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“Today as Americans we grieve the brutal murder, a horrific massacre of dozens of innocent people,” he said in a statement at the White House.

“Although it is still early in the investigation, we know enough to say that this was an act of terror and an act of hate,” Obama said.

“We will not give in to fear or turn against each other. Instead, we will stand united as Americans to protect our people and defend our nation, and to take action against those who threaten us.”

He ordered the flag at the White House to be flown at half staff to honour the victims.

The shooter, who was identified as Florida resident Omar S. Mateen was killed by police at the nightclub. A top U.S. congressman said Mateen may have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State militant group, but U.S. officials cautioned they had no direct evidence of a connection.

Fifty-three people were wounded in the rampage, which surpassed the 32 people killed in the 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech university.

Obama said it was appropriate for the FBI to investigate the massacre as an act of terrorism and said he would “spare no effort” to determine whether the assailant had been inspired or associated with an extremist group.

The president also termed the shooting a new reminder of “how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school or in a house of worship or a movie theatre or in a nightclub,” a reference to other mass killings that have punctuated recent U.S. history.

“We have to decide if that’s the kind of country we want to be,” he said.

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner, Sarah N. Lynch, Jason Lange, Ginger Gibson and David Morgan; Editing by Nick Zieminski and Chris Reese)

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In a statement, Lombardi said the Pope was shaken and saddened by the “homicidal folly and senseless hatred” of the attack.

“We all hope that ways may be found, as soon as possible, to effectively identify and contrast the causes of such terrible and absurd violence,” the statement said.

A gunman armed with an assault rifle carried out the attack on Sunday at a packed gay nightclub in what is the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.

(Reporting by Stephen Jewkes; Editing by Kevin Liffey)

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Afghan-born father of Omar Mateen, the man police identified as the gunman who killed 50 people at a packed gay nightclub in Florida on Sunday, is a fringe political commentator who rails against Pakistan and Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.

Seddique Mateen, who public records indicate is the father of Omar Mateen, had an occasional television show on a U.S.-based Afghan satellite channel for about three years, and has continued to post political commentaries on his Facebook page as recently as Sunday.

Omar Khatab, the owner of the California-based satellite channel Payam-e-Afghan, said in an interview that Seddique Mateen occasionally bought time on his channel to broadcast a show called “Durand Jirga,” which focused in part on the disputed Durand Line, the frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan demarcated by the Indian subcontinent’s former British rulers.

In an interview with NBC News on Sunday, Seddique Mateen, also known as Mir Siddique, said his son’s rampage had “nothing to do with religion.”

He described an incident in downtown Miami in which his son, U.S.-born Omar Mateen, 29, of Florida, saw two men kissing in front of his wife and child and became very angry.

“We are saying we are apologising for the whole incident,” NBC News quoted Seddique Mateen as saying. “We weren’t aware of any action he is taking. We are in shock like the whole country.”

Seddique Mateen lives in Florida, according to public records, but it was not immediately known when he came to the United States. He did not return messages left on his phone, which appeared to be turned off, or respond to an email.

Khatab said Seddique Mateen would show up at his studio in Canoga Park, California, “three or four times a year” to tape his shows.

“He’d talk for about two to three hours,” Khatab said in a phone interview. “He’d buy his own time and come here and broadcast and leave within a day.”

CRITICAL OF PAKISTAN’S ISI

Khatab said Seddique Mateen’s political views were largely anti-Pakistan. A YouTube channel under Mateen’s name had more than 100 videos posted between 2012 and 2015.

One of the videos refers to the “killer ISI” – the acronym for Pakistan’s main military-run intelligence service – and says the agency is the “creator and father of the world’s terrorism.”

U.S. officials have accused Pakistani intelligence of backing violence against U.S. targets in Afghanistan, although Pakistan denies the allegations.

U.S. officials cautioned that they had no immediate evidence of any direct connection between the Florida attack and Islamic State or other foreign extremist group, nor had they uncovered any contacts between Omar Mateen and any such group.

Fifty-three people were wounded in the rampage. It was the deadliest single U.S. mass shooting incident, eclipsing the 2007 massacre of 32 people at Virginia Tech university.

Seddique Mateen interviewed Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in January 2014, according to a video posted on his YouTube channel. The interview touched on economic development and youth unemployment in Afghanistan. Khatab said Mateen conducted the interview in Kabul and brought it to California for broadcast.

During the interview Mateen praised Ghani but by the following year had changed his views, apparently angered by Ghani’s outreach to Pakistan in his bid to start peace talks with the Taliban. In a 2015 video, Mateen declared his own candidacy for the Afghan presidency, even though there was no election at that time.

In the videos, he wears a Western suit and tie and speaks Dari, a dialect of Persian spoken in northern Afghanistan. He harshly criticizes Ghani’s policies both at home and abroad and lashes out at Pakistan, its intelligence service, former Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and some senior Afghan government officials and jihadist figures.

In a February video on his Facebook page, he addresses Taliban members and castigates them for being the “servants” of the ISI.

In a June 11 video posted on Facebook, Mateen is dressed in military fatigues and says Afghanistan must “punish the traitors.”

“I wish a hero one day removes Ashraf Ghani’s turban and slaps this crazy man,” he said in the video. “This traitor has rolled up his sleeves to destroy our country.”

On Twitter, Ghani condemned the Orlando attack and called it an “act of terror.”

(Additional reporting by Yasmeen Abutaleb in San Francisco and Hamid Shalizi in Kabul; Editing by Bill Trott)

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ORLANDO, Fla. (Reuters) – A man armed with an assault rifle killed 50 people at a packed gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, on Sunday in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, which President Barack Obama described as an act of terror and hate.

Police killed the shooter, who was identified as Omar Mateen, 29, a Florida resident and U.S. citizen who was the son of immigrants from Afghanistan.

Law enforcement officials were probing evidence that suggested the attack may have been inspired by Islamic State militants, although they cautioned there was no proof that Mateen had worked directly with the group.

“It has been reported that Mateen made calls to 911 this morning in which he stated his allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State,” said Ronald Hopper, the FBI’s assistant special agent in charge on the case.

Shots rang out at the crowded nightclub, in the heart of one the United States’ most popular tourist destination cities, as some 350 people had packed in during celebrations of gay pride week. Clubgoers described scenes of terror, with one man who escaped saying he hid under a car and bandaged a wounded stranger.

“Words cannot and will not describe the feeling of that,” clubgoer Joshua McGill said in a posting on Facebook. “Being covered in blood. Trying to save a guy’s life.”

Fifty-three people were wounded in the rampage. It was the deadliest single U.S. mass shooting incident, eclipsing the 2007 massacre of 32 people at Virginia Tech university.

“We know enough to say this was an act of terror, an act of hate,” Obama said in a speech from the White House. “As Americans, we are united in grief, in outrage and in resolve to defend our people.”

U.S. officials cautioned, however, that they had no conclusive evidence of any direct connection with Islamic State or any other foreign extremist group.

“So far as we know at this time, his first direct contact was a pledge of bayat (loyalty) he made during the massacre,” said a U.S. counter terrorism official. “This guy appears to have been pretty screwed up without any help from anybody.”

The attack came six months after a married couple in California fatally shot 14 people in San Bernardino in an attack inspired by Islamic State.

‘UNIMAGINABLE’

The shooting evolved into a hostage situation, which a team of SWAT officers ended around dawn when they used armoured cars to storm the club before shooting dead the gunman. It was unclear when the victims were killed.

The number of dead shocked officials in Orlando, a city of 270,000 people and home to tourist attractions including the Disney World resort. They had initially put the death toll at 20.

“We’re dealing with something that we never imagined and is unimaginable,” Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said. He said 39 people died inside the club, two outside, and nine others died after being rushed to hospital.

Orlando Regional Medical Center hospital said it had admitted 44 victims, including nine who died, and had carried out 26 operations on victims.

The city of Orlando, which drew 62 million visitors in 2014,  began releasing names of the victims on Sunday, with the first four identified as Edward Sotomayor Jr., Stanley Almodovar, Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo and Juan Ramon Guerrero.

PRIOR FBI INTERVIEWS

Mateen had twice been interviewed by FBI agents, in 2013 and 2014, after making comments to co-workers indicating he supported militant groups, but neither interview led to evidence of criminal activity, the FBI’s Hopper said.

A dozen unmarked police cars had gathered around a Port Saint Lucie house that appeared to be linked to the gunman.

Likely Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who has called for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the United States, said he was “right on radical Islamic terrorism” and called on Obama to resign because he did not say the words “radical Islam” in his statement responding to the shooting.

Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton tweeted a brief statement after the attacks, but did not speculate on the motives of the gunman.

Florida Governor Rick Scott called for Americans to hold a moment of silence at 6 p.m. EDT (2200 GMT) to commemorate the dead. World leaders including Pope Francis, Britain’s Queen Elizabeth and the leaders of Canada and Afghanistan condemned the attack.

Mateen was born in New York of parents who were immigrants from Afghanistan, according to a federal official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

If confirmed as an act of terrorism, it would be the deadliest such attack on U.S. soil since Sept. 11, 2001, when al Qaeda-trained hijackers crashed jetliners into New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in Pennsylvania, killing some 3,000 people.

Mateen also referenced the ethnic Chechen brothers who killed three people in a bombing attack at the Boston Marathon in 2013, according to law enforcement officials.

The Orlando attacker was carrying an AR-15 style assault rifle and a handgun, Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings said. He also had an unidentified “device,” said Orlando Police Chief John Mina.

The choice of target was especially heart-wrenching for members of the U.S. lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, said LGBT advocacy group Equality Florida.

“Gay clubs hold a significant place in LGBTQ history. They were often the only safe gathering place and this horrific act strikes directly at our sense of safety,” the group said in a statement. “We will await the details in tears of sadness and anger.”

(Additional reporting by Letitia Stein in Tampa, Fla., Zachary Fagenson in Port Saint Lucie, Fla., Colleen Jenkins in Winston-Salem, N.C. and Jonathan Landay and Mark Hosenball in Washington; Writing by Scott Malone and Daniel Wallis; Editing by Alistair Bell and Peter Cooney)

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LONDON (Reuters) – Veteran Scottish rocker Rod Stewart received a knighthood in Queen Elizabeth’s birthday honours list on Friday as a weekend of events was launched to mark the official 90th birthday of Britain’s oldest and longest-reigning monarch.

Known for hits such as “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy?” and “Maggie May”, Stewart was among more than 1,000 people to receive awards in the annual list which recognises Britons from famous celebrities to community charity workers.

The queen herself was honoured earlier on Friday at a National Service of Thanksgiving at London’s St Paul’s Cathedral, attended by dignitaries including Prime Minister David Cameron and all the senior royals.

In a ceremony laden with the pageantry that accompanies significant royal events, the monarch was greeted by a trumpet fanfare while the entrance to the cathedral was flanked by her Bodyguard of the Yeoman of the Guard, veteran soldiers dressed in scarlet uniforms.

It was a double celebration for the royals, with the occasion falling on the same day as the 95th birthday of Prince Philip, the queen’s husband of 68 years.

“Your Majesty, today we rejoice for the way in which God’s loving care has fearfully and wonderfully sustained you, as well as Prince Philip marking his 95th birthday today,” Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury and spiritual leader of the Anglican Communion said in his sermon.

He said the country looked back at her decades of service to the nation, through war, hardship, turmoil and change, with deep wonder and gratitude.

The queen, who has been on the throne for 64 years, turned 90 in April but in keeping with a tradition dating back to 1748, she also has an official birthday, usually in June, to ensure celebrations take place when the weather is likely to be better.

It is when a list of honours is issued, with this year’s recipients including 99-year-old singer Vera Lynn, who entertained British troops during World War Two, and Tim Peake, the first British astronaut to visit the International Space Station.

Other well-known figures to be honoured were England cricket captain Alastair Cook, former England soccer player Alan Shearer and Jamie Murray, who topped the tennis doubles rankings this year – the first British man to be a world number one since computerized rankings were introduced in the 1970s.

On Saturday, Elizabeth will attend the traditional Trooping the Colour parade of soldiers in ceremonial uniforms in central London followed by a fly-past of Royal Air Force aircraft over Buckingham Palace.

To conclude celebrations, the queen hosts “The Patrons Lunch” for 10,000 guests at the largest street party ever to be held on the Mall, the grand avenue that leads to Buckingham Palace, an event organised by her grandson, Peter Phillips.

The guests will come from some of the more than 600 charities and other organisations of which she is patron with the festivities beamed to large screens in the capital’s parks.

The government has said millions of Britons are expected to join the occasion at local street parties across the country.

 (Reporting by Michael Holden; Editing by Stephen Addison)

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FARMINGDALE, N.Y.:  Cemtrex Inc. a world leading industrial and manufacturing solutions company, announced today that India’s willingness to ratify the Paris Climate Accord, as indicated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s commitment to U.S. President Obama during his recent visit to the White House, further strengthens the Company’s prospects of opening up worldwide markets for its VAMOX Greenhouse gas reduction technology. In April of this year the Chinese government strengthened its commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions during the Chinese premier’s visit to the White House. The Company believes that these concrete efforts by India and China are potential catalysts for increased global demand for its existing methane (greenhouse gas) reduction technology, VAMOX. Cemtrex is one of only two companies in the world with the technology to supply this market.

So far, at least three dozen countries have said they will ratify the deal, and India’s participation will push the world over the threshold to ratification. “I think we are better-positioned than we ever have been to reach the goal of 55% of emissions and 55 countries by the end of this year, and I think this statement should provide significant additional momentum toward this global push,” said Brian Deese, Obama’s senior energy and climate adviser.

Cemtrex Chairman and CEO, Saagar Govil , commented, “We are delighted to see the world’s largest players working together towards improved climate control regulation and excited that VAMOX can play an important role in sustainability.”

Cemtrex is one of only two companies in the world with critical greenhouse gas reduction technology.

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Monday rejected a barrage of criticism from his own party over his allegations of bias against a Hispanic judge, insisting his concerns were valid.

“All I want to do is figure out why I’m being treated unfairly by a judge. And a lot of people agree with it,” Trump said on Fox News.

Trump has been on the defensive since his comments last week about Mexican-American U.S. District Judge Gonzalo Curiel, who is overseeing fraud lawsuits against Trump University, the New York businessman’s defunct real estate school.

He has also been castigated by Democrats, including the party’s likely presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

“I don’t know what else you could call these attacks other than racist, other than prejudiced, other than bigoted,” Clinton said in an interview with MSNBC on Monday. “It’s just plain wrong, and certainly wrong coming from someone who is vying to become President of the United States.”

Trump told campaign supporters in a conference call they should stand by him in his attacks on the judge, Bloomberg Politics reported. It said during the call Trump distanced himself from a memo his campaign sent supporters on Sunday that urged them to avoid the issue.

Asked for comment, Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks said: “It was a very positive call to discuss overall messaging.”

Two Trump supporters, Tana Goertz and Scottie Nell Hughes, told CNN that former Arizona Governor Jan Brewer had said on the call that she wanted the campaign to go on the offence against expected Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

Goertz said Trump told his supporters not to be afraid to “call out the media” when TV reporters suggest that Trump is racist.

Trump has suggested that Curiel’s heritage is influencing the judge’s opinion about the case because of Trump’s campaign rhetoric about illegal immigration. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for the Nov. 8 presidential election, has pledged to seal the U.S.-Mexico border with a wall, and has said Mexico is sending rapists and drug dealers to the United States.

Former Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio, a U.S. senator from Florida, joined the chorus of criticism. In an interview with Orlando’s WFTV, Rubio called Trump’s comments wrong and said he had to stop.

“I ran for president and I warned this was going to happen,” Rubio said.

Trump has regularly stirred up controversy on the campaign trail and has frequently dismayed Republican establishment leaders. His view of an ethnically biased judiciary has drawn a fresh wave of criticism, including concern in his own party.

On Sunday he was asked if – by the same token – he believed a Muslim judge would be biased against him based on Trump’s call for a temporary ban on Muslims entering the country. “It’s possible. Yes,” Trump said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

Republican leaders including House of Representatives Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell have distanced themselves from Trump’s comments, saying they are worried the tone of his presidential campaign could enrage Latinos, who are a growing U.S. voting bloc.

‘BIG TROUBLE’

“If this doesn’t change we’re in for big trouble,” Senator Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican, said on MSNBC on Monday. “I hope to be able to support the nominee. I certainly can’t now,” said Flake, whose state has a large percentage of Hispanics.

A former rival for the Republican presidential nomination, Ohio Governor John Kasich, called on Trump to apologise to Curiel, who was born in Indiana to Mexican immigrant parents.

“Attacking judges based on their race (and/or) religion is another tactic that divides our country,” Kasich wrote on Twitter. “More importantly, it is flat out wrong.”

It was unclear what, if any, effect the latest furore would have on Trump’s unorthodox candidacy. States with significant Hispanic populations including California, New Mexico and New Jersey hold nominating contests on Tuesday.

Trump fought back against his Republican critics on Monday, with especially sharp words for Newt Gingrich, a former House speaker.

Gingrich, mentioned as a possible running mate to Trump, on Sunday called Trump’s comments inexcusable.

“I was surprised at Newt,” Trump told the “Fox & Friends” program. “I thought it was inappropriate what he said.”

(Additional reporting by Susan Heavey, Megan Cassella and Steve Holland in Washington, Angela Moon in New York; Editing by Howard Goller and Richard Pullin)

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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Hillary Clinton has reached the number of delegates needed to clinch the Democratic U.S. presidential nomination, according to tallies on Monday by two U.S. media outlets, the day before six states were set to vote in nominating contests.

A former senator and U.S. secretary of state, Clinton would be the first woman to ever be the presidential candidate of a major political party in the country’s 239-year history.

But the campaign of her rival, Bernie Sanders, vowed to keep up the fight in what has been a protracted and increasingly antagonised primary race that has exposed deep rifts between the left-wing and the more centrist of the Democratic Party.

A Sanders campaign spokesman said it was wrong of the Associated Press and NBC News, which made the calls on Monday evening, to count the votes of superdelegates before they cast ballots at the Democratic National Convention in July.

“Our job from now until the convention is to convince those superdelegates that Bernie is by far the strongest candidate against Donald Trump,” Sanders’ spokesman Michael Briggs said in a statement, castigating what he called the media’s “rush to judgement.”

While most delegates are awarded by popular votes in state-by-state elections, superdelegates largely consist of party leaders and elected senators, members of Congress and governors, and can change their mind at any time.

For that reason, the Democratic National Committee has echoed the Sanders campaign, saying the superdelegates should not be counted until they vote at the convention in Philadelphia.

But that has not deterred the news media. The AP and NBC reported that Clinton reached the 2,383 delegates needed to become the presumptive Democratic nominee with a decisive weekend victory in Puerto Rico, a U.S. territory, and a burst of additional support from superdelegates.

Sanders, a U.S. senator from Vermont who calls himself a democratic socialist, has commanded huge crowds spilling out of parks and stadiums and has been particularly bolstered by younger voters angered by widening economic inequality with his promise of a “political revolution.”

But Clinton, who prefers smaller, round-table events, has continued to edge out Sanders, particularly among older voters with longer ties to the Democratic party. Her less lofty promises focus on improving the policies of her fellow Democrat and former boss, President Barack Obama.

“According to the news, we are on the brink of a historic, historic, unprecedented moment,” Clinton told a rally in Long Beach, California, shortly after the AP report.

“But we still have work to do, don’t we? We have six elections tomorrow and we’re going to fight hard for every single vote, especially right here in California.”

Clinton has 1,812 pledged delegates won in primaries and caucuses, and Sanders has 1,521. She also has the support of 571 superdelegates, according to an AP count, compared to 48 for Sanders.

Her campaign manager, Robby Mook, said the media call on Clinton was an “important milestone”.

“We look forward to Tuesday night, when Hillary Clinton will clinch not only a win in the popular vote, but also the majority of pledged delegates,” he said in a statement on Monday.

Sanders supporters have pointed to the uncertainty of whether or not Clinton or her aides will face criminal charges as a reason for him to remain in the race. Clinton’s decision to use an unauthorised private email server kept in her home for her work as secretary of state remains the subject of a criminal inquiry by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Earlier on Monday, Clinton called for party unity, suggesting it was time for Sanders, who only joined the Democratic party last year after years as an independent, to abandon his hard-fought challenge.

CALIFORNIA VOTES

Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and New Mexico also hold nominating contests on Tuesday, but most attention will focus on California, the country’s most populous state where another 475 pledged delegates are at stake.

Clinton once held a sizable lead there over Sanders, but opinion polls in recent days showed them in a dead heat.

A Sanders victory there could embolden his supporters to urge him to wage a fractious convention fight. It could also help Trump, 69, who clinched the Republican nomination last month, argue that she is a weak candidate.

“It’s going to make her ability to seal the deal with disaffected Democrats all that much harder,” said Jim Manley, a Democratic strategist who supports Clinton. “The only one benefiting from this is Donald Trump.”

Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, has regularly stirred up controversy on the campaign trail. In recent days, his comments about a judge he believes to be biased against him because he is Mexican-American have drawn criticism.

On Monday, Trump, a New York real estate developer, insisted his concerns were valid. Clinton, in an MSNBC interview on Monday, said Trump’s comments about the judge were racist and bigoted.

The latest Reuters/Ipsos tracking poll showed Clinton with an 11-percentage-point edge over Trump, 46 percent to 35 percent, a marked change from just 10 days ago, when fewer than 4 points separated the two.

(Additional reporting by Eric Beech, Grant Smith, Ginger Gibson, Amanda Becker, Emily Stephenson, Timothy Gardner and Doina Chiacu in Washington; Editing by Frances Kerry, Peter Cooney and Michaerl Perry)

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JABUGO, Spain (Reuters) – In Spain’s cured ham capital, the small southern village of Jabugo, uncertainty over who will govern next in Madrid is a remote concern for investors keen to produce more of the Andalusian delicacy.

Drawn by the export potential for premium ham, family-owned meat producer ElPozo is pouring 70 million euros ($78.38 million) into building a new processing plant in the area even as Spain enters its sixth month without a new government and gears up for a repeat election on June 26.

It is far from alone.

In part thanks to Spain taking Germany-inspired austerity medicine and dealing with its banking crisis earlier than many European peers, company investments have chugged along since an inconclusive December ballot.

Even now, with opinion polls projecting a similarly fragmented result and raising fears of a paralysis that could jeopardise Spain’s recovery from a painful double-dip recession, local and foreign firms are finding reasons to expand, from the country’s relatively low wages to recovering household spending.

French carmakers Renault and Peugeot separately confirmed in May they would be ploughing a combined 1.3 billion euros ($1.4 billion) into their Spanish plants over the next four years and the two will produce new models there.

The economy grew 0.8 percent between January and March for the third straight quarter, one of the fastest rates in the euro zone, as both consumers and businesses shrugged off politicians’ failure to strike a coalition deal.

In ElPozo’s case, surging Chinese demand for Spanish pork and high-quality cured ham is an opportunity it is loathe to pass on. Spain’s meat exports are thriving, having jumped 16 percent last year to nearly 2 million tonnes.

“We want to inundate the world with Iberian ham,” said Rafael Fuertes, one of the senior managers at ElPozo.

The firm already derives about 15 percent of its revenue from exports and is seeking to make a push in Latin America as well as Asia.

Its plant in Jabugo, first mooted in 2011, aims to produce  2.5 million sausages, hams and other types of cold cuts a year, after the firm more than trebled its early production targets and increased by 50 percent its investment budget last year.

Premium products will include cured legs of Iberico ham, produced from pigs fed on acorns from oak trees and hung out to dry in traditional ventilated cellars for months.

LOCAL SAFETY NET

For ElPozo and many other firms, support from local authorities has provided an extra safety net as parties on the left and right jostle for power in Madrid.

Spain’s 17 highly-devolved regions, whose stretched finances drew international concern at the height of the euro zone debt crisis in 2012, argue they are now a source of institutional stability.

They boast of their own parliaments, budgets and local subsidy schemes, while even small municipalities can help get projects moving.

ElPozo’s plant in Jabugo is due to start taking shape later this year and should create about 70 permanent jobs in this village of some 2,400 people.

“Here nobody is worried about whether there is a national government or not,” said Jabugo Mayor Jose Luis Ramos of the Socialist party, who has been in the job for the past 15 years.

DEALBREAKERS?

The economy has plenty of momentum, with companies going through with investment plans hatched before the last election, but it cannot continue on auto-pilot indefinitely and there are already signs that the momentum has begun to slow.

If the next election fails to quickly break the political impasse, and ushers in another round of inconclusive negotiations, the uncertainty could yet have a more marked impact on companies’ ambitions.

Spain’s trade tailwinds could also fade.

“Higher oil prices could now start working in the other direction,” said Gizem Kara, senior euro zone economist at BNP Paribas. “Exports are also not doing so well, due to a slowdown in emerging markets, compounded by the impact of the stronger euro. This is likely to weigh on investment growth.”

Industrial spending on equipment and machinery slowed slightly in the first three months of the year, growing 1.3 percent on a quarterly basis compared to 1.9 percent previously, while the construction sector registered a contraction as a result of infrastructure tenders drying up.

Already in May, surveys pointed to waning growth in Spanish factory orders, while the latest consumer and business sentiment indicators are mixed, at a time when uncertainty over the direction of policies still lingers.

Parties such as the left-wing Socialists or anti-austerity Podemos (“We can”) – which placed second and third in the December vote, behind the centre-right People’s Party (PP) –  have for instance called for a rollback of labour laws introduced in 2012 which lessened firms’ firing costs and made it easier for them to lower salaries.

Yet even changes such as these may not be dealbreakers as long as domestic demand holds up or firms succeed in finding new export avenues.

For ElPozo, Jabugo also had its own peculiar allure, even if it will be joining more than 20 other producers there.

Nestled in the hills of the Huelva province, where extensive oak woods provide an ideal feeding ground for pigs, the village is famed for a micro-climate that creates the optimal conditions for curing meat.

“We have a long term vision, we’re not risk capital investors,” ElPozo’s Fuertes said.

 (Additional reporting and writing by Sarah White; Editing by Julien Toyer)

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