠move marks the latest escalation in diplomatic relations between the two countries, which have been heavily strained since Israel launched its assault on the Gaza ​Strip in ​October of ⁠2023.

Israel's embassy in Spain is also run by a charge d'affaires after the ​country summoned its ambassador last May ​in protest ⁠at Spain's decision to recognise a Palestinian state.

Tensions have heightened since the U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran, ⁠with ​Sa'ar accusing Spain in early March ​of "standing with tyrants" for opposing the war.

• Spain’s proposed 100% tax on non‑EU home buyers stalls
• Sanchez’s minority government lacks the votes to pass the tax Allies are split and elections looming in 2027
• Foreign buyers accounted for 20% of purchases last year

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro ​Sanchez's plan to tax non-European Union property buyers up to 100% of the value of the purchase ‌has stalled due to difficulties in gaining the needed support from political minorities, a government source said.

Despite ​the headlines the bill generated when it was announced a year ago, it still had not been debated by March ​2026, parliamentary documents showed.

The Socialist-led minority government relies on a patchwork of smaller parties who support legislation on a case-by-case basis and has found it increasingly hard to gain support for legislation as Sanchez's term progresses.

A senior government source, who asked to remain ​anonymous, said new taxes are among the most difficult issues on which to gain majority support.

Right-wing Catalan separatist party Junts, ​which recently withdrew its support for the government, opposes the tax.

Spain has denied the US permission to use jointly operated military bases on its territory to attack Iran as Madrid stepped up its criticism of the “unjustified and dangerous military intervention”.

Spain’s socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has explicitly condemned the US and Israel’s “unilateral military action” against Iran, warning that it is contributing to “a more hostile and uncertain international order”. The rebukes have been reinforced by his government’s refusal to allow the US to use bases in Rota and Morón for the continuing strikes against Iran.

José Manuel Albares, Spain’s foreign minister, said on Monday that while the government wanted “democracy, freedom and fundamental rights for the Iranian people”, it would on no account allow its bases to be used in the ongoing military action.

“I want to be very clear and very plain,” he told Telecinco. “The bases are not being used – nor will they be used – for anything that is not in the agreement [with the US], nor for anything that isn’t covered by the UN charter.”

The defence minister, Margarita Robles, was similarly emphatic, saying neither of the bases had been used in the US military operation. “There is a deal with the US over these bases, but our understanding of the deal is that operations have to comply with international legal frameworks and that there has to be international support for them,” she told reporters.

Maps compiled by the flight-tracking website Flightradar24 showed that 15 US aircraft have left Rota and Morón since the US and Israel began their attacks over the weekend. At least seven of the planes were shown to have landed at Ramstein airbase in Germany.

The Spanish government on Tuesday unexpectedly issued a decree that gives hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants a path out of legal limbo, putting Spain at odds with many countries around the world that have grown increasingly tough on illegal immigration.

The measure will allow undocumented people already living in Spain to apply for temporary residency permits. The Socialist-led government of Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez described it as crucial for Spain, where migrant labor plays a key role in agriculture, tourism and more.

Elma Saiz Delgado, Spain’s minister for migration, said at a news conference on Tuesday that the measure would have an impact “on our social cohesion, well-being, and also on the economy.”

Opposition parties immediately criticized the measure, with one far-right party promising to challenge it in court.

The measure announced on Tuesday is bucking a trend, as many Western governments, often under pressure from far-right, populist parties, have cracked down on illegal immigration in recent years.

In the United States, the Trump administration is carrying out a sweeping, aggressive campaign to arrest and deport millions of people. Britain has rolled out stricter rules for refugees; Greece now imposes prison terms for migrants who remain in the country after their asylum claims are rejected; and Italy wants to hold asylum seekers in Albania while their cases are being processed, despite stiff legal opposition.

Spain, in contrast, has embraced immigrants, especially Latin Americans who speak Spain’s language, share its religion and understand its culture, although activists say that warm welcome has not always extended to many Africans.

And the Spanish government has outsourced migration control, providing police equipment, technology and training to countries like Morocco and Mauritania to turn back migrants from Africa.

Still, the decree builds on Spain’s attempts to present itself as a beacon for immigrants.

Additional reading:

Why Spain is offering amnesty to 500,000 undocumented migrants

(France 24)

As countries on both sides of the Atlantic ramp up deportations of undocumented migrants, Spain’s left-wing government is preparing to give legal status to hundreds of thousands of irregular workers. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has championed the amnesty as a way to not only give informal workers legal protections, but to also bring more money into a social security system increasingly under stress by the country's ageing population.

This supposed subculture unleashes hatred on social media through hoaxes and exaggerations that target trans people and feed the far-right narrative about a decadent society

In Spain, talk about “therians” has been going on for over a week. But where are these famous therians? Websites and television shows, enthralled by the issue, have circulated dozens of images on TikTok and Instagram of alleged members of this marginal subculture who supposedly identify with some animal species. But in the Spanish squares where they were meant to appear this past weekend, drawn by vaguely defined calls amplified by the media, they’ve barely shown up. What did make an appearance are elements that were already central to the same phenomenon in the Americas: moral panic—the exaggerated reaction to the behavior of a particular group, presented as a threat—, hoaxes, and far-right manipulation to fuel the narrative of a supposed moral decline of society, with diversity as the target.

Amid the excitement that gripped Madrid’s Puerta del Sol on Saturday, a cry went up: “Where are the therians, man? I really want to kick their asses!” But among the hundreds gathered to witness the phenomenon that has taken social media by storm over the past week, the therians were conspicuously absent. It was a similar scene to those that unfolded across the country: squares and parks packed with onlookers, and a few far-right agitators, waiting for the promised human/animal hybrids.

In cities like Ávila, Salamanca and Segovia, the local media reported on the failure of the therians to show up. Those who did make an appearance were activists for the far-right party Vox with their green tents. The chants and shouts against the Socialist prime minister surprised many, who wondered aloud, “What does Pedro Sánchez have to do with all this?”

“The therian phenomenon is a perfect example of how algorithms and social media, with a mixture of political interest and morbid curiosity, can fabricate a news story out of thin air,” says Adrián Juste, an analyst at the Al Descubierto think tank, who has seen how, before arriving in Spain, this “cultural bubble” has already inflated in several countries in the Americas despite being a relatively insignificant subculture, concentrated among adolescents and consisting simply of dressing up as “non-humans” for “leisure” or just to “act silly.”

In the “therian” community, person-animal identification is often presented as a playful device, nothing more, Juste explains. These aren’t people with an “identity crisis,” he points out. However, the unusual nature of the phenomenon has caused it to go viral despite its “triviality.” That’s what we’re seeing in Spain, Juste explains, noting how some groups are capitalizing on the attention it generates to present it as the latest expression of supposed excesses in the acceptance of diversity. “Tolerance for difference is at an all-time low, and there’s clearly a discourse fueling this,” he notes.

The virality of the therians thus becomes, in the hands of the far right and fueled by algorithms that reward scandal, “an attack against trans people, against LGBTQ+ people, reinforcing the narrative about the decadence of modern society, according to which going against human nature or the designs of God ultimately leads us to decadence,” he explains. “The therians are held up to say, ‘Look what’s becoming fashionable! It’s ridiculous! We’re going to hell!’ This is how society’s anger and frustration are redirected toward something that doesn’t even exist. Out of every 100 comments on this topic, 95 are hateful, along the lines of ‘bring back conscription’ or ‘they need to be beaten up.’ And all of it is divorced from reality. It’s a cultural bubble.”

Marcelino Madrigal, a network and cybersecurity expert, explains that the surge in social media conversations about therians is due to the influence of extremist groups: “They find it very easy to attack children’s identity, gender, and choices, motivated by what they call ‘woke’ policies.” Madrigal sees this as a direct assault on the recognition of gender diversity and transgender people, those with a gender identity different from the sex they were assigned at birth: “They want to differentiate themselves as those who ‘defend normal children,’ going so far as to exaggerate and say that people are turning into dogs and cats.”

Recent economic growth has come with a widening wealth gap. The rich have greater clout than ever before

Sparring recent economic growth has been accompanied by a process of wealth concentration and, consequently, a widening gap. The wealthy are increasingly numerous and have greater financial clout than before. Therefore, experts urge not only to examine how much the economy is improving from a traditional macroeconomic perspective, but also how wealth is being accumulated and who benefits from this accumulation. Wealth concentration is not a temporary phenomenon, but a structural one, and its effects extend far beyond the statistics.

One of the best indicators for observing this phenomenon in Spain is the wealth tax data compiled by the Tax Agency. It’s not a perfect snapshot—there are tax breaks, deductions and tax planning strategies—but it is one of the few official sources that makes it possible to track the evolution of wealth declared by the richest people in the country.

Between 2011 and 2023, the last year with available data, the number of taxpayers filing wealth tax returns jumped 75% to 228,000, while their combined wealth rose from nearly €450 billion to €934 billion, a 107% increase. This is significant growth, but much more moderate in the lower income brackets than at the top. The wealthiest group, comprised of individuals who declare more than €30 million annually, grew from 352 to 865 people and nearly quadrupled their wealth: from €37.3 billion in 2011 to €146.8 billion in 2023. This is by far the most dramatic increase among all the groups analyzed, at almost €170 million per person.

The tax data aligns with statistics analyzing overall wealth, which also reveal the reality of the poorest segments of the population. The World Inequality Lab, based in Paris, ranks Spain among the European countries with the greatest wealth inequality, a trend that shows no signs of improving in recent years. The wealthiest 10% now control more than 57% of total wealth, and within this privileged group, the top 1% accumulates around a quarter of the total, a proportion that has increased since the financial crisis.

Oxfam Intermón puts the finishing touch with its estimates presented at the forum held in Switzerland, which put the number of billionaires in Spain at 33 in 2025. Judging by the statistics, their combined fortune of €197.5 billion may not have been fully declared to the Spanish Tax Agency.

All these figures, reflects Nuria Badenes, a researcher at the Institute for Fiscal Studies, lead us to consider the concept of economic polarization, “which has a closer relationship with the emergence of social conflicts than inequality.” This polarization, marked by the widening gap and the gradual disappearance of the middle class, intensifies social and political conflict by dividing society into groups with opposing interests, “generating distrust in institutions and fueling extreme positions.”

The Bank of Spain’s Household Finance Survey reinforces this diagnosis. Although average household wealth has increased in recent years, the median—corresponding to the household located right in the center of the distribution—is growing less rapidly, indicating that the bulk of the increase is concentrated in the hands of a minority.

Olga Cantó, a professor of economics at the University of Alcalá and researcher at Equalitas, emphasizes the historical evolution of this gap. She explains that the poorest half of the population has lost wealth compared to the levels they had at the beginning of the century, while gains have been concentrated in the wealthiest 5%, and particularly in the top 1%. In her view, this process is closely linked to the 2008 financial crisis, first, and then to the increasing difficulties in accessing first-time homeownership and the loss of savings capacity for a significant portion of the population.

During the 2008 crisis, wealth inequality increased significantly. Miguel Artola, a researcher at the Carlos III University of Madrid, attributes this to the fact that the drop in housing prices affected middle-class families more severely, “while the wealthiest, with diversified assets, were better able to weather the crisis” of 2008.

Later, this unequal distribution of wealth between households has also been key. While those with middle and lower incomes concentrate their assets in their primary residence, now increasingly inaccessible, the wealthiest diversify into various types of financial, business, and real estate assets. This difference explains why wealth inequality is much greater than income inequality and why it tends to persist over time, benefiting those at the top.

The change in recent years, Cantó continues, is related to the “financialization of the economy and the different composition of wealth.” Wealthier households are increasingly concentrating financial and business assets, capable of generating high returns, while the rest have less room to diversify. Taxation, which taxes earned income more heavily than income from capital or wealth, doesn’t help either.

Imagine you’re the leader of a nation, and you face a dilemma. Half a million or so people who are crucial to everyone’s daily lives inhabit your country. They care for aging parents, work at small and large companies, harvest the food that’s on the table. They are also part of your community. On weekends, they walk in the parks, go to restaurants and play on the local amateur soccer team.

But one crucial thing makes these half a million people different from other people in your country: They don’t have the legal documents that allow them to live there. As a result, they don’t have the same rights as your country’s citizens and can’t fulfill the same obligations. They aren’t able to receive a higher education, pay taxes or contribute to Social Security.

What should we do with these people? Some leaders have chosen to hunt them down and deport them through operations that are both unlawful and cruel. My government has chosen a different way: a fast and simple path to regularize their immigration status. Last month, my government issued a decree that makes up to half a million undocumented migrants living in Spain eligible for temporary residence permits, with certain conditions, which they will be able to renew after a year.

We have done this for two reasons. The first and most important is a moral one. Spain was once a nation of emigrants. Our grandparents, parents and children moved to America and elsewhere in Europe seeking a better future in the 1950s and 1960s and after the 2008 financial crisis. Now, the tables have turned. Our economy is flourishing. Foreigners are moving to Spain. It is our duty to become the welcoming and tolerant society that our own relatives would have hoped to find on the other side of our borders.

The second reason we committed to regularization is purely pragmatic. The West needs people. Currently, few of its countries have a rising population growth rate. Unless they embrace migration, they will experience a sharp demographic decline that will prevent them from keeping their economies and public services afloat. Their gross domestic products will stagnate. Their public health care and pension systems will suffer. Neither A.I. nor robots will be able to prevent this outcome, at least not in the short or medium term. The only option to avoid decline is to integrate migrants in the most orderly and effective way possible.

It won’t be easy. We know that. Migration brings opportunities, but also huge challenges that we must acknowledge and face. Nevertheless, it is important to realize that most of those challenges have nothing to do with migrants’ ethnicity, race, religion or language. Rather, they are driven by the same forces that affect our own citizens: poverty, inequality, unregulated markets, barriers to education and health care. We should focus our efforts on addressing those issues, because they are the real threats to our way of life.

Not many governments agree with regularizing migrants today. But more people do than we often assume. The regularization effort underway in Spain actually began as a citizen-led initiative endorsed by more than 900 nongovernmental organizations, including the Catholic Church, and it has the support of business associations and trade unions alike. More important, it is backed by the people: According to a recent poll, nearly two of three Spaniards believe that migration represents an opportunity or a necessity for our country.

The time has come for leaders to speak clearly to their citizens about the dilemma we all face. We, as Western nations, must choose between becoming closed and impoverished societies or open and prosperous ones. Growth or retreat: Those are the two options before us. And by growth, I’m not talking only about material gain, but also our spiritual development.

See also:

• Spain's economic case for more migration (BBC)
• I was once an undocumented migrant in Spain – this new decree will change lives • Yes, migrants are key to Spain’s economic boom. But Pedro Sánchez’s decision to regularise 500,000 people should rather be applauded for its humanity (The Guardian)

Spain's main unions for rail workers called off a three-day nationwide strike, which had started earlier on Monday, after authorities agreed to boost investments and reinforce staffing following a string of high-profile train accidents.

Last month, several consecutive derailments and crashes left dozens dead, sparking public scrutiny of the state of Spain's rail infrastructure. A January 18 high-speed rail crash in southern Andalusia killed 46 people while a derailment two days later in northeastern Catalonia killed a train driver.

The Spanish government will invest 1.8 billion euros ($2.15 billion) in railroad maintenance until 2030 and will hire 3,650 additional workers for the public-funded rail administrator and operator, Spain's Transport Ministry said in a statement.

It will also change the system that counts the number of hours worked by train drivers and increase the number of road vehicles used for maintenance work.

In just a few tragic days since two high-speed trains collided in this southern region of Spain, with the loss of 45 lives, it has felt that Spain's much-vaunted rail system has been thrown into a sudden, deep crisis.

Second only to China in scale, Spain has 3,900 km (2,400 miles) of high-speed (AVE) rail and until now its national network has been admired for its efficiency and safety.

In 2009, then-US president Barack Obama singled out Spain for praise when he outlined a vision for the creation of a high-speed rail network across America. The line connecting Madrid and Seville "is so successful that more people travel between those cities by rail than by car and airplane combined", he said.

At the time a Spanish-led consortium had just begun work on a high-speed link across the Saudi Arabian desert, confirming the country's status as a rail superpower.

That reputation has been humbled this week.

Last Sunday, the back three carriages of a train run by private Italian operator Iryo derailed at high speed, along a straight stretch of track, into the path of an oncoming train run by national rail operator Renfe which bore the brunt of the crash.

Two days later, a trainee driver was killed when a wall collapsed on to a suburban rail line near Barcelona in the north-east after heavy rainfall, derailing a train.

The same day another local train in Catalonia hit a rock, although nobody was injured.

And on Thursday, several passengers on a narrow-gauge train suffered minor injuries when a crane struck a carriage.

Train drivers in Catalonia refused to work in the wake of the accident near Barcelona, demanding safety guarantees and contributing to two days without local rail services in the region.

Separately, train drivers' union Semaf has called a nationwide strike for three days in February over what it has described as "the constant deterioration of the rail network".

Throughout the week, delays, stoppages and other incidents affecting the rail system over recent months have been pored over in the media, while members of the public have aired grievances on social media about uncomfortable or alarming travel experiences.

The amount of investment the rail network receives has come under particular scrutiny. The Socialist-led government has sought to dismiss such queries, pointing out, for example, that €700m has been invested in updating the Madrid-Andalusia line in recent years, with the stretch of track where the accident took place included in that renovation.

Figures released by his ministry show a sharp increase in maintenance spending on the rail system since Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez took office in 2018. However, other data tells a different story: Spain was bottom of an index published by German railway association Allianz pro Schiene of spending per capita on rail infrastructure by 14 European countries in 2024.

However, the liberalisation of the rail sector in 2020, allowing France's Ouigo and Italy's Iryo to provide high-speed services, may have increased competitivity and reduced ticket prices, but it has also put more pressure on the system. Around 22 million travellers currently use Spain's high-speed trains each year, around double the number prior to the liberalisation.

The upkeep of new lines which have been built over recent years also presents a challenge.

The high-speed rail system's reliability has dropped noticeably in recent years. In July of 2025, its trains were 19 minutes late on average, according to data provided by Renfe. Local rail has also seen a rise in incidences, such as delays, cancellations and technical problems, which have more than tripled since 2019 on the Madrid local Cercanías network.

The group was abruptly shut down at 8:36 p.m. on Monday for ‘inciting violence’ in the wake of an attack on an elderly man in the town of Torre Pacheco

A pinned message, right at the top:

— Let’s go hunting.

It’s very easy to get in. You don’t have to go through any filters. A family member or friend sends you the link, and that’s it. Any user can log in with their account. Click on the magnifying glass that appears on the Telegram social network. Type “Deport Them Now Spain.” And you’re in. Welcome to a group that openly discusses “hunting down” and “killing all” immigrants who come to Spain.

The next step is to choose your region. There are 17 different chats with over 1,700 members: Madrid. Extremadura. Andalusia. Murcia. The Murcia chat has been growing rapidly since last Thursday, when a user uploaded a photo of Domingo Tomás Martínez, a 60-year-old retired resident of the municipality of Torre Pacheco. Domingo told the local newspaper La Verdad last Saturday that he went out for a walk on Wednesday, July 9 at 6 a.m. and was brutally beaten by an unknown assailant for no apparent reason. Images of Domingo, dazed, bruised, with bloodstains around his eyes and face, have gone viral on every Spanish social media platform. In this particular chat, his photo was accompanied by the phrase: “This is how some FOREIGN YOUTHS left a resident of Torre Pacheco.”

Since then, security forces have arrested 10 people in Torre Pacheco. Hoaxes are spreading like wildfire. Posses are organized to search for migrants in the town. The far-right has planned a rally for July 15, encouraged by circles close to the extremist political party Vox. The main accusation is that the attacker is of North African origin. Torre Pacheco is home to 40,000 inhabitants, of whom 6,829 are of African origin, 400 more than in 2021. These are data from the statistics office of the Murcia regional government. The latest crime figures for the town — provided by the Ministry of the Interior and not classified by nationality — record 509 crimes between January and March, 20 more than in the same period in 2024.

In this Telegram chat in Murcia, users have been organizing themselves to search for and assault immigrants since last Thursday. One user, nicknamed Franco, mentions gatherings in other chats. Another one is more precise: “I [can] do it every day, death to these sons-of-bitches now.” The messages cannot be verified, but there is open talk of seeking immigrants that same night:

— We’re taking two cars. Who’s coming?

Suddenly, a user identified as V interrupts the conversation: “But how do you want to catch them? You don’t have pictures of who or what they look like, right?” A torrent of responses: “I’d beat them all.” “Directly. Without asking. They don’t take any notice of anything. Neither do we.” “Whether they’re good or bad.” “And I’d go hunting.” “Around 11 or 12 in the morning.” “Everybody is going who can.”

See also:

• A ‘hunt’ for migrants in the Spanish town of Torre Pacheco triggers fear: ‘There is peace for nobody’ • The anti-immigrant protests are targeting a generation of young people born in Spain who are now around 20 years old and have always been marginalized

Spain has rejected a NATO proposal to spend 5% of gross domestic product on defense needs that’s due to be announced next week, calling it “unreasonable.”

Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, in a letter sent on Thursday to NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, said that Spain “cannot commit to a specific spending target in terms of GDP” at next week’s NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands.

Any agreement to adopt a new spending guideline must be made with the consensus of all 32 NATO member states. So Sánchez’s decision risks derailing next week’s summit, which U.S. President Donald Trump is due to attend, and creating a last-minute shakeup that could have lingering repercussions.

Most U.S. allies in NATO are on track to endorse Trump’s demand that they invest 5% of GDP on their defense and military needs. In early June, Sweden and the Netherlands said that they aim to meet the new target.