Spanish Left: the new party that will attend the European elections

The European elections in Spain will have a new political party: Izquierda Española. The formation, registered this Tuesday in the Ministry of the Interior, defends the welfare state within the framework of a “unitary territorial model” and arises after its leader, the lawyer Guillermo del Valle, has announced his incipient project during the last months through the ideas laboratory or think thank you The Jacobin. “To defend the rights and freedoms of everyone, regardless of their zip code, we must eliminate the privileges granted to nationalists and review the territorial model. Nationalists are the opposite of solidarity,” Del Valle points out in a note distributed to the media.

According to the text, the new party “proposes an egalitarian alternative from the left to the policies carried out by the current Government.” El Jacobino has intensified his actions and presence on social networks after the general elections of 23-J and during the negotiations of the PSOE with the pro-independence forces for the investiture of Pedro Sánchez. “Policies of progress cannot be made for a social majority with the help of nationalists,” also maintains Del Valle, who presented his first work at the Ateneo de Madrid on November 23, The Left betrayed. Reasons against resignation.

Attending that event were, among others, the former general secretary of the Socialist Party of Euskadi (PSE) Nicolás Redondo Terreros, expelled from the PSOE for his theses openly critical of the current leadership; the former vice president and attorney of the Cortes of Castilla y León, Francisco Igea, also expelled, but from Ciudadanos, for having been against the executive; and the former socialist parliamentary spokesperson Soraya Rodríguez, today a CS MEP in the European Parliament.

Both Igea and Rodríguez shared another event with Del Valle in mid-December and both welcomed Izquierda Española through X (former Twitter) this Tuesday. “New party for progressive, non-nationalist citizens. Defense of equality, social justice and the territorial integrity of the Spanish nation. Defense of the common against precariousness and the defense of a Spain without territorial disintegration,” the MEP wrote. “A new party is born for those of us who believe that it is not possible to defend freedom, equality and fraternity with those who destroy the nation that makes them possible. A Jacobin party,” added the former vice president of Castilla y León.

El Jacobino was born during the covid pandemic as a YouTube channel, it was formed as think thank you in June 2021 and in December 2022 it was formalized as a platform. Neither Igea nor Rodríguez nor Redondo Terreros are part of the old platform or the party, despite having shown their sympathy. Those who do make up the organization are the former leader of IU Juan Francisco Martín Seco, Secretary of the Treasury with Felipe González, or the former Catalan deputy of CS Sergio Sanz.

Igea's previous party and Rodríguez's current party, Ciudadanos, in turn assures that it will participate in the European elections, despite being practically missing from the political board and after the leadership decided not to appear in the general polls on 23-J. “Ciutadans, as a liberal center party, can and must vindicate the value of the political center and freedom in an increasingly polarized and tense Spain,” says Carlos Carrizosa, CS spokesperson in the Parliament of Catalonia, in a video distributed this Tuesday on social networks, in which he confirms that there will be a Ciudadanos ballot in June. The general secretary of the formation and CS spokesperson in Brussels, Adrián Vázquez, has acquired more media presence lately for his resistance to the amnesty for those prosecuted by the processes in the European institutions. But the polls are still on the rocks for the party, which will also now compete with Izquierda Española, with whom it could share part of the spectrum of its electorate.

For the leader of the new party, “PP and Vox have amply demonstrated that they do not care about social issues.” And along those lines, Del Valle adds: “For Spain to be a fairer and more cohesive country, it is essential to defend the Social State, reverse neoliberal and privatization policies, reform the tax system so that it is fair and progressive and put back on the table issues such as work, labor rights, public services, housing or public initiative.”

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