Spain votes and Europe watches. Watch more carefully than ever, since this time the Spanish vote can have very direct consequences in European politics.
When Spain voted for the first time in 1977 after the long period of dictatorship, Europe also watched very closely. He observed, supervised and even financed some political options. Spanish society seemed minor then. For decades, the dictatorship had built the myth of a feral and immature people, too individualistic and passionate for democracy. Many people came to believe it. Forty-six years later, the situation is quite different.
Almost half a century later, the general elections in Spain, a mature democracy, will set the tone for European politics in the coming months. Europe – the Europe of the foreign ministries, of the select opinion circuits, of the orientation notebooks and of the intelligence services – is closely watching Spain to find out which way the wind might blow on the day the composition of the future European Commission has to be negotiated, approximately a year from now. In June 2024 the new European Parliament will be voted on.
A strong conservative wave has swept the continent since the outbreak of the Ukrainian war. With the sole exception of Denmark and the singular case of Malta, no social democratic or labor party has managed to win legislative elections since Russian troops crossed the Ukrainian border on February 24, 2022. The trend is the opposite: the rise of conservative forces of a more or less traditional nature, allied for the first time with the extreme right. This has resulted in parliamentary support pacts (Sweden), in coalition governments between several right-wings (Italy and Finland), in overwhelming majorities of the extreme right (Hungary), in net victories of the conventional right (Greece) and in chaotic situations (Bulgaria). There is another significant exception: the revival of Europeanism in small Slovenia at the hands of a movement that calls itself ecological and liberal.
It is necessary to see in which box Spain is placed tonight. There are various possibilities. Let’s go see them.
a) Net victory of the conventional right, with an absolute majority or close to it, in the Greek style. Winks to the Basque Nationalist Party and the convergent gene, which has not just been revived in Catalonia. Vox failure. The extreme right would become an auxiliary force at the local and regional level. Alberto Núñez Feijóo, suddenly transformed into Kiriakos Mitsotakis. Resignation of Pedro Sanchez. Deep depression in the PSOE and possibly in Sumar if the results are far from what the polls promised. Crisis of very long duration on the left.
b) Insufficient victory of the traditional right, with a poor result for the PSOE. Strong internal and external pressure on the Socialist Party to facilitate a PP minority government that prevents Vox from entering the executive. The scenario verbalized by Felipe González. The great illusion of Núñez Feijóo and José María Aznar, which would also occur in the previous scenario: capture the PSOE, make it prisoner, turn it into an auxiliary force for a conservative bloc that would oscillate between the social agreement with the extreme right and State pacts with a penitential and repentant socialism of its last twenty years, since José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero won the tragic elections of March 2004, agreed to a new Statute of Catalonia. already and negotiated the end of ETA.
c) A very insufficient victory for the traditional right, committed to a coalition pact with Vox, with good results for the PSOE. These good results, which we could estimate from 110 deputies, would keep Pedro Sánchez at the helm of the party and awaiting the European elections in June 2024, which will have great political importance. Sánchez would not initially be inclined to grant abstention in favor of a PP minority government, which, ultimately, could always turn to Vox. But the socialist leader should be attentive to the European coordinates. The entry of the extreme right into the Spanish government is very worrying in Paris and Berlin, while it is highly desired in Rome. The PSOE could demand programmatic and institutional counterparts pending the European elections in June 2024.
d) PP and Vox fail to achieve an absolute majority, but the formation of an alternative majority around the PSOE needs more parliamentary support than in 2019 and comes to depend on the deputies that Junts per Catalunya can obtain. Carles Puigdemont has already announced from Brussels that he does not intend to favor Sánchez’s investiture. In case of reconsidering, he would put possibly unaffordable conditions for the PSOE. This would then lead to a deadlock that could lead to a repetition of the elections.
The repetition of elections has been the pattern of Spanish politics in the last eight years: it happened in 2015/2016 and it happened again in 2019. The failure of Núñez Feijóo could open an immediate leadership crisis in the Popular Party. Sánchez should then opt for a risky negotiation with Puigdemont, for the electoral repetition, or for trying to agree on a concertation government, perhaps headed by a manager, waiting for the European elections in June 2024. Repeat general elections along with the European ones. Let us remember that the Spanish Constitution does not establish the obligation for the candidate for the presidency to be a deputy.
e) PSOE and Sumar achieve a result similar to that of November 2019 and can reissue the formula of the last three years, leaving the Carlist deputies on the sidelines. If that were the result, tonight there would be heart attacks in Madrid DF.
These scenarios admit many nuances and can depend on the dance of about twenty seats. Mature Spain votes and Europe watches.
