What Spain’s messy election result means for Europe
The centre holds
If Brussels was afraid of the far right in power in Spain for the first time since dictator Francisco Franco, yesterday’s results were a relief. But a paralysed parliament and potentially months of political instability is hardly ideal.
Context: Spain’s conservative People’s party (PP) won 136 seats in the 350-member chamber in yesterday’s vote, defeating prime minister Pedro Sánchez’ socialists who won 122 seats. But that, combined with 33 seats for hard-right Vox, was not enough to form a majority.
Spain is the EU’s fourth-largest economy and currently holds the bloc’s rotating presidency, which chairs EU negotiations. Its election — alongside one this autumn in eastern bellwether Poland — is one of Europe’s most consequential votes this year.
Forecasts were for PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo to lead a coalition with Vox, marking the first time the far right would have been in government since Spain’s return to democracy after Franco’s death in 1975.
But Vox shed more than a third of its seats as the traditional parties PP and the Socialists gained support.
That’s a positive sign for EU officials concerned that next June’s European parliament elections will see a surge in support for radical parties, fragmenting the chamber and making it even more difficult to reach common positions and pass legislation.
But the rest of the EU must now brace for weeks of messy negotiations, the prospect of Sánchez cobbling together a governing majority with the support of the left and a tapestry of small Catalan and Basque nationalist parties, or repeat elections, as happened in 2015 and 2019.
Feijóo can at least point to winning the most votes — a result that follows triumphs for the right in Italy, Sweden, Finland and Greece over the past 10 months.
But his failure to win power is what really counts. Most had assumed he would give the continent’s centre-right European People’s party yet another seat around the EU council table.