On Monday 24 July, the Social Democrat and Christian Democrat political families at European level adopted very different positions on the lessons to be learned from the results of the general elections held the previous day in Spain.
The President of the European People’s Party (EPP), Germany’s Manfred Weber, congratulated the Partido Popular candidate, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, on Twitter for his “clear victory”, which enabled his party to “gain 3 million votes” compared to 2019. The PP came out on top, winning 136 seats compared to 89 four years ago. According to Mr Weber, Mr Feijóo has a mandate to form a government that is supposed to put into practice “this demand for change”.
The Party of European Socialists (PES) has a different view. The PES hailed the “excellent results” of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), which won two more seats than in its 2019 election victory. “This is good news for Spanish and European citizens”, he said.
Barricade against the far right. Above all, the left of the European political spectrum is convinced that the socialists, together with the radical left and the greens, have succeeded in blocking the ultra-conservative right in Spain.
The Vox Party has lost ground, winning only 33 seats in 2023, compared with 52 in 2019, so that a coalition between the PP and Vox would not obtain an absolute majority in Parliament. Some do not rule out a minority government between these two parties, but this would only happen if the PSOE does not oppose it.
The President of the S&D Group in the European Parliament, Iratxe García Pérez from Spain, believes that a majority of Spaniards want to “advance social and societal rights”, in contrast to the backward step advocated by the conservative alliance. She hoped that the EPP would hear this message and renounce its alliance with the conservatives and Europhobes for the European elections in June 2024.
Satisfied with the 31 seats won by the Sumar movement, the European Green Party (EGP) was also pleased that the Partido Popular and Vox do not have an absolute majority in the Spanish Parliament. In the party’s view, if this hypothesis had materialised, it would have strengthened the political forces at European level that are hostile to the fight against climate change and the defence of social rights.
“Despite the lies and disinformation of the conservatives and the far right, in the last two major European events, the vote on the Nature Restoration Law and the Spanish campaign, the alliance of the worst failed”, said Mélanie Vogel from France and Thomas Waitz from Germany, co-presidents of the EGP.
Rejecting the possibility of a new election, the two main parties in the outgoing government coalition, PSOE and Sumar, have begun talks with regionalist and even separatist parties to reproduce a similar coalition. Controversial, the support of Catalan separatists is therefore essential, at a time when commentators are noting the Socialist breakthrough in Catalonia.
On Monday, the Spanish judiciary initiated proceedings to issue a new arrest warrant for Catalan separatists Carles Puigdemont and Toni Comín following the withdrawal of their immunity by the General Court (see EUROPE 13216/17). (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)