The European Social Democratic Family welcomed on Monday 29 April the clear victory of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) in the parliamentary elections held the day before in Spain. They hope that the good electoral results obtained in Finland and Spain will lead to a social democratic breakthrough in the European elections at the end of the month.
"With the final results, we see that Spain has chosen the future and not the past, dialogue and not confrontation, equality and not discrimination, solidarity and not selfishness. The left and not the right", said Frans Timmermans, the leading candidate of the Party of European Socialists (PES), via Twitter. For the leader of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, the German Udo Bullmann, "our Spanish friends will give Europe a new impetus. Together with Spain, we are ready to build a sustainable and just Europe".
The same is true for PES President Sergei Stanishev, for whom "wins in general elections in Spain and Finland this month show progressives have the momentum going into the European elections". And he added: "Whilst conservatives in Spain were chasing the far right to try and regain power, PSOE anchored its campaign in core socialist and social democratic policies. And voters backed them. That is what all of Europe needs too".
These values include the strengthening of women's rights, increased resources for social policy and the fight against the extreme right.
The Spanish parliamentary elections were triggered by the refusal of the Basque and Catalan independence parties to support the 2019 draft budget plan defended by Mr Sánchez's minority socialist government.
With 28.7% of the vote, the PSOE this time won 123 seats in Congress and an absolute majority in the Senate. After the years of economic crisis, he reaped the benefits of a significant increase in the Spanish minimum wage. Still caught up in the Gürtel corruption scandal, Pablo Casado's Popular Party collapsed, winning only 16.7% of the vote, or half as many seats in Congress (66 deputies instead of 137) as in the previous legislature. With 15.9% of the votes, the liberal Ciudadanos party became the third largest Spanish party, winning 52 seats and overtaking the Unidos Podemos coalition which, with 14.3% of the votes, lost around 30 seats (42 instead of 71). The far-right Vox party entered the Spanish Parliament and won 24 seats, or 10.3%, this score is lower than what was estimated by pre-election polls. The Basque and Catalan independence parties won 25 seats.
The PSOE will now enter into negotiations with other parties, on the left of the political spectrum or in the centre, with the aim of forming a stable coalition government.
Despite the absence of a 2019 budget, the economic situation in Spain remains favourable. This Member State reduced its government deficit from 3.1% to 2.5% of GDP between 2017 and 2018, while government debt continued to decline from 98.1% to 97.1% of GDP in one year. The Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Pierre Moscovici, recently informed the daily El País that in the event of a sustained decline in the deficit in 2019 and 2020, the excessive deficit procedure opened against Madrid would be abrogated. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)