The first general elections in Spain with sandals, a fan, shorts and a pareo have been an unexpected setback for the rise of the extreme right in Europe. The participation, higher than expected for elections in the midst of one of the most torrid summers on record, and the concentration of the vote in the two major parties (PP and PSOE) has slowed Vox, which has gone from 52 seats in 2019 to just over 30. The dismal result of the formation led by Santiago Abascal removes the possibility of a PP-Vox coalition government incorporating Spain into the growing group of countries of the EU with a government led or composed of far-right and eurosceptic parties. The bad taste of the PP of Alberto Núñez Feijóo can also force the European PP to evaluate the electoral cost of its approach to forces with dubious democratic pedigree.
The leaders of the ultra tide, such as the first Italian, Georgia Meloni, the Polish prime minister, Mateusz Morawiecki, or the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, have publicly supported Vox’s campaign for 23-J, hoping that the fourth most populous country in the EU would fall on their side. The turn towards the extreme right in Spain would give this type of formation enormous weight in the Council of the EU, with more than 35% of votes, the threshold that allows blocking any initiative of the European Commission.
But Vox has failed to meet the expectations of its international partners and has lost a good part of the 3.6 million votes it achieved in 2019. Abascal’s crash leaves open the possibility of a government without his collaboration or, even, the continuity of a progressive government with the union of the PSOE and Sumar and allies for an investiture. And neither can more decisive outcomes be ruled out, such as a grand coalition or a return to the polls as in 2019.
The Spanish stoppage of Vox breaks a streak of successes of the extreme right in Europe, where the ultra-conservatives lead the Government of Italy, Poland, Hungary or the Czech Republic and have enormous weight in Finland (with very important government portfolios) and in Sweden (as parliamentary support for the current conservative government). These countries do not add up enough forces in the EU to impose their criteria or to prevent the Commission projects from going ahead. But the incorporation of Spain would have given the group that is reluctant or opposed to European integration a very significant boost, to the point of turning it into an unavoidable obstacle if they all voted together.
Such a contra alliance would have been devastating for the advances of the EU and, in particular, for Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission. Von der Leyen faces the final stretch of his term in the coming months, a minefield due to the complexity of the issues on the table and the turn of his own formation, the European People’s Party, towards the positions of the extreme right in matters such as migration, environment or energy.
The piece of Spain was key to maintaining a balance in favor of the most Europeanist forces, led by the Germany of the socialist chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and by the France of the liberal president, Emmanuel Macron. The support of Spain can save the star projects of Von der Leyen, such as the green pact or the migration pact, whose auction corresponds, in part, to the Spanish presidency of the EU. The weight of Spain in Brussels, however, may suffer if 23-J gives way to a period of uncertainty in national politics due to the difficult formation of a government and a foreseeable loss of influence at the international level.
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