The question is direct and spontaneous. There are no options to choose from. “What do you think is the main problem that currently exists in Spain?” Almost one in three Spaniards (30.4%) answered “immigration”, according to the barometer published this Wednesday by the Centre for Sociological Research (CIS). Immigration has gone from being the fourth concern – it was listed as such in the July survey, with 16.9%, below unemployment, the economy and “political problems in general” – to being at the top just two months later. Compared to the June study, immigration has gone from ninth place (11.2%) to first on the list of problems of Spaniards in 100 days. That is, it has grown almost 20 points (19.2%) during the summer. However, when respondents are asked about problems that affect them personally and not Spain, immigration – also in a spontaneous response – is no longer first, but fifth. In July, however, it was the eighth.
Immigration taking first place has not been seen in Spain since 2007, according to the news agency Servimedia. In those years (2006-2008) the so-called crisis of the cayucos from the Canary Islands, when more than 30,000 migrants reached the Spanish coast. The citizens interviewed for this CIS study were 4,000, through telephone calls to mobile phones and landlines.
Just over a year ago, in the middle of summer, Spain was the only Mediterranean country that managed to contain irregular immigration. A fleeting milestone that was shattered a couple of months later with a huge surge in the Canary Islands route that continues to this day. Now Spain is, along with Greece, the only Mediterranean country where irregular entries are increasing, according to figures from the International Organization for Migration (IOM). Landings in the Canary Islands have increased by 126% and entries in Ceuta by 143%. Between January 1 and August 15, the Ministry of the Interior had recorded the arrival, by land and sea, of 31,155 people, 66% more than in the same period in 2023, although the figures revealed a slowdown compared to the beginning of the year.
In this context, a poisoned debate on immigration has been established, encouraged by the extreme right. And all this is reflected in the CIS. Extremism, however, is only a problem for 5.4% of those surveyed in this barometer. “I am struck by the difference between the general perception and the concern that each person has with immigration,” observes Javier de Lucas, former president of the Spanish Commission for Aid to Refugees, over the phone. “This leads me to think that the Spanish respondents, and therefore the representation, think that immigration is the most worrying problem, but not the one that worries them the most. This may be due to the impact of the news and the media bombardment, for which most of the media outlets that disseminate decontextualized news are responsible.”
De Lucas believes that percentage data on the increase in the arrival of boats in the Canary Islands is often given without context. “The impression is given that migratory pressure comes from the jumps from Melilla and the arrival of the boats and this is not the case. This is a drop in the migratory circuit.” The general concern is, in his opinion, a concern “induced” by the type of message that is emitted by some political parties. “The responsibility of Vox and the irresponsibility of the PP is enormous. But also of the parties of the Government coalition that in the Canary Islands crisis have not made a convincing effort to contextualize and refute this imaginary.”
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The second most important concern for Spaniards, according to the survey published on Wednesday, is “political problems in general”, which in the previous survey occupied the first position. They are followed by unemployment and “economic problems”. The drop in the problem of access to housing is striking, which two months ago was in second place (mentioned by 21% of those surveyed) and now in sixth place (15.4%). Unemployment is in third place (20.1%). In August, a bad month for employment, registered unemployment rose by 21,884 people, reaching 2,572,121 unemployed.
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