tags:Zapatero Daughters photos, Spain Prime Minister’s Daughters, Alba and Paula Zapatero goth, Obama’s with Spanish primeministers family, photographs at the United Nations

There was a frenzy of diplomatic acticvity yeasterday between Spain and the White House by th the US State Department publishing of a photso featuring the teenage daughter of Spanish Prime Ninister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero with his wife and President Obama and the First Lady Michelle Obama but the daughter were dressed up as goths.

Normally, there is an agreement between the Spanish media and the Prime minister not to publish any of the daughters photos given that they are still underage. But the State Department published the photos on their Flickr page and had to withdraw them at the request of the Spanish. It is reported that the Zapatero’s have were able to prevent earlier photographs from being distributed by the Spanish State news Agency EFE.

But unfortunately the Spanish rightwing newspapers to the occassion to publish the photographs, with the faces of the daughter blurred, to hide their identity.

Privacy laws would not have any chance in holding in Anglo- Saxon countries, where the media is more aggressive in its coverage of celebrities, can you imagine the British tabloids not being told to keep such an agreement.

I wonder how the appearance of the daughter dress in all black and wearing all black will go in Catholic Spain, which is in many ways still very conservative? Will the church be scandalised when they see the Laura 16, and Alba 13, wearing goth and having amulets round their necks?

Can these European gentlemen’s agreements to guard privacy work in a places like the USA were there first amendment rights are jealously guarded?

How can the government even hope to regulate blogs and websites? Is it not amazing that European politicians still feel that they can be able to stop photographs being published internationally. Many will reacall, a similar controversy photos of Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister, at a party few months ago,which he was able to prevent their publication in Italy but evetually appeared in Spanish newspapers a few weeks later?

The irony is that the photograph’s of Paula and Alba Zapatero would have not been shocking, if the Zapatero daughters were used to the media spotlight and they might have also modified their appearances to make their image less shocking.

The days of controlling photographs and stories might be over for European politicians but it might take time for it to sink in, given that Europe is still dominated by state controlled media groups and agencies. The USA can always export a Perez Hilton, the infamous blogger, to shake the complacency of the Spanish media?