He joined the board of La Caixa, Spain's largest savings bank, in 1984, and served as President of the board from 1987 to 1999.

Spain's Queen Sofia, French first lady Bernadette Chirac and President Ilham Aliev of Azerbaijan, where Rostropovich was born, as well as Naina Yeltsina, the widow of Boris Yeltsin, were among those in attendance at the funeral on April 29.

According to Title VI of the constitution, Justice in Spain " emanates from the people and is administered on behalf of the King by judges and magistrates members of the Judicial Power ..." It remains a royal prerogative for the king to appoint the twenty members to the General Council of the Judicial Power of Spain ( Spain's Supreme Court ), and then appoint the President of the Supreme Court nominated by the General Council, according to Article 122, Subsection 3, of the constitution.

Spain's gradual readmission to the international fold was given visible form with the visit of U. S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower in December 1959.

The President of the Congress of Deputies is the analogue to a Speaker and presides over debates in Spain's lower chamber of parliament.

* In early November at the XVII Ibero-American Summit, after an altercation between the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez and Spain's Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the King asked Chávez, "¿ Por qué no te callas?

A leading member of the Basque Nationalist Party ( PNV ), he was President ( lehendakari ) of Spain's Basque Country autonomous community from January 2, 1999 to May 7, 2009.

Cushing met President Serrano in May an on June 26 met with Spain's Minister of State, Augusto Ulloa.

Fontan later became the first Senate President of Spain's democracy.

According to Debka. com ( an Israeli intelligence website ), his intention with the 11 March 2004 Madrid attacks was to damage Spain's " psyche " in order to influence elections and to start a domino effect which would eventually affect Britain's Tony Blair, Italy's Silvio Berlusconi, and the United States President George W. Bush.

He also expressed his fear that German seizure of Gibraltar would lead to the loss of the Canary Islands and Spain's other overseas possessions by a British counter-invasion.

During the early 20th century, Alicante was a minor capital that enjoyed the benefit of Spain's neutrality during World War I, and that provided new opportunities for the local industry and agriculture.

The main reason for the lack of support for these efforts was that the vast majority of Creoles, especially the plantation owners, rejected any kind of separatism, considering Spain's power essential to the maintenance of slavery.

This triggered a successful but devastating war for Spanish independence that shattered the country and created an opening for what would ultimately be the successful independence of Spain's mainland American colonies.

The loose council of nobles that advised Spain's Visigothic kings and legitimized their rule was responsible for raising the army, and only upon its consent was the king able to summon soldiers.

Spain's neutrality in World War I allowed it to become a supplier of material for both sides to its great advantage, prompting an economic boom in Spain.

Julio Álvarez del Vayo, the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, appealed to the League in September 1936 for arms to defend Spain's territorial integrity and political independence.

* 1975 – Prince Juan Carlos becomes Spain's acting head of state, taking over for the country's ailing dictator, Gen. Francisco Franco.

Initially, Cruz had no ambition to be an actress and focused on dance, having studied classical ballet for nine years at Spain's National Conservatory.

The growing population of immigrants is the main reason for the slight increase in Spain's fertility rate.

Perennial weak points of Spain's economy include high inflation, a large underground economy, and an education system, beside UK and the United States, which OECD reports place among the poorest for developed countries.

In July 2009, the IMF worsened the estimates for Spain's 2009 contraction, to minus 4 % of GDP for the year ( close to the European average of minus 4. 6 %), besides, it estimated a further 0. 8 % contraction of the Spanish economy for 2010.

The Santa Cruz is together with the Carnival of Cadiz, the most important festival for Spanish tourism and Spain's largest Carnival.

France ceded French Louisiana west of the Mississippi River to its ally Spain in compensation for Spain's loss to Britain of Florida ( which Spain had ceded to Britain in exchange for the return of Havana, Cuba ).

The president of the Spanish National Transplant Organisation has acknowledged Spain's legislative approach is likely not the primary reason for the country's success in increasing the donor rates, starting in the 1990s.

Meanwhile, the global Spanish Empire began to unravel as French occupation of Spain weakened Spain's hold over its colonies, providing an opening for nationalist revolutions in Spanish America.

Six officials, among them Efraín Ríos Montt and Óscar Humberto Mejía, were formally charged on 7 July 2006 to appear in the Spanish National Court after Spain's Constitutional Court ruled in September 2005, the Spanish Constitutional Court declaration that the " principle of universal jurisdiction prevails over the existence of national interests ", following the Menchu suit brought against the officials for atrocities committed in the Guatemalan Civil War

By the late 16th century American silver accounted for one-fifth of Spain's total budget.

These began a movement for colonial independence that spread to Spain's other colonies in the Americas.

* Perhaps from Spanish, for its don-like gravity ; the donkey was also known as " the King of Spain's trumpeter "

Cuba and Puerto Rico, reached tremendous levels of development and wealth, to the point that Spain's First Train was between Havana and Camaguey, and the world's first telegraph was in Puerto Rico, as Samuel Morse lived there with his daughter, married to a Puerto Rican businessman.

Colonial Cuba was a frequent target of buccaneers, pirates and French corsairs seeking Spain's New World riches.

Cartier was followed by nobleman Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Monts who was accompanied by explorer / cartographer Samuel de Champlain in a 1604 expedition where they established the second permanent European settlement in North America, following Spain's settlement at St. Augustine.

Between 1544 and 1563, Ecuador was an integral Spain's colonies in the New World under the Viceroyalty of Peru, having no administrative status independent of Lima.

In the period following Spain's grant of local autonomy to Equatorial Guinea in 1963, there was a great deal of political party activity.

La Fontaine's model was subsequently emulated by England's John Gay ( 1685 – 1732 ); Poland's Ignacy Krasicki ( 1735 – 1801 ); Italy's Lorenzo Pignotti ( 1739 – 1812 ) and Giovanni Gherardo de Rossi ( 1754 – 1827 ); Serbia's Dositej Obradović ( 1742 – 1811 ); Spain's Félix María de Samaniego ( 1745 – 1801 ) and Tomás de Iriarte y Oropesa ( 1750 – 1791 ); France's Jean-Pierre Claris de Florian ( 1755 – 94 ); and Russia's Ivan Krylov ( 1769 – 1844 ).

Preliminary work was begun in 2004 on a 10-year project to construct a new hotel and marina project on the Eastside of the Rock, overlooking Spain's Costa del Sol.

It was designed by Secundino Zuano, one of Spain's leading architects of the 20th century and first opened in 1963.

In his reign ( 1598 – 1621 ) a ten year truce with the Dutch was overshadowed in 1618 by Spain's involvement in the European-wide Thirty Years ' War.

Her principal aim was to have Spain's lost territories in Italy restored.

Consequently, although Spain itself accepted the rejection of the Constitution, the rejection of the Constitution was not as calmly accepted in Spain's empire in the New World.

This was capitalized upon by King Hassan II of Morocco, who ordered the ' Green March ' into Western Sahara, Spain's last colonial possession.

This " wall system " was first introduced on a large scale in Spain's El Escorial.

Philip II of Spain's ( 1556 – 1598 ) high-handed interference at the previous conclave was not forgotten: he had barred all but seven cardinals.

Much of Spain's economy was put under worker control ; in anarchist strongholds like Catalonia, the figure was as high as 75 %.

Between 2008 and 2012 this process was rapidly reversed, characterized by the fact that almost a quarter of Spain's workforce is currently unemployed.

Among these, according to the Financial Times, was Spain's rapidly growing trade deficit, which had reached a staggering 10 % of the country's GDP by the summer of 2008, the " loss of competitiveness against its main trading partners " and, also, as a part of the latter, an inflation rate which had been traditionally higher than the one of its European partners, back then especially affected by house price increases of 150 % from 1998 and a growing family indebtedness ( 115 %) chiefly related to the Spanish Real Estate boom and rocketing oil prices.

The estimation of the IMF was proven to be somewhat too pessimistic, as Spain's GDP sank less than that of most advanced economies in 2009 and by the first quarter of 2010 had already emerged from the recession.