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Spain’s Feijóo, the opposition leader who missed his moment

Once the runaway favourite to be Spain's next prime minister, Alberto Núñez Feijóo has become the man who missed his moment after failing to find parliamentary support to be confirmed as premier.

Published: 30 September 2023 17:48 CEST

Partido Party leader and candidate for prime minister, Alberto Nunez Feijoo talks to the media after attending a second parliamentary vote to elect Spain's next premier in Madrid on September 29, 2023. But his bid to become Spain's next PM was rejected by lawmakers. Photo: JAVIER SORIANO / AFP

After months of riding high in the polls, the 62-year-old leader of the right-wing Popular Party long appeared confident he would replace Socialist Pedro Sánchez as prime minister.

Despite winning July’s election, it was a Pyrrhic victory with the PP falling well short of the 176 seats for a working majority, even with the support of the far-right Vox.

Since then Feijóo has seen his fortunes falter, only winning the support of 172 deputies and failing in this week’s two parliamentary votes, cutting short his dream of becoming “the first prime minister from rural Spain”.

“Today I won’t be able to give you a government but we have been able to give you hope that there’s a political force that will defend all Spaniards, initially in opposition but sooner or later from government,” he said on Friday.

Acknowledging his imminent defeat earlier this week, Feijóo lashed out at Sánchez over his plans to retain the premiership through a deal with a hardline Catalan separatist party.

“No end, not even becoming prime minister, justifies the means,” he thundered, referring to plans to offer an amnesty to those facing legal action over the failed 2017 Catalan separatist bid.

Boxed in by Vox

A progressive moderate from the rural northwestern region of Galicia, Feijóo had hoped his moderate stance and dull-but-dependable brand would be enough to end Sánchez’s reign.

Elected four times as Galicia’s leader with an absolute majority, Feijóo had prided himself on being able to contain the resurgence of the far right, with Vox never winning a single seat in the regional parliament.

But despite his moderate image and his desire to turn the PP into a centre-right party, Feijóo quickly realised he couldn’t become premier without Vox.

That alliance cost him support at the ballot box and left him with precious few parliamentary allies.

He also made mistakes in the final week of the campaign, stumbling over pensions in a TV interview and boycotting a televised debate between candidates, leaving the field open to his opponents.

Even so, observers said it was too early to write him off, saying it was likely he would remain at the helm of the party.

“Although it seemed like that on election night — that Feijóo had missed his chance and was going to be ousted from the leadership… I don’t think the PP is going to do that because he still has a chance,” said Oriol Bartomeus, a political scientist at Barcelona’s Autonomous University.

And that second chance could come very soon if Sánchez also fails to pass a vote to be inaugurated as prime minister in the coming weeks, meaning Spain will be forced to hold repeat elections, most likely in January.

Village boy

Born on September 10, 1961, in the village of Os Peares, Feijóo grew up in a working-class family to a father who worked in construction and a mother who ran a grocery shop.

He read law in Santiago de Compostela, hoping to become a judge but became a civil servant in 1985 when his father was suddenly left jobless.

He got his foot on the political ladder in 1991 joining Galicia’s agriculture ministry with a politician who went on to become health minister and took Feijóo with him to Madrid in 1996.

There he ran the Insalud national health service, then headed the Correos postal service before returning to Galicia where in 2006, he became the PP’s regional leader.

Ahead of July’s election, questions resurfaced about his ties with notorious tobacco smuggler and money launderer Marcial Dorado, who was later convicted for drug trafficking.

In 2013, El Pais published photos of the pair of them in the mid-90s on Dorado’s boat and on holiday together.

Feijóo insisted he “knew nothing” about Dorado’s activities but fellow Galician Yolanda Diaz of the radical-left Sumar wondered how he could claim ignorance “when all of Spain knew who he was”.

Despite being fiercely guarded about his private life, Feijóo told El Mundo’s women’s magazine that becoming a father in his mid-50s with his partner Eva Cardenas was the “best gift life has given me”.

And he also admitted that he rings his mum if he’s had “a bad day” — which may well be the case on Friday.

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INTERVIEW: 'A lot of people think Brexit is done, but it's not for Brits in Europe'

In the early days of 2021, after the United Kingdom had left the EU and completed the final stage of Brexit, many British citizens returned to their home countries in Europe only to face a grilling at the border.

Though the Withdrawal Agreement (WA) technically guaranteed their right to live and work in the countries they’d settled in before Brexit, there was widespread confusion about these fundamental rights and many were treated like new arrivals.

Over time, the chaos at the airports subsided as border officials and airlines were given clearer guidance on the treatment of Brits. But three years later, a number of Brits who live on the continent still face problems when it comes to proving their post-Brexit rights.

This was the reason campaign group British in Europe decided to set up their new EU-funded ICE project. Starting this year in March, it aims to build valuable connections between UK citizens abroad and mentor the next generation of civil rights advocates around the continent. The acronym stands for ‘Inform, Empower, Connect’ and the project’s organisers describe it as “the first project of its kind”.

“It’s a completely innovative project – especially the fact that it’s across so many countries,” Jane Golding, chair of British in Europe and one of the project’s founders, told The Local.

Bringing together groups from 11 EU member states, the project aims to train up volunteers to understand both the Withdrawal Agreement and EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, as well as learning skills like advocacy and communication, using real-life civil rights cases that are referred to British in Europe.

“The ultimate goal is to amplify the messages across the wider group,” said Golding. “You start with the volunteers, they go back to their groups, then the people that we train, they go back and train people. Then they pass on that knowledge to the wider groups, on their Facebook accounts and through social media, and hopefully it all snowballs, not just in their countries but across the EU.”

‘Far-reaching repercussions’

So many years after Brexit, it’s hard to believe that there’s still a need for a project like ICE that empowers Brits to protect their rights. Indeed, the future of groups like British in Europe and regional groups like British in Germany and British in Spain felt uncertain just a year or two ago.

But Golding says there are still serious issues cropping up for Brits in several countries around Europe – they just have a different quality to the problems that arose at the start.

“In some ways it’s needed even more because as we predicted right at the beginning, at the first stage of implementation, you’ve got the more routine cases,” she explained.

“What we’re seeing now is not as many cases, but when the cases come up, they’re complex. They can have such far-reaching repercussions on people’s lives. And of course, memories start to fade. A lot of people think Brexit is already done, but it’s not.”

Volunteers in British in Europe ICE project

The volunteers of the British in Europe ICE project pose for a photo at the kick-off meeting in Brussels on May 21st, 2024. Photo courtesy of Jane Golding

Though the rights set out in the Withdrawal Agreement apply across the continent, different countries have taken different approaches to implementing them.

That means that while in Germany, for example, UK citizens simply had to declare that they lived in the country, people in neighbouring Denmark had to apply for their rights.

This led to a notorious situation in Denmark in which as many as 2,000 Brits were threatened with deportation after not applying in time or completing the right application process. According to Golding, this had a lot to do with the fact that people who arrived in 2020 weren’t given the same information as other UK migrants who arrived before.

In Sweden, meanwhile, the situation is still difficult for many Brits who lived there prior to Brexit.

“There have been issues with an anomalously high numbers of refusals compared to other countries, and they seem to be taking a very strict approach on late applications,” Golding explained.

Portugal has been another difficult case. Although the country opted for a declaratory system where Brits could simply exchange old residence documents for a new ID card after Brexit, reports suggest that the authorities have taken years to issue these cards, leaving many of the some 34,000 Brits in the country in limbo.

“While people are still waiting to have their status confirmed and have their card in their hand, it’s difficult to access a whole range of services, like health services, or applying for jobs or dealing with the authorities, or even going to the bank,” Golding said. “All of these problems just affect people’s lives.”

A French border guard checks a passport at the border

A French border guard checks a passport at the border. Photo by DENIS CHARLET / AFP

There are also concerns about the EU’s new exit and entry system (EES), due to come into force in October, which is based on biometric documentation.

“We still do not have clear data on how many people in declaratory countries like Germany, where it wasn’t compulsory to apply for the card, don’t actually have a card,” Golding said. “How is that going to play out if it’s a document-based digitalised system?”

A lack of support

In the immediate aftermath of Brexit, funding from the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) was still available to support NGOs in Europe helping Brits with their migration and civil rights issues. But that temporary funding soon expired, leaving groups like British in Europe largely on their own.

“The whole point is people’s lives change at very different paces,” Golding said. “And now this project is really going to start to pick up some of those cases and report on those issues, which is really crucial and exciting for the precedent that it sets, and it’s very clearly necessary still, because people don’t just sort their lives in the 18 months that the FCDO chose to supply that funding.”

This feeling of being left alone and increasingly isolated from the UK is one that many Brits in Europe have felt in the aftermath of Brexit. But the upcoming UK election on July 4th could be a game-changer.

This time, following a change in the law, Brits who have lived abroad for more than 15 years will be able to vote for the first time.

Polling station in the UK

A polling station in the UK. Photo by Elliott Stallion on Unsplash

When it comes to the election, the message from British in Europe is clear: “Make your voice count now, make your vote count, make sure you use it,” Golding said.

With the June 18th registration deadline fast approaching, BiE is advising UK citizens abroad to apply for a proxy vote as soon as possible, rather than relying on a postal vote from abroad. Since the 15-year rule was abolished on January 16th, more than 100,000 British citizens have registered to vote, according to official statistics. It is unclear how many were registered before the change in the law.

With an estimated 5.5 million Brits currently living abroad – 1.3 million of whom are in the EU – this could have a significant impact on the electoral landscape, Golding says. But most significantly, the change is creating a feeling of connection and belonging that wasn’t there before.

Nurturing this sense of belonging is one of the main goals of ICE.

With these bridges being built, British in Europe hopes to create a network of support that spans across borders.

“Now we’ve met. We’re going to meet,” said Golding. “We know we’re going to meet again in Berlin in October and then we’ll meet again in the new year in 2025 as well. It means a huge amount because even British in Europe, our steering team, we’ve only met physically three times.”

This opens up the possibility of people sharing their knowledge from country to country, Golding explained.

“There is crossover and the reassurance of having that EU wide view and knowing that you’re not alone and knowing that in this country, we managed to get this solution,” she said. “And then you can go back and say to the authorities in your country, well, in that country they did that – all of that helps. It’s really good.”

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