Is Spain simply late to Europe’s populist party? by Camino Mortera-Martinez
It is a universally accepted fact that Spaniards love a good party. They are also, perhaps unfairly, said to be always fashionably late – it is not by chance that “mañana” (tomorrow) is one of the best-known Spanish words. Until two months ago, Spain had not joined Europe’s least exclusive party, with illiberal, eurosceptic and anti-migrant forces from Helsinki to Rome as guests. But now Vox, a relatively new far-right party, is in the new governing coalition of Andalusia, Spain’s most populous region. Will Spain follow the populist trend, or will Vox’s success be a one-off? Vox secured 12 out of 109 seats in Andalusia’s regional election in December last year. The Spanish socialist party (PSOE), which had governed the region since 1982, gained the most votes but only secured 33 seats, not enough to form a government. Adelante Andalucia, a coalition party dominated by Podemos, a left-wing populist party, said it would not support a socialist government – nor did it have the numbers to give the socialists a majority. Instead, a coalition between the centrist Ciudadanos (Cs), the conservative Popular Party (PP) and Vox took office. Vox is less eurosceptic than other populist movements in Europe. The party’s most radical suggestion about the EU is to suspend the Schengen passport-free area until the Union passes more laws to prevent criminals travelling unhindered. This point, which Vox included in its manifesto after former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont fled to Belgium to avoid trial, hardly
compares with populist calls elsewhere in Europe to leave the eurozone or the EU altogether. Indeed, Vox’s proposals on the EU, such as a new treaty returning powers to member-states, chime more with moderate critics in Northern and Western Europe than with parties like Italy’s Lega or France’s Rassemblement National. Vox is tougher on immigration than on the EU. It would like to send migrants who commit a crime back to their home countries, even if they lawfully live in Spain; introduce migrant quotas which would prioritise those coming from Latin America; and build a wall along the frontiers of Ceuta and Melilla, Spain’s enclaves in Morocco. But, as with many anti-migration parties in Europe, Vox’s demands lose their force when confronted with reality. In exchange for its support to a PP-Ciudadanos government in Andalusia, Vox signed a ‘memorandum of understanding’ with the PP, making notable compromises on migration: this mainly talks