Spain, Germany and Italy: Europe’s Democracies Under Strain

Analysis · Europe

Key Facts

—The stress test. In 48 hours Spain, Germany and Italy each did the hard internal work of democracy — a real-time test of European institutional resilience.

—Spain. The Congress voted 178-171 to demand PM Pedro Sánchez face a confidence vote, with the Catalan party Junts breaking from him, but the motion is non-binding.

—Germany. A Magdeburg court jailed a Saudi-born doctor for life for the 2024 Christmas-market attack: six murders, 338 attempted, with “particularly severe culpability.”