Yes—The EU has changed, not Spain
By José Ignacio Torreblanca
Spain’s progressive government, led by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, has taken a set of positions and pursued policies that differ sharply from the European mainstream. On European integration, Madrid still backs a deeper European Union, including a much larger European Union budget to meet Europe’s new needs in defense, energy, and technology. It also continues to champion the energy transition and the fight against climate change, which have lost ground in other member states. And it remains committed to trade openness as well, as its support for the EU-Mercosur agreement shows.
In foreign policy, Spain has tried to strengthen Europe’s voice and its principles, defending international law and multilateralism. It has applied those principles consistently. Its firm support for Ukraine surprised many of its European partners. The same principles have also made it sharply critical of Israel and of the United States, both over Iran and in other cases where Washington has acted unilaterally and outside international law, such as Venezuela.
Spain stands out most on migration. The issue of migration now weighs heavily in elections across the EU and has pushed governments toward restrictive policies centered on closing borders and increasing returns. Spain, on the other hand, has kept an open approach. That approach has sustained growth above the EU average, filled labor shortages, and eased gaps in social care for children and older people. It rests on unusual conditions. A large share of immigrants come from Latin America, which makes integration quick, both culturally, because they share the language, and legally and administratively. Regularization also faces few barriers, which limits exploitation and the informal economy.
So yes, Spain is a model. It is an alternative to the model now dominant in the EU, which has shifted toward the center right and even the far right. That means that there is little chance of its policies being imitated. On migration, not even other center-left governments are likely to follow it. The most striking thing about the Spanish model, however, is that it is not new. Madrid has barely moved on these issues. Spain is for deeper integration even when it comes to foreign policy. Its policies on energy, climate, and migration would have been fairly mainstream a decade ago. What has changed is Europe, not Spain.
No—Concentration of power is not the EU style
By Ignacio Molina
Pedro Sánchez has been a particularly divisive figure in Spanish politics since coming to power in June 2018. While his governing style has attracted fierce criticism from his detractors, the actual substance of his policies has generally been not only moderate but also successful. This contrast between harsh judgements and a reasonably good record is striking, but not implausible. Indeed, to properly understand “Sánchismo” and assess whether it can serve as a model for Europe, it is important to distinguish between Sánchez’ public policies and the controversies surrounding his presidential-style leadership.
Compared with other European countries, particularly those in Western Europe, Spain has stood out over the past eight years for its strong economic growth, accompanied by substantial job creation (despite being particularly hard hit by the COVID-19 pandemic). Alongside GDP growth, social protection has been strengthened, progress has been made in the energy transition, and the integration of Spain’s large immigrant population into the labor market has been actively promoted. The deep recession and severe crises that Spain experienced between 2008 and 2017 are now little more than memories. As a result, the Sánchez years have also seen the decline of the anti-establishment left, represented by Podemos, and of Catalan separatism.
Yet Sánchez’ leadership has been markedly personalistic, at the expense of certain institutional checks and balances and internal counterweights within his own party. Moreover, although left-right confrontation is a defining feature of Spanish political culture (and also reflects the opposition’s strategies), Sánchez has further entrenched the division as prime minister. Interestingly, while he has often been painted as an idealist abroad, his actual political outlook has been characterized by a strong dose of tactical pragmatism. Whenever Sánchez has faced a choice between programmatic consistency and remaining in power, the latter has prevailed.
From a European perspective, Pedro Sánchez has also pursued policies that can be considered mainstream across much of the continent (at least until very recently), while supporting further progress in European integration. In foreign and security policy, he has championed European strategic autonomy and has shown no hesitation in expressing political and societal solidarity with Ukraine (although military support has been more limited). And, in an international environment unsettled by US President Donald Trump, he has combined a defense of multilateralism, criticism of the excesses of the Israeli government and the White House, and an ambitious increase in defense spending (from 1.2 percent to 2.1 percent of GDP in barely a year).
Nevertheless, it is difficult to regard Sánchez as a political model for the EU for two reasons.
First, because of Spain’s particular circumstances regarding immigration (with relatively straightforward integration of its foreign-born population) and its distinctive geopolitical position (a country that, for historical reasons, has no special relationship with the United States, is geographically distant from Russia, and is close to Latin America and the Arab world).
Second, and arguably more importantly when considering whether Sánchez can serve as a model for others, because the EU cannot be built around the defining features of his governing style: personalism and concentration of leadership, tactical maneuvering and confrontational rhetoric at the expense of building lasting consensus, and institutional unpredictability. Since 1986, the polarization of Spanish politics has been tempered by the influence of the broad centrist coalition that has traditionally governed the EU. The paradox is that, after 40 years of membership, Spain has in recent years contributed to exporting its own political confrontation to the European level.
José Ignacio Torreblanca is a distinguished policy fellow at the geoeconomics and technology program at the European Council on Foreign Relation (ECFR). He is also a senior advisor to the ECFR’s Madrid office
Ignacio Molina is a senior fellow at the Elcano Royal Institute think tank and a professor of politics and international relations at the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.
