In the early morning hours of May 15, the cargo vessel Borkum stopped off the Spanish coast, lingering in the waters a short distance from Cartagena. At the port, protesters waved Palestinian flags and called on authorities to inspect the ship based on suspicions that it carried weapons bound for Israel. Leftist members of the European Parliament sent a letter to Spanish President Pedro Sánchez requesting that the ship be prevented from docking. "Allowing a ship loaded with weapons destined for Israel is to allow the transit of arms to a country currently under investigation for genocide against the Palestinian people," the group of nine MEPs warned. Before the Spanish government could take a stand, the Borkum cancelled its planned stopover and continued to the Slovenian port of Koper.

The Spanish government is planning to test 80,000 people a day for coronavirus with the roll-out of robot testers. Technology will be used to speed up testing of people in Spain, one of the countries hardest hit by the Covid-19 outbreak, with more than 200 deaths so far. According to Bloomberg, Spanish authorities now plan to increase daily testing from about 20,000 a day to 80,000, by using four robots to apply artificial intelligence (AI) to testing. Speaking at a conference on Saturday 21 March, Raquel Yotti, head of Madrid's health institute, said: "A plan to automate tests through robots has already been designed and Spain has committed to buying four robots that will allow us to execute 80,000 tests per day." Because of the ease that coronavirus spreads from person to person, testing has been identified as one of the best ways to control the disease.

Spain's Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez closed the Spanish Strategy for R&D i in Artificial Intelligence workshop, held in Granada. During his speech, Sánchez highlighted that technologies related to artificial intelligence are already one of the main factors of growth, and hence Spain and Europe have to make a joint effort to move forward on this important line for social and economic progress. Pedro Sánchez explained that the document presented on Monday is the first step in drawing up the National Strategy on Artificial Intelligence, which 11 ministerial departments will work on and which will be ready later this year. Sánchez stressed the importance of science, innovation and universities for the present and future of the country. In this regard, he highlighted the creation of a specific ministerial department for these fields, the approval of a fundamental Royal Decree-Law to make the functioning of scientific bodies more flexible and the strengthening of equal opportunities, as well as the approval, last Friday, of the Research Personnel Statute on Training, the stabilisation of 1,500 temporary positions on public research bodies, which account for 10% of the total research workforce.