A decisive electoral campaign begins for the future of Spain, the fourth economy in the European Union and today one of the pillars of battered Europeanism: the line favorable to a greater integration of the national states. More Europe. More joint decisions. More community regulatory framework. That is not the trend today in most European societies, from France to Poland, from Finland to Italy, which gives the Spanish legislative elections a very special bias.
Apparently, July 23 is not going to decide what weight sovereignism has against Europeanism in Spain. This has been the main discussion in almost all the electoral processes that have taken place after the start of the war in Ukraine: France, Hungary, Denmark, Italy, Bulgaria, Finland… This will be, with great intensity, the main axis of the electoral campaign in Poland, next October. Apparently that is not the discussion in Spain. There has been another exception: Greece.
The two main contenders, PSOE and Partido Popular, support, with different nuances, European integration, since they are part of the two great political families that have agreed on the architecture of the Union since the Maastricht Treaty (1992).
The other two relevant formations with candidacies in all the provinces present other characteristics. The Sumar platform, which we could define as a softened version of Unidas Podemos, defends greater European integration, with greater emphasis on social and environmental policy. Vox moves in other coordinates: it does not openly question Spain’s membership of the EU, but it is active in the ranks of right-wing sovereignism that wants the devolution of power to national states. More national state, less integration. It is the line led by the ultranationalists who govern Poland and Hungary.
The entry of Vox into the Government of Spain would be one of the substantive novelties of July 23. This coalition would modify the political balances in the current European Council and would announce the possibility of a change of majority in the European institutions as of June 2024.
Until a few months ago, the Popular Party denied the possibility of a government coalition with Vox. After the local elections on May 28, he no longer denies it. Spain, therefore, can modify the European script within a month. This is one of the most important keys to 23-J, but not the most explicit.
The most obvious spring refers to the vote to punish the only left-wing coalition government that works in Europe, eroded by the chain of adverse events experienced since the start of the pandemic. A government with a complex parliamentary geometry –which has approved three budgets during its term–, a political experiment anchored in the periphery, which from the first day has had against what we could call the Madrid system, the articulation of interests and points of view of the powers that overlap in the capital of Spain: economic powers, media, with special weight of private television, high magistracy, high civil service, galvanized by the powerful Community of Madrid. A Government never accepted by Madrid DF. How long can an Executive that has this system of power against govern Spain? How much longer can the coalition that made the decision to pardon the Catalan separatists sentenced to prison govern Spain? This is the question he will answer on July 23.
A malaise from above that connects with other malaise from below, fueled by inflation. The first notice was the local elections on May 28, in which the space to the left of the PSOE was dismantled as a result of the bitter and tenacious dispute between Podemos and Yolanda Díaz over the format of Sumar. An incredible discussion two months before local elections that turned out to be decisive.
The PSOE held on, but the collapse of the left wing handed over six communities and numerous town halls to the PP-Vox coalition, accentuating the feeling of the end of the cycle. The Popular Party is once again the Alpha Party and starts as a favourite. The evolution of the polls in the last two weeks indicates, however, that the game is still open. The electoral campaign will be entirely decisive.
