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POLITICS

Spain vote may change govt, but not foreign policy

From defending Spain's interests within the EU to its tortuous relations with Morocco, there will be no shortage of foreign policy challenges for right-wing leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo if he wins the July 23rd election.

Alberto Nunez Feijoo
The Popular Party (PP) party's leader Alberto Nunez Feijoo gives a press conference at the party headquarters in Madrid on May 29th, 2023 one day after the local and regional elections held in Spain. Photo by: Pierre-Philippe MARCOU / AFP

But the main challenge will undoubtedly be more personal, according to analysts: to assert himself on the international stage to ensure Spain’s voice continues to be clearly heard.

At the helm of the right-wing Popular Party (PP) for the past year, Feijoo, 61, “doesn’t have a great track record in international politics,” said Ignacio Molina, senior analyst at the Elcano Royal Institute, a Madrid think-tank.

And judging by his campaign, “he is not going to take any decision which will involve any big change in foreign policy, whether that be within the EU, NATO or in the defence of Spain’s interests,” he told AFP.

The PP’s programme states that a Feijoo government would continue “military, economic and humanitarian support to the Ukrainian people where necessary” as well as “support for sanctions against Russia”.

The PP also said it would raise defence spending to 2.0 percent of Spain’s GDP, the military spending target set for member states by the North Atlantic Treaty Association (NATO).

EU, Maghreb ties

Since Socialist leader Pedro Sanchez became prime minister in 2018, Spain has been very active on the EU stage after years of taking a back seat, and Feijoo’s challenge will be to ensure that continues, Molina said.

“The problem for Feijoo will be maintaining this increase in Spain’s influence that there was under Sanchez,” he said.

Speaking to CNN in June, Economy Minister Nadia Calvino said Spain had transformed its role within the EU, expressing concern that this could change if the right came to power.

“We have brought the voice of Spain to a different level… Spain is now occupying the place that should correspond to the fourth European economy, which was maybe not the case in the past,” she said.

And any presence on the international stage is likely to be more complicated for Feijoo who, unlike Sanchez, does not speak English.

If elected, Feijoo – who would take over during Spain’s turn at the head of the EU presidency that began on July 1st – would have to reassure Brussels about several worrying issues, notably if the far-right Vox enters government.

Among matters of concern are environmental and social issues.

Aside from handling the EU, a Feijoo government would have to grasp the nettle of its tricky relationship with Algeria and Morocco, who are powerful but bitter rivals.

Feijoo would have to manage a situation complicated by Sanchez’s 2022 decision to abandon Spain’s policy of neutrality on Western Sahara, agreeing to back Morocco’s autonomy plan for the disputed region to end a lingering diplomatic spat with Rabat.

The move infuriated Algeria, which backs the Polisario Front, Western Sahara’s independence movement, sending its ties with Madrid into a tailspin, which has notably hit trade.

‘A balanced relationship’

In its programme, the PP pledges to foster “a balanced relationship with the Maghreb countries” although Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Albares told La Vanguardia newspaper it would likely involve “a worrying return to anti-Moroccan positions”.

For Feijoo, it will be “very difficult to change” the current policy on Morocco because Rabat has “means of pressure which partly explain the change in Sanchez’s position”, Molina said in a nod to migrant issues.

READ MORE: Spanish PM woos disappointed voters ahead of snap election

After Madrid’s policy U-turn on Western Sahara, migrant arrivals to Spain fell by a quarter in 2022 compared with a year earlier.

Although a Feijoo government would adjust Sanchez’s stated position, “there won’t be an explicit reversal of it because it would be seen as a provocation by Morocco”, Molina said.

For Feijoo – who until last year spent most of his political career in the northwestern Galicia region and has never shown any particular interest in foreign policy – the bar remains very high.

“It’s going to be a very significant political and personal challenge for him. He will have to learn and decide if he wants to lead foreign policy as Sanchez has wanted to.”

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POLITICS

The plan for Catalonia to handle its own finances separately from Spain

Catalan separatists are pushing for 'financiación singular' to gain greater fiscal autonomy from the Spanish state, but the proposals are tied up with politics at the national level.

The plan for Catalonia to handle its own finances separately from Spain

The recent regional elections in Catalonia in May were hailed by political pundits as the end of the procés and turning the page on the Catalan question. The evidence for this was that separatist parties lost their majority in the regional legislature for the first time in over a decade and that the Socialists (PSOE) won the most votes overall.

However, since then things have been far from simple. The PSOE candidate, Salvador Illa, is yet to secure an investiture vote and the political horse trading is ongoing with ramifications for Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s fragile majority at the national level.

The controversial amnesty law pushed by Sánchez’s government then got clogged up in the courts, despite being approved in the Congress, and Catalan separatist parties managed to cling onto the role of speaker in the regional parliament. Catalan lawmakers elected Josep Rull, a member of the hardline separatist Junts per Catalunya, which is led by exiled former Catalan President Carles Puigdemont.

READ ALSO: Separatists retain speaker in new Catalan parliament

The important context to understand here is that the Sánchez government is dependent on separatist parties, including Junts and the more moderate Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya (ERC). After inconclusive general election results last summer, Sánchez essentially made a deal with the Catalans in exchange for their votes to maintain his position in La Moncloa.

Catalan finances and national politics

Now separatist parties, particularly ERC, are leveraging this support in order to gain concessions from the national government. The main way they’re doing this is through a demand for financiación singular — ‘singular financing’. That is to say, how Catalonia raises and uses taxes, and whether or not it should be allowed greater fiscal autonomy closer to something like the Basque model.

ERC secretary general Marta Rovira has said in the Spanish press that greater fiscal autonomy “is the minimum that can be demanded,” and alluded to the conditionality of their support for Sánchez: “The Socialists must know that if Pedro Sánchez is not able to move on the singular financing… it will be very difficult for ERC to support him. Salvador Illa must bear this in mind.”

la financiación ‘singular’

But what is singular financing? Former president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, described the plan as “full fiscal sovereignty” in the election campaign, and essentially what the ERC is proposing is a bespoke fiscal arrangement for Catalonia that allows the Generalitat to collect (and keep) more of its taxes.

This would be a step, albeit financial rather than constitutional, towards greater regional autonomy for Catalonia and likely viewed as a political victory for separatists.

For critics of Sánchez, it would be more evidence of his capitulation to Catalans.

Singular finance is an idea inspired by the so-called “Basque quota”. This is basically a fiscal arrangement that allows the Basque government control of most of its taxes but means it must also contribute a set ‘quota’ to the Spanish government.

READ ALSO: Spain’s contested Catalan amnesty bill comes into force

In Catalonia, the long-term aim would be something similar: for the Generalitat to collect all (or more than it currently does, at least) of the taxes paid in Catalonia and then transfer to the Spanish state an agreed portion of that.

In terms of cash, this would mean that the Generalitat would collect billions more in tax (some estimates put it as high as €52 billion overall) and more than double the €25.6 billion it received in 2021 under the current model.

Proponents of the singular finance model also suggest that giving the Generalitat greater fiscal autonomy would do something to redress the so-called ‘Catalan deficit’, the difference between what the Catalan economy contributes to the Spanish state coffers and what it receives in return investment. Generalitat estimates for 2021 put this figure at over €20 billion in 2021.

Therefore, the demand is not only political but economic. The ERC claims that changing the fiscal model would do something to resolve what it calls the “chronic underfunding” of the region.

Negotiations for a singular financing model, which will be tied up in the investiture negotiations for Illa, which are themselves tied up in the fragile arrangement at the national level, will likely continue for many weeks.

If no candidate has won an investiture vote in the regional parliament by August 25th, further elections will be called.

READ ALSO: Which Catalans want independence from Spain?

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