COPY LINK

POLITICS

Spain’s ‘Citizens’ party fires up voters

In the midst of a battle of the big old forces against surging left-wing party Podemos, another young challenger has emerged: centrist party Ciudadanos.

Published: 9 April 2015 08:35 CEST

Spain's 'Citizens' party fires up voters

Albert Rivera speaking during a presentation of Ciudadanos' economic programme on April 7th. Photo: Javier Soriano/AFP

Hundreds of people are queueing outside a Madrid theatre, but not to see a play. They are here for the latest spectacle in Spain's fast-unfolding election drama.

Spain's political landscape has been transformed as it heads to a general election expected around November, split over a gradual economic recovery and still-high unemployment.

READ: Why Spain's radical new centrists are spooking Spain's populists.

Giving Podemos a run for its money, Ciudadanos -"Citizens" – has staked out a moderate position just right of centre, drawing potential voters from left and right.

"It is the only option right now. It is something new," said Rafael Perez, a 38-year-old consultant.

"It is not just smoke and mirrors. They're not trying to con you."

He was one of hundreds of people queueing to hear Ciudadanos' leader Alberto Rivera, a 35-year-old lawyer from Barcelona, present his latest economic policies this week.

Some come disillusioned with the governing conservative Popular Party (PP) and the opposition Socialists, while others reject those two but see Podemos as too radical.

Now analysts say Ciudadanos could hold the key to possible future coalitions in Spain's transformed political landscape.

Ciudadanos attracts "young, urban voters, former PP voters", said Fernando Alvarez Ossorio, an expert in constitutional law at Seville University.

But it also draws disillusioned voters who have might have voted for Podemos until they find "a party on their ideological wavelength" in Ciudadanos, he added.

'Spain's got talent'

Founded in 2006 as an anti-independence party in the Catalonia region, Ciudadanos has reinvented itself in recent months as a national centrist party of reform, in the wake of Podemos's surge.

Its membership has multiplied from 2,000 to 20,000 in less than a year.

Podemos, under its pony-tailed leader Pablo Iglesias, 36, has topped some recent opinion polls, campaigning against corruption and the injustices of the economic crisis.

Ciudadanos meanwhile, under its suited and groomed leader Alberto Rivera, 35, also campaigns against corruption but strikes a more moderate and economically liberal stance.

"In Ciudadanos, we want justice. What Podemos wants is revenge," Rivera, 35, said in a recent interview in El Mundo newspaper.

Rivera and his economic guru Luis Garicano from the London School of Economics this week promised a new model based on innovation and the knowledge economy.

"Let's talk about talent. We want talent to stay in Spain, or to come back here," Rivera said, dressed in a dark jacket and open-necked blue shirt, to the excited crowd that filled the theatre's 600 seats.

He proposed more flexible working contracts and other measures to boost businesses by encouraging innovation and investment and cutting red tape.

Rivera also has a foot in the social liberal camp with his stance against cuts to health and education spending and home evictions and his defence of women's right to abortion.

'Coherent and clean'

Ciudadanos surprised its rivals last month in an election in the southern Andalusia region, coming fourth with 9.2 percent of the vote.

That was a key test ahead of more regional and local votes over the coming months and the general election.

Ciudadanos' share of voting intentions more than doubled from 8.1 percent in January to 18.4 percent in March, according to a survey by Metroscopia published in El Pais newspaper.

Meanwhile, Podemos's rise has slowed: a study by the state polling institute CIS showed its support rating falling by five points from February to March.

Many voters seem unimpressed by the Socialists and the PP which have alternated in power for three decades.

Ciudadanos "are coherent, new, clean," said Martin Perez, a 22-year-old student at the gathering.

"They don't have baggage," like the PP and Socialists which have been hit by numerous corruption scandals, he added.

"They are for a gentle change — not like Podemos, which is also new but wants a revolution."

By Gabriel RUBIO with Daniel BOSQUE in Barcelona

ANALYSIS: Is Spain's decision to axe golden visa about housing or politics?

On Monday Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez shocked many and announced plans to scrap Spain’s golden visa (visado de oro). You can read more of The Local’s extensive coverage of this decision here and its potential impacts below.

The golden visa allowed non-EU nationals to gain Spanish residency if they bought property worth €500,000.

The visa, first introduced in 2013 by the then centre-right Partido Popular government, has been criticised for essentially selling Spanish residency (and by extension, EU rights) to the wealthy, as well as contributing to property price inflation.

However, some commentators in Spain say that foreigners purchasing luxury properties for half a million euros or more has little impact on Spaniards struggling to find affordable housing, and that the number of property purchases made through the scheme made little difference to the market overall.

Golden visas issued through the purchase of Spanish properties worth more than half a million euros total 14,576 since its inception, according to Spain’s Housing Minister Isabel Rodríguez.

Now, after the dust has settled, property experts and politicians alike have begun to consider the potential consequences of the decision and some are questioning whether it was about housing at all or was a purely political move.

Critics of Sánchez argue that scrapping the golden visa is a ‘smokescreen’ to distract from poor management of the rental sector. Property experts wonder how much effect it will really have on reducing prices for locals, and some fear the decision could even drive away foreign investment in Spain.

What the experts say

It’s certainly true that some experts, whether in property or immigration law, feel the decision could deter non-EU foreigners from coming and investing in Spain.

Maryem Essadik Rhafour, an immigration law expert and partner at Marfour International Law Firm, spoke to The Local and described the move as “a bad decision” that could potentially drive away foreign investment to Spain.

The golden visa, she said, “is a type of investment that has brought a lot of foreign capital to Spain. Moreover, behind every investment there are thousands of sources of income for the local population.”

“This type of measure slows down the arrival of foreigners with a high level of economic capacity and a high level of consumption,” Rhafour added.

Though the total number of golden visa holders is small overall, according to transparency data analysed by Spanish daily El Diario golden visa holders have pumped €5 billion into the Spanish property market over the last five years alone, something that some argue distorted the market overall.

Yet the proportion of property sales made through the scheme is very small. A spokesperson from property website Fotocasa told state broadcaster RTVE that golden visas represented “a very small percentage” of property purchases and that removing them “would not really have an impact on the common residential sale and purchase market.”

A couple pose next to a Ferrari car in Puerto Banus, near Marbella, on March 30, 2013. AFP PHOTO / JORGE GUERRERO (Photo by Jorge Guerrero / AFP)

However, despite that some feel that the decision is still a positive step forward and symbolic in terms of trying to address the structural problems in the Spanish property market. In Spain in recent years, anti-foreigner and anti-tourist sentiment has grown. Much of this comes from a resentment among Spaniards towards short-term tourist lets (known as pisos turisticos in Spanish) that cater to remote workers and digital nomads, which has an inflationary effect on local markets.

As such, for many the issues of spiralling rental costs, tourism, the influx of digital nomads and the golden visa are all intertwined and the government’s measure, indeed any measure, perceived to be doing something about the impact on Spaniards is welcome.

Julio Rodríguez, a member of Spain’s Council of Statistics, told RTVE that although “it will have a limited impact on the overall demand for housing… the message is positive in terms of reducing speculative tension.”

This market speculation increased particularly after the pandemic, when the number of golden visas given out increased rapidly.

“It was in 2022 when the alarm was raised as golden visas doubled,” Housing Minister Isabel Rodríguez told journalists at a press conference on Tuesday.

“In 2016, 471 golden visas linked to Spanish real estate were issued. In 2017, 946. In 2018, 988. In 2019, 861. In 2020, 632. In 2021, 997. In 2022, 2,017. And in 2023, 3,272.”

However, despite this clear post-pandemic uptick in golden visas, it is undeniable that the number of foreigners purchasing property in this way made up a very small proportion of the total number of properties bought by foreigners in Spain. Critics have been quick to point out that golden visa holders represent a far smaller share of the foreign buyers market than other foreign second homeowners without a visa (0.7 percent compared to non-resident foreign buyers who bought a Spanish home in 2023).

So it seems that on balance, the decision to scrap the golden visa is certainly seen as a positive step or symbol, but may not have as big an impact as many first thought, or indeed the government let on when announcing it.

Smokescreens and demagoguery

Despite praise from some Spaniards, the Sánchez government has faced growing criticism in the aftermath of the decision. Many feel it is a performative political ploy that will have little impact on house prices.

Citing statistics on the percentage (less than 1 percent) of properties golden visa holders purchased, opposition Partido Popular spokesman Miguel Tellado claimed in a press conference that eliminating the golden visa is “a smokescreen to cover up the government’s incompetence in housing policy.”

“It’s a good try but I have to tell you that it’s not going to work,” he added.

But it’s not just Sánchez’s political opponents critical of the move. President of the Spanish Chamber of Commerce, José Luis Bonet, has described the scrapping of the golden visa scheme as a “demagogic and ill-advised gesture”.

Luxury houses and hotels in Llafranc, on Spain’s Costa Brava. Photo: Manuel Torres García/Unsplash

The commerce leader also believes the decision could drive foreign investment away. “Spain has become the summer resort and second home for millions of Europeans. Reducing the ways for them to come here seems to me to be unwise,” he said.

Ruth Merino, regional Minister of Finance, Economy and Public Administration in the Valencia region, where many golden visa holders choose to settle, described the decision as “electioneering.”

“This is not good news, it gives the impression that Sánchez does not have a plan for housing: he has electioneering ideas,” she said.

Internal politics

There’s also another layer to the political considerations behind this decision, and it revolves around internal management. The Sánchez government has faced growing criticism for its housing policy not only from opponents on the right, but also from the left too.

Sánchez’s Socialists (PSOE) are in coalition with far-left Sumar, a party which has long called for better regulation of the property market and protections for Spaniards getting priced out of their own towns and cities. Scrapping the golden visa could also speak to the internal political pressures within the Spanish coalition: Sumar had been pressuring PSOE for this, or restrictions on the golden visa scheme at the very least, for some time.

Upon hearing the news, Culture Minister Ernest Urtasun, a Sumar member, referred to the Spanish golden visa as a “European disgrace”, adding that “it cannot be that someone is given a residence permit for the fact of being rich; this is creating first and second-class citizens.”

In this sense, and with the opinions of property experts considered, scrapping the golden visa does appear more like a political step than it does a strictly housing policy decision.

The political benefits are clear. By scrapping the golden visa, the government can stand up to its critics that claim it does nothing about the housing crisis, while also simultaneously keeping members of its coalition on side and quelling frustrations (however disingenuously) among Spaniards about the property market more widely, that is to say: the government felt political pressure to be seen to be doing something about the housing problem, not that this decision will necessarily do anything to solve it.

SHOW COMMENTS

Url copied to clipboard!