Employees in Spain worked an average of 36.3 hours a week in 2025, according to the latest figures released by Eurostat. That figure keeps Spain above the European average of 35.9 hours and far from the countries where the average working week is shortest. The latter include some of the continent’s most economically advanced states, the opposite of those with the longest hours and with less-developed productive sectors.

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Those were turbulent times. It was November 2024 and Nicolás Maduro was holed up inside Miraflores Palace, the Venezuelan presidential residence. When any foreign leader hinted to him that it might be time to leave power, he answered with a single word: “Never.” The police and intelligence services under his command detained thousands of people who had taken to the streets to protest the electoral fraud that Chavismo had perpetrated in plain view of the world. Protesters had pulled down bronze statues of Hugo Chávez across the country. Prisons were overflowing. The nation was on the brink of rebellion or a bloodbath — or both.

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MADRID, June 8 — Pope Leo told Spain’s parliament that escalating conflict, deepening polarisation and widespread disregard for human rights had pushed the world into a profound crisis, in one of his most expansive political addresses yet today. Leo, who has adopted a more forceful tone ‌recently against the direction of global leadership, also firmly repeated his opposition to increased European military spending, urging politicians instead to end the wars ravaging the globe and help migrants. “The world is undergoing a profound spiritual and cultural crisis, which is manifested in multiple forms of violence, polarisation, and mutual distrust,” the pope said in the address, which came hours after Israel and Iran renewed their attacks on one another in the most serious test of a two-month ceasefire.

“Weapons can impose a temporary silence; but they can never build an authentic and lasting peace,” he said.

Migration challenging world’s ‘ethical foundation’ 

Leo’s speech, which was delivered in Spanish and was received with a seven-minute standing ovation by lawmakers, was a rare papal address to a national legislature and the first by a pope to Spain’s parliament. It is part of a week-long visit to the country in which the pontiff has met with migrants and the homeless, and called on national leaders to stop dividing their electorates. The pope, whose Spain tour will culminate with the pontiff meeting migrants in the Canary Islands who braved dangerous Atlantic ‌waters to enter Europe, said a lack of help for the world’s migrants was challenging “the ethical foundation of the international order”.

He said countries must look ⁠for solutions that go beyond “the mere management of flows” and should address ⁠the causes that force people to leave their countries of origin, including war, poverty and climate change.

The pope ⁠told parliament that “the moral greatness of a nation ⁠is manifested above all in its ⁠capacity to accompany, protect, and love those lives that pass through the greatest fragility”.

More than 3,000 people died in 2025 trying to reach the Canary Islands, off the western coast of Africa, often in makeshift dinghies, according to NGO Caminando Fronteras. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s government has opened a mass amnesty programme, allowing an estimated ⁠500,000 immigrants to apply for legal status.

Pope calls European rearmament ‘troubling’ 

Leo, who issued a fervent manifesto last month urging global governments to slow down the development of AI systems, called on Monday for “rigorous ethical vigilance” over how AI was used in warfare. He said that rising European military spending, which grew last year by the highest amount since the end of the Cold War amid pressure from US President Donald Trump, was “troubling.” Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has refused to meet Trump’s demands for Nato member countries to increase defence spending to 5 per cent of GDP, although the expenditure has tripled since he took office in 2018, ⁠rising from around €10 billion (RM46.8 billion) to more than €34 billion. The pope last month called European rearmament a betrayal of democracy.

Leo also offered some of his most in-depth remarks yet addressing the balance in the relationship between Church and state. He urged protection ⁠of religious freedom, saying that faith “cannot be relegated to silence as though it were irrelevant to public life”.

The pope likewise defended the privacy of the Catholic seal of ⁠confession, which obliges a ⁠priest not to reveal any information given to him by penitents.

Several countries, including France, have debated whether to compel priests to report sexual abuse disclosed in confessions, following scandals that have shaken the Church internationally.

Protecting the seal, Leo said, preserves “a sacred space of inner freedom, where the believer can open his or her soul before God”. A 2023 report ‌by Spain’s human rights ombudsman estimated hundreds of thousands of victims of clerical abuse there over decades. The Vatican has said the pope would meet with a group of victims during the visit, but has yet to offer further details. The pope did not mention abuse by Catholic clergy in his speech. — Reuters

MADRID, June 1 — A Spanish court today dropped one of the charges against the brother of Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez in an influence-peddling trial, ruling the alleged offense had expired under the statute of limitations.

David Sanchez, a composer and orchestra conductor who trained and worked in Toulouse, Tokyo and Madrid, is accused of benefiting from the creation of a tailor-made position as coordinator of music conservatories in the southwestern province of Badajoz.

The role was later transformed into head of the province’s performing arts office.

He and 10 other defendants went on trial Thursday on charges including alleged abuse of office and influence peddling. All deny the allegations.

The judge hearing the case said Monday he had agreed with a defence request to dismiss the charge that David Sanchez accepted an illegal appointment in 2017, after finding the legal time limit for prosecution had run out.

The court said the offense carried only a minor penalty.

Prosecutors say the position was created in 2016, before Pedro Sanchez became prime minister in 2018. David Sanchez remained in the post until at least early 2025.

The job was under the authority of the provincial council of Badajoz, which at the time was governed by Pedro Sanchez’s Socialist Party.

The case adds to a growing list of corruption-related proceedings involving figures in Pedro Sanchez’s political orbit, increasing pressure on his minority coalition government.

His wife, Begona Gomez, is under investigation in a separate corruption case.

His former right-hand man, ex-transport minister Jose Luis Abalos, is awaiting a verdict in his own corruption trial, which concluded in May.

Last month, a court placed former Socialist prime minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, a Sanchez ally, under formal investigation for influence peddling and other alleged crimes. — AFP

MADRID, June 6 — Pope Leo on Saturday urged global leaders to avoid dividing their electorates with “sterile simplifications” to gain popularity and called on them to listen to the world’s cries for peace, in a forceful speech opening a week-long tour of Spain.

Leo, who has ‌angered US President Donald Trump by criticising his anti-immigration policies and the Iran war, will meet homeless people in Madrid and migrants in the Canary Islands during a visit he has said he hopes will set an example to the world about respecting “every human being.”

“Today, the temptation to gain popularity by fanning the flames of polarization seems to have grown rather than diminished, and human dignity continues to be violated,” Leo said in a speech before King Felipe VI at the Royal Palace in Madrid.

“I invite everyone to set aside the divisive and polarising narratives of your societal reality and history, so as to overcome sterile simplifications through the fruitful appreciation of complexity,” he added.

Technology was partly to blame for creating an environment which magnifies prejudices and weakens critical thinking, Leo said. The world was crying “from its depths for peace”, he said.

He drew on Spain’s history as an example of peaceful co-habitation between religions and cultures, making reference to how Christians, Muslims and Jews cooperated during medieval times to enhance human knowledge by translating Arabic texts into Latin, ‌Spanish and Hebrew at the School of Translators in Toledo.

“Your own history suggests that a culture of encounter, not confrontation, is what fosters stability and ⁠prosperity. In reality, the message of peace, which at present unfortunately strikes some ⁠as naïve and others as confrontational, is welcomed by those who do not shut themselves off in ⁠preconceived ideologies, but are rather open to the truth,” ⁠he said.

Huge crowds expected for ⁠Pope

Crowds of people, some waving Vatican and Spanish flags, lined the street as Leo was driven to the Royal Palace. Huge gatherings are expected in the coming days for the first visit to Spain by a pope since 2011.

Leo, who has adopted a more assertive tone against the direction of global leadership ⁠in recent months, is scheduled to give more than 20 speeches during his first trip to a European Union country outside Italy, and will be the first pope to address the Spanish parliament.

Leo spent decades as a missionary and bishop in Peru before becoming pope last May, and will speak Spanish throughout most of the trip.

But when he meets migrants in Tenerife, part of the Spanish Canary Islands archipelago off the west coast of Africa, he expects to speak French, as many have come from Francophone Africa.

In sharp contrast to many leading Western powers, not least Trump’s United States, Socialist Prime ⁠Minister Pedro Sanchez’s government has opened a mass amnesty programme, allowing an estimated 500,000 immigrants to apply for legal status.

More than 3,000 people died in 2025 trying to reach the Canary Islands, often in makeshift dinghies, according to the NGO Caminando Fronteras.

Sanchez has been lauded ⁠abroad by some for criticising Trump, but at home is under heavy pressure from a string of corruption allegations against his party.

Meeting with victims of sexual ⁠abuse

During his June ⁠6-12 trip, the first US head of the Catholic Church will also inaugurate a new tower in Barcelona’s famed Sagrada Familia basilica and will meet survivors of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy, the Vatican said, adding that further details will be provided after the meeting.

A 2023 report by Spain’s human rights ombudsman estimated hundreds of thousands of victims ‌of clergy abuse there over decades, echoing similar scandals that have shaken the Church internationally.

Later on Saturday, the pope will meet young people in the square outside the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium, home to the Real Madrid soccer club, and visit a Catholic charity for homeless people. — Reuters

“If the prime minister of Spain hasn’t received me, I don’t think he’s inviting President Trump.” With those words, U.S. Ambassador to Spain Benjamín León Jr. complained that he still has not met with Pedro Sánchez once, more than three months after taking up his post. Speaking at an event organized by the debate organization Nueva Economía Fórum in Madrid, León said that the Spanish government has not made any moves to invite the U.S. president.

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Pope Leo XIV delivered a historic speech on Monday inside Spanish parliament in a joint session of both houses, where he stressed that the moral value of political decisions must prevail “over mutable social consensus” and lamented “the permanent denigration of the adversary.”

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La Moncloa, the seat of government in Spain, seems to carry a curse. Ever since Adolfo Suárez decided in 1976 to establish the headquarters of the first democratic government in 40 years at La Moncloa Palace, no prime minister has left it without calamity or disgrace.

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