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      Spanish Vote Threatens Efforts to Recover Franco’s Victims

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      Spain’s left-wing government has tried to accelerate exhumations of mass graves left from the dictatorship. If it wins Sunday’s election, the right may end that.When she first heard of a project to exhume and identify the remains of hundreds of Civil War victims — her grandfather possibly among them — Ángela Raya Fernández said she was “filled with hope, a lot of hope.”Ever since she was a girl, she had heard stories about how her father’s father, José Raya Hurtado, was executed during the Spanish Civil War, his body ignominiously dumped in a ravine by forces loyal to Gen. Francisco Franco. She had only ever known him from black-and-white photos: round glasses, a receding hairline and a resolute gaze.“We’ve long hoped that somebody could find him and give him a dignified burial,” said Ms. Raya, a soft-spoken, 62-year-old librarian.But with general elections Sunday and polls predicting a right-wing victory, Ms. Raya and her family, along with thousands of others, fear that years of efforts to find their loved ones may suddenly grind to a halt.A photo of José Raya Hurtado, who is believed to have been executed during the Spanish Civil War, is affixed to a tree in Viznar, Spain.The conservative Popular Party, which grew partly from Francoist roots, has pledged to repeal a memory law passed last autumn under the current Socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, aimed at accelerating the exhumations. A possible alliance between the conservatives and the far-right Vox party, which has long opposed attempts to address the crimes of the past, has only heightened these fears.“It would be a catastrophe,” Ms. Raya said, “a huge step backward.”The to and fro over the memory law reflects how the traumas of Spain’s 1936-39 Civil War and Franco’s subsequent dictatorship, which ended with his death in 1975, still divide the country today.To some, Franco, a nationalist, consolidated Spain’s postwar economic growth and served as an anti-Communist bulwark. To many others, his rule was one of repression, marked by mass executions, exile for thousands and the abduction of children.An estimated 100,000 people were executed by Franco’s supporters during and after the Civil War, and buried in more than 2,000 mass graves scattered across the country.Some 2,200 people were shot by Franco’s firing squads against a wall in Paterna that is still pockmarked with bullet holes.No one dared disturb those sites in a country where Franco’s legacy has long been left unexamined. Conservatives, in particular, have argued that exhumations would only reopen old wounds.For the left, the silence has been anything but therapeutic, even enraging. During the dictatorship, Spaniards were forbidden to talk about the killings. An amnesty law, passed in 1977, hoped to draw a line under the crimes of the past, but in effect made forgetting a crucial part of the effort to heal a divided nation in transition to democracy.“It was a culture of silence,” said Agustín Gómez Jiménez, 49, a health worker who recounted how his father had long refused to even show a picture of his own father, executed in 1936.Mr. Gómez said it took his sister rummaging through their father’s belongings to finally find some pictures, five years ago. One of them shows their grandfather on a beach, holding hands with his small, soon-to-be-orphaned son. “I have goose bumps just thinking my father hid the photos. He was so traumatized,” he said.Agustín Gómez Jiménez and his sister Maria Del Mar Gómez with a portrait of their grandfather who was executed in 1936.The first efforts to deal with the mass graves began in 2007, when a center-left prime minister, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, passed a “law of historical memory” that lent government support to exhumations.But the legislation was slow to take effect and when the conservative Popular Party took power in 2011, the conservatives promptly defunded the law.It took another decade, the commitment of Spanish left-wing-controlled regions and last year’s law — which created a census and a national DNA bank to help locate and identify the remains — for the exhumations to finally gain momentum.Such efforts are evident in Viznar, a small, whitewashed village perched in the mountains overlooking Granada. For three years, a team of archaeologists has been digging in the ravine where Ms. Raya’s and Mr. Gómez’s grandfathers were buried along with about 280 other victims, including possibly the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca.On a recent morning, the researchers were hunched over a 3-by-13-foot pit, using brushes and small blades to delicately remove the earth covering eight skeletons. Their spines and femurs were interlaced, a sign that bodies had been dumped one upon the other. Several skulls were pierced by round holes, evidence that the victims had been shot in the head.Researchers excavate skeletons in a mass grave in Viznar.“It’s a page of our history that was blank and that we’re writing today,” said Francisco Carrión Méndez, the archaeologist coordinating the project, standing beside the grave. Many relatives, he explained, want to find their loved ones and rebury them because “their dignity was stolen.”Mr. Carrión pointed to photos of the victims that families had hung on nearby pines: a university rector with slicked-back hair; an imposing-looking barmaid. “They shouldn’t be forgotten,” he said.Not everyone agrees. At the entrance of the ravine, a sign paying tribute to the victims has been defaced by graffiti reading “¡Viva Franco!” To which someone responded: “Fascism must not be discussed, it must be destroyed.”“In Spain,” García Lorca once wrote, “the dead are more alive than the dead of any other country in the world.”To date, the remains of 75 people have been recovered in Viznar. The passage of time and lack of records about the killings make identification difficult, so researchers are using bone samples to perform DNA tests in a Granada laboratory. The first results are expected this fall.The small town of Viznar, where a team of archaeologists has been digging in a ravine with about 280 victims, including possibly the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca.But many relatives worry it will be too late.“Who’s responsible for the samples? Who?” Francisca Pleguezuelos Aguilar, 73, anxiously asked a perplexed forensic expert during a recent visit to the laboratory.Pointing at a window behind which two lab assistants in white overalls were showing the DNA testing process to families, Ms. Pleguezuelos said she worried that the conservatives would block the study of the samples if they win this week’s general elections.She wasn’t the only one afraid. “They’ll paralyze all the projects,” said María José Sánchez, a great-niece of the barmaid who was killed, her eyes swollen with tears. “The curtain is about to fall again.”A spokesperson for the Popular Party suggested that exhumations could continue after the elections, saying that “relatives have the right to claim the bodies of their loved ones.”But many relatives said they remembered how Mariano Rajoy, Spain’s previous conservative prime minister, boasted of having cut public funding for the 2007 memory law to zero.Researchers identify bodies in Viznar, where the remains of 75 people have been discovered so far.The possibility of a national alliance between the conservative Popular Party and the hard-right Vox party — which polls suggest will be the only way for the right to secure a majority in Parliament — has only exacerbated the fears of victims’ families.In recent weeks, they have been looking anxiously at local governing coalitions forged between the two parties following regional elections in May: they almost always included plans to clamp down on memory projects.“The central government is our last bulwark, our Alamo fortress,” said Matías Alonso Blasco, who represents families in the Valencia region, where the right recently took political control. “If it falls, it’s over.”Several representatives of Vox declined to comment for this article.In the Valencia region, the new right-wing coalition said, “the norms that attack reconciliation in historical matters will be repealed.” Many took it as a reference to the 2017 local memory law that has helped excavate about two-thirds of the area’s 600 mass graves.Many of the bodies were recovered from the cemetery of Paterna, a suburb of Valencia. There, some 2,200 people were shot by Franco’s firing squads against a wall that is still pockmarked with bullet holes. So numerous are the mass graves that they have been given numbers.Standing between two wooden signs marked 100 and 101, Marilyn Ortíz Bono said the body of her grandfather had yet to be identified because the remains found in the grave where he is believed to have been buried had decayed too much.Ms. Ortíz said that shortly after Vox gained power in the Valencia region, she sent a sample of her DNA to a state-funded laboratory, hoping to get the identification process completed before the general elections.“I haven’t heard back from them,” she said. “I’m afraid I never will.”An old Spanish Republican flag lies on a mass grave in the cemetery in Paterna. More

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      Far-Right Party Gaining in Spain

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      As Spain prepares for elections, some liberal European politicians fear that the hard-right Vox party could become the first right-wing party since the Franco era to enter Spain’s national government.Last month, after Spain’s conservative and hard-right parties crushed the left in local elections, the winners in Elche, a small southeastern town known for an ancient sculpture and shoe exports, signed an agreement with consequences for the future of Spain — and the rest of Europe.The candidate from the conservative Popular Party had a chance to govern, but he needed the hard-right Vox party, which, in return for its support during council votes, received the deputy mayor position and a new administrative body to defend the traditional family. They inked their deal under the cross of the local church.“This coalition model could be a good model for the whole of Spain,” said Pablo Ruz Villanueva, Elche’s new mayor, referring to upcoming national elections on July 23, which most polls suggest will oust the liberal prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party. The new deputy mayor from Vox, Aurora Rodil Martínez, went further: “My party will do everything that’s necessary to make that happen.”If Ms. Rodil’s wish comes true, with Vox joining a coalition with more moderate conservatives, it would become the first right-wing party since the dictatorship of Francisco Franco to enter the national government.The rise of Vox is part of an increasing trend of hard-right parties surging in popularity and, in some cases, gaining power by entering governments as junior partners.People walking through the old part of Elche, Spain.Samuel Aranda for The New York TimesThe parties have differences but generally fear the economic ramifications of globalization, and say that their countries will lose their national identities to migration, often from non-Christian or nonwhite-majority countries, but also to an empowered European Union that they believe looks after only the elites. Their steady advances have added urgency to a now pressing debate among liberals over how to outflank a suddenly more influential right.Some argue that the hard right needs to be marginalized, as was the case for more than a half-century after World War II. Others fear that the hard right has grown too large to be ignored and that the only choice is to bring them into governing in the hopes of normalizing them.In Sweden, the government now depends on the parliamentary votes of a party with neo-Nazi roots, and has given it some sway in policymaking. In Finland, where the right has ascended into the governing coalition, the nationalist Finns party has risked destabilizing it, with a key minister from that far-right party resigning last month after it emerged that he had made “Heil Hitler” jokes.On Friday, the Dutch government led by Mark Rutte, a conservative and the Netherlands’ longest serving prime minister, collapsed because more centrist parties in his coalition considered his efforts to curb migration too harsh. Mr. Rutte has had to guard his right flank against surging populists and a longstanding hard-right party.In Italy, the far right has taken power on its own. But so far, Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, politically reared in parties born from the ashes of Fascism and a close ally of Spain’s Vox, has governed more moderately than many in Europe expected — bolstering some analysts’ argument that the reality of governing can be a moderating force.Elsewhere, hard-right parties are breaking through in countries where they had recently seemed contained.Elche’s new mayor, Pablo Ruz Villanueva, left, and deputy mayor, Aurora Rodil Martínez, in their office last month in Elche, Spain.Samuel Aranda for The New York TimesIn France, the once fringe party of the far-right leader Marine Le Pen has become an established force as entrenched anger against President Emmanuel Macron has newly exploded over issues like pension changes and the integration and policing of the country’s minority communities. He is not running again and the election is years away, but liberals across Europe shuddered when she passed him in some recent polls.And in Germany, where the right has long been taboo, economic uncertainty and a new surge in arrivals by asylum seekers has helped resurrect the far-right Alternative for Germany party. It is now the leading party in the formerly Communist eastern states, according to polls, and is even gaining popularity in the wealthier and more liberal west.While the parties in different countries do not have identical proposals, they generally want to close the doors to and cut benefits off for migrants; hit the pause, or reverse, button when it comes to L.G.B.T.Q. rights; and stake out more protectionist trade policies. Some are suspicious of NATO and dubious about climate change and sending arms to Ukraine.Supporters of the hard-right Italian politician Giorgia Meloni in Rome before the general elections that she won in 2022.Gianni Cipriano for The New York TimesIn a seeming recognition that the continent’s political complexion is changing, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said in Spain this past week that the European Union needed to deliver tangible results in order to counter “extremist” forces.In Spain, where the conservative Popular Party has a good chance of finishing first in the coming election, Esteban González Pons, a leading party official, said that bringing hard-right parties, like Vox, into government was a way to neutralize them. But he acknowledged that strategy carried risks.“First, the bad scenario: We can legitimize Vox,” he said.“Then, there is a second chance: We can normalize Vox,” he said, adding that if they governed well, “Vox will be another party, a conservative party inside of the system.”For now, the situation is fluid and there are indications that Mr. Sánchez and his leftist allies are gaining support. Vox also appears to be losing ground as the Sánchez campaign and well-known artists and liberals throughout Spain have focused on the threat of conservatives bringing Vox into the government.A Pride flag hanging on a house in Náquera, Spain.Samuel Aranda for The New York TimesSpain seemed in recent years to be a bright spot for liberals. Under Mr. Sánchez, Spain has kept inflation low, reduced tensions with separatists in Catalonia, and increased the growth rate, pensions and the minimum wage. He is also generally popular in the European Union.But the alliance between Mr. Sánchez and deeply polarizing separatists and far-left forces has fed resentment among many voters.Mr. González Pons, a leading official of the Popular Party, does not think that worries about Vox possibly joining forces with his conservatives are entirely off base. “We are pro-European and Vox is not,” he said, adding that Vox “would prefer something like a general Brexit, for all the countries to recover their own sovereignty.” He said Vox had views on gay rights and violence against women that “are red lines for us.”Those lines started to show as the new leaders of Elche sat on leather armchairs in the mayor’s office last week and sought to put up a united front. Mr. Ruz, the mayor from the conservative Popular Party, and his deputy from Vox, Ms. Rodil, took turns bashing the prime minister. But when pressed, the mayor acknowledged that his party recognized gay marriage, and that he was queasier about hard-right parties like Alternative for Germany than his “partner.” Still, he said, the Popular Party and Vox had similar voters, just different approaches to “implementation.”Far-right supporters of Spain’s Vox party during a recent rally in Barcelona.Samuel Aranda for The New York Times“Can I say something regarding that?” Ms. Rodil said with a coy smile. “We have a stance that is maybe a little firmer.” Vox, she said, believes in the “sovereignty of nations” and would like to make it more difficult for women to have abortions, positions that she said some people in the mayor’s party “do not defend.” She said the “ambiguous” stances of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the Popular Party’s leader, were “worrying.”Many, instead, are worried about Vox.“We have seen populism, supported by the center-right, grow in small towns,” said Carlos González Serna, the former socialist mayor of Elche, who lost the election. He said that instead of cordoning off the extreme right, mainstream conservatives had given it an “umbilical cord” of legitimacy.The leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, split from the Popular Party amid a slush-fund scandal in 2013. The party’s popularity grew in 2018 as more migrants arrived by sea to Spain than to any other European country. The nationalist Vox was also well positioned to exploit a backlash to the Catalonian independence movement.But Vox has also found support among Spaniards unhappy with their country’s progressive shift on climate change and social issues, including gay rights and feminism. Their campaign billboards have included candidates throwing L.G.B.T.Q., feminist and other symbols in the trash. In the town of Náquera, near Elche, the newly elected mayor from the Vox party has ordered the removal of Pride flags from municipal buildings.Migrants having breakfast on a rooftop in 2018 in Barcelona. That year, more migrants arrived by sea to Spain than to any other European country.Samuel Aranda for The New York TimesOne resident, a 45-year-old truck driver named Maximo Ibañez, said he voted for Vox because the party spoke clearly, but also because he feels that Spain’s pioneering laws to explicitly protect women against gender-based violence — complete with special courts and tougher sentences — discriminate against men.“It’s women who have the right to presumption of innocence here,” he said.One of Vox’s regional leaders has joked that some women were too unattractive to be gang raped, and another said that “women are more belligerent because they don’t have penises.”Ms. Rodil, the new deputy mayor of Elche with Vox, said that her party had no quarrel with women, just with the notion that domestic violence should be seen through gender-based ideology, and that a man, “just for being a man, is bad, that he has a gene that makes him violent.”She argued that Mr. Sánchez’s government had endangered women with botched legislation that had the potential to let sex offenders out of jail. Mr. Sánchez has apologized for the inadvertent effects of the so-called yes-is-yes law, which was intended to categorize all non-consensual sex as rape, but which, through changes to sentencing requirements, has risked reducing jail time or setting free potentially hundreds of sex offenders.As many in Europe say the time has come to start taking right-wing parties more seriously, some voters in Elche regretted not having taken Vox seriously enough.“I didn’t think that they were going to form a government and the fact that they have has surprised me,” Isabel Chinchilla, 67, said in a plaza that features three statues of the Virgin Mary. “I will vote in the national elections so that this doesn’t happen again, because they are very reactionary in their vision of society.”Maximo Ibañez, right, a truck driver who said he voted for Vox, at a bar in Náquera, Spain.Samuel Aranda for The New York TimesRachel Chaundler More

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      Once Scorned, Far Right Secures Foothold in Spanish Cities

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      Local alliances between the center-right Popular Party and the far-right Vox may foreshadow a broader coalition agreement at the national level.Spain’s far right took office in a string of Spanish cities and in a powerful region over the weekend by forging coalition agreements with the moderate right, in a move that may foreshadow a broader alliance to govern the country after next month’s general elections.The agreements came about three weeks after the center-right Popular Party crushed Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s left-wing coalition in regional and local elections. To secure control of dozens of cities, the Popular Party struck coalition deals with the far-right Vox, which also performed well, embracing part of the party’s nationalist, anti-migrant agenda.Both parties will now govern together in some 25 cities of more than 30,000 residents, including five regional capitals, giving Vox, a party once considered anathema by most voters, crucial political leverage. They have also teamed up to run the wealthy Valencia region, which accounts for 10 percent of Spain’s population.“It’s something completely new, both in terms of extent and depth,” Sandra León, a political analyst at Carlos III University in Madrid, said of the alliances. “It opens up a new path, a new period in the right-wing bloc.”The growing popularity of Vox, which is already the third-largest political force in the Spanish Parliament, has coincided with the rise of the far right in Europe, at a time when the continent is grappling with fierce identity debates, the economic fallout of a pandemic and Russia’s war in Ukraine.Hard-right forces already govern Italy, and on Friday, Finland’s main conservative party announced a new coalition government with a nationalist party. In France, Marine Le Pen’s normalization strategy is steadily bearing fruit.The leader of the far-right Vox party, Santiago Abascal, bottom right, in Parliament in Madrid in March.Chema Moya/EPA, via ShutterstockSantiago Abascal, the leader of Vox, has made it clear that he intends to make the most of his party’s gains locally. “We are and we will be extending our hand to build an alternative,” he wrote on Twitter this week, just as Vox and the Popular Party were locked in negotiations over regional governments.While municipal councils had to be formed by Saturday, regional governments have more time, and new agreements between Vox and the Popular Party could be reached in the next few days in regions such as Extremadura, in the west, and Murcia, in the east.Ms. León, the political analyst, said the local coalition agreements would help Vox, a party created only a decade ago, gain experience in running cities and provide it with resources to consolidate its organizational base. But she added that the most important outcome of the agreements is that they “have paved the way” for an alliance at the national level.Most polls show the Popular Party, also known by its initials PP, winning most votes in the early general elections that Mr. Sánchez has called for next month. But it would require an alliance with Vox to be able to form a government, a possibility that Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the Popular Party leader, has not ruled out.“Such clear pacts have been concluded between Vox and the PP” at the local level, Ms. León said, that “we already know they will ally” after the national elections.The prospect of the far right gaining national power has come as a shock in a country where nationalist forces had long been sidelined because of the shadow of Francisco Franco’s dictatorship, which ended only in the 1970s.Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez of Spain at the White House in May. He called for a snap election next month following gains by the opposition.Kenny Holston/The New York TimesIn particular, the alliance between the Popular Party and Vox to govern the Valencia region has raised concerns about a rollback of civil rights.The coalition agreement in Valencia promises to “preserve the quality of education by removing ideology from the classroom,” in an apparent allusion to contents on gender equality that form part of the curriculum and which Vox has long criticized. The agreement also makes no mention of climate change, a phenomenon that some Vox leaders have denied is linked to human activity.Ms. León said that the agreement showed that the Popular Party “is willing to compromise on some issues on which it has different views from Vox” in order to govern.The left was quick to use the Valencia agreement as proof that a Popular Party governing in alliance with Vox would be a step backward.“There is something much more dangerous than Vox, and that is a PP that assumes the postulates and policies of Vox,” Mr. Sánchez said in an interview with El País on Sunday. “And this is what we are seeing: the negation of political, social and scientific consensus.”Under pressure, the Popular Party has tried to distance itself from the most controversial positions of the far-right party. After a top Vox leader in Valencia said on Friday that “gender violence does not exist” — an issue that parties from across the political spectrum have long acknowledged and combated — Mr. Feijóo rushed to denounce his remarks.“Gender violence exists,” Mr. Feijóo wrote on Twitter. “We will not take a step back in the fight against this scourge. We will not give up our principles, no matter the cost.” More

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      Spanish Prime Minister Calls Snap Election for July

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      Pedro Sánchez, who leads a fragile coalition government, made the announcement after his liberal party lost ground to conservatives in regional and local elections over the weekend.Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, said Monday that he would dissolve Parliament and called a snap election for July after his liberal party suffered bruising defeats in regional and local elections over the weekend.“Although yesterday’s elections had a local and regional scope, the meaning of the vote conveys a message that goes beyond that,” Mr. Sánchez said, speaking in front of Spain’s presidential palace. “I take personal responsibility for the results.”The announcement by Mr. Sánchez, who is popular in the European Union for his progressive policies but has been increasingly a weight on his party’s fortunes, brings to a premature end the country’s first coalition government since the return of democracy in the 1970s.But that coalition, formed in 2020 after a monthslong political limbo, was from the start a hodgepodge of leftist parties and deeply polarizing Catalan and Basque separatists. Its abiding fragility came to the fore with the local election results.Mr. Sánchez’s Socialist Workers’ Party was crushed by the conservative Popular Party. But in a sign of the shifting political winds, the far-right Vox party — still taboo to many moderates — also performed well, and now is represented in all the country’s regional parliaments.“Kicking out Pedro Sánchez to repeal each and every one of his policies,” will be the party’s focus, Santiago Abascal, Vox’s leader, said at a news conference on Monday.Supporters of the conservative Popular Party celebrated election results on Sunday at party headquarters in Madrid.Javier Soriano/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesDuring this spring’s nasty campaign, Mr. Sánchez sought to highlight the achievements of his party. Mr. Sánchez has overseen an economic growth rate above the European Union average and the country’s deepest drop in unemployment since 2008, and given Spaniards relatively low power prices despite the energy crisis that has swept the continent, thanks to a price cap won from Brussels.But conservatives found fertile ground in Mr. Sánchez’s dependence on his coalition’s separatists and far-left forces, and they attacked vigorously.“That has given ammunition to the right wing to say Sánchez is in the hands of radical people,” said Ignacio Jurado, a professor of political science at the Carlos III University in Madrid.Mr. Sánchez’s decision to move up the national elections to July 23 from their planned date at the end of the year was an effort to staunch the political bleeding as his government hemorrhages popularity. While moving up the elections won’t solve Mr. Sánchez’s problems, Mr. Jurado said, “it will be better.”But even if an accelerated timetable limits damage to Mr. Sánchez’s political career, he seems significantly diminished from when he bound onto the international stage five years ago.Mr. Sánchez, young, tall and photogenic, unexpectedly took power in June 2018 after he called for a no-confidence vote that brought down the conservative government amid a slush-fund scandal in the conservative Popular Party.He then formed a government with the support of the leftist Unidas Podemos and the separatist parties, who harbored hopes of breaking away from Madrid, and immediately became a source of hope for liberals desperate for an international standard-bearer during a season of populist and hard-right victories across the Continent.Mr. Sánchez, seated at bottom left, at the Parliament in Madrid in March. He has been in power since 2018.J J Guillen/EPA, via ShutterstockBut signs of the volatility of his coalition showed in early 2019, when Catalan lawmakers withdrew their support. Mr. Sánchez called an election and stayed on as a caretaker, but Spain endured months of political uncertainty until his re-formed coalition’s victory in January 2020.In the ensuing years, the Covid pandemic hit Spain hard but Mr. Sánchez earned kudos from Brussels for his stewardship of relief funds, the Spanish economy improved and he sought a larger footprint in Brussels.“We won’t be passive actors in the European debate,” Mr. Sánchez said at a business leader event in 2019. “We will be at the vanguard.”But all along, the cracks in his coalition became more visible, and Spanish voters noticed. They also seemed to have tired of Mr. Sánchez himself, who as conservatives sought to nationalize the local races, making them a referendum on Madrid, became a drag on his party’s candidates even in apparent strongholds like Seville, where the popular mayor lost.The conservative Popular Party, in fact, made substantial gains in regional and local elections held across Spain on Sunday.“Spain was dyed blue,” Cuca Gamarra, the secretary of the Popular Party, wrote on Twitter, referring to the party’s color, describing a “strong, clear and resounding result.”But now the conservatives have to forge a difficult coalition of their own. To govern the cities and regions, the Popular Party now has to enter into negotiations with the far-right Vox party, which has released videos of its leader on horseback calling for the “reconquest” of Spain and has called for the walling off of North African enclaves. Vox, which won elections to form part of a regional government in Northwest Spain in March, has now doubled its votes compared with local elections in 2019.Supporters of the far-right Vox party at an anti-government protest in Madrid in November. The party has doubled its votes in regional elections since 2019.Pierre-Philippe Marcou/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesBut Vox remains anathema to many of Spain’s moderate voters, and the Popular Party will most likely need their support to win the national elections in July.Experts say that Mr. Sánchez will seek to exploit that uncomfortable alliance in much the same way that the Popular Party used his own coalition partners against him.The Popular Party performed strongly against the Socialist Workers’ Party in the regions of Valencia, Aragón and the Balearic Islands. Unidas Podemos, Mr. Sánchez’ coalition partner, was also battered in Sunday’s election, and lost all 10 of its representatives in the Madrid regional parliament.The election will take place shortly after Spain will assume the presidency of the Council of the European Union, raising the possibility that the country might change its prime minister during its term. More

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      The Iberian Solution Could Offer Europe More Gas

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      Never has the question of where Europe’s foreign gas supplies come from, and whether there are alternatives to the continent’s dependence on Russia, been so much debated as in recent weeks. A subject that is usually the preserve of specialists has become the focus of endless discussion. Are there other sources of gas supplies for the European Union?

      The Unthinkable: War Returns to Europe

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      The immediate answer is there are very few today outside of Russia itself, hence the large rise in gas prices witnessed lately. Over the medium term, however, Libya and Algeria have ample opportunity to increase their supplies to the EU.

      Supplies From Libya and Algeria

      Libya boasts proven gas reserves of 1,500 billion cubic meters (bcm). Its production is a modest 16 bcm. Algeria has 4,500 bcm of proven reserves and 20-25 trillion cubic meters (tcm) of unconventional gas reserves, the third-largest in the world after the United States and China (and Argentina whose proven reserves tie with Algeria). How much gas that could produce is anyone’s guess, but we are speaking of a figure in the tens of bcm.

      Algeria today produces 90 bcm, of which 50 bcm were exported. Another feature of Algeria is the huge storage capacity — 60 bcm — of the Hassi R’Mel gas field, its oldest and largest compared with the EU’s storage capacity of 115 bcm.

      Pierre Terzian, the founder of the French energy think-tank Petrostrategies, points out that four underwater gas pipelines link these two producers directly to the European mainland: the first links Libyan gas fields with Italy; the second Algerian gas fields to Italy via Tunisia; the third Algerian gas fields to southern Spain; and the fourth the same gas fields to southern Spain via Morocco.

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      The latter has been closed since November 1, 2021, due to deteriorating relations between Algeria and Morocco, but this has not affected the supply of gas to the Iberian Peninsula. Algeria also has two major liquified natural gas (LNG) terminals, which adds flexibility to its export policy. Its exports to France and the United Kingdom are in LNG ships.

      The leading cause of the current crisis is structural as, according to Terzian, EU domestic gas production has declined by 23% over the last 10 years and now covers only 42% of consumption, as compared with 53% in 2010. That decline is the result, in particular, of the closing of the giant Groningen gas field, which is well underway and will be completed by 2030.

      Europe has done a lot to expand the gas transmission grid among EU countries, but some major gas peninsulas remain. In 2018, it was suggested that connections between the Iberian Peninsula and the rest of Europe needed developing. Spain boasts one-third of Europe’s LNG import capacity, much of it unused, and is connected to Algeria by two major pipelines that could be extended.

      As Alan Riley and I noted four years ago, the “main barrier to opening up the Iberian energy market’s supply routes to the rest of the EU is the restricted route over the Franco-Spanish border. Only one 7-bcm gas line is available to carry gas northwards … The main blocking factor has been the political power of Electricité de France, which is seeking to protect the interests of the French nuclear industry.” An Iberian solution, we added, would not only “benefit France and Spain, but also Algeria, creating additional incentives to explore for new gas fields and maybe kick start a domestic renewables revolution,” which would encourage a switch in consumption from gas to solar in Algeria.

      Germany, the Netherlands and Italy

      Germany, for its part, has never put its money where its mouth is with regard to Algeria. In 1978, Ruhrgas (now absorbed in E.ON) signed a major contract to supply LNG to Germany. Germany never built the LNG terminal needed to get that contract off the ground. So far, it is the only major European country to have no LNG import terminals, although it can rely on existing facilities in the Netherlands and Belgium.

      In 1978, the Netherlands also contracted to buy Algerian gas. Algeria dropped the contract in the early 1980s because of Germany’s refusal to go ahead. Later in the 1980s, Ruhrgas again expressed its interest in buying Algerian gas, but the price offered was too low and because Ruhrgas wanted to root the gas through France, which insisted on very high transit fees. By discarding Algerian gas, Germany has tied itself to Russian goodwill.

      Italy, like Germany, a big importer of Russian gas, has positioned itself much more adroitly. In December 2021, Sonatrach, Algeria’s state oil and gas monopoly, increased the amount of gas pumped through the TransMed pipeline, which links Algeria to Italy via Tunisia and the Strait of Sicily at the request of its Italian customers. This followed a very successful state visit by Italian President Sergio Mattarella to Algeria in early November. On February 27, Sonatrach confirmed it could pump additional gas to Europe, but contingent on meeting current contractual commitments.

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      Relations between the Italian energy company ENI and Sonatrach are historically close because of the important role played by the Italian company’s founder, Enrico Mattei, in advising the provisional government of the Republic of Algeria in its negotiations with France, which resulted in the independence of Algeria in July 1962.

      The pursuit of very liberal energy policies since the turn of the century by the European Commission overturned the policies of long-term gas and LNG purchase contracts, which were the norm in internationally traded gas until then. Yet security of supply does not rest on such misguided liberalism. New gas reserves cannot be found, let alone gas fields brought into production if producers and European customers are, as Terzian points out, “at the mercy of prices determined by exchange platforms which have dubious liquidity (and can be influenced by major players).” This is an attitude, he adds, “that borders on the irresponsible.”

      German energy policy has mightily contributed to the present crisis. It has blithely continued to shut down the country’s nuclear plants, increased its reliance on coal in the electricity sector and with that a consequent increase in carbon emissions.

      Serious Dialogue

      When considering Caspian gas as an alternative to Russian gas, I would add another country, Turkey, which has a very aggressive and independent policy as a key transit for gas. However, few observers would argue that such a solution would increase Europe’s security.

      Engaging in serious long-term strategic dialogue with Algeria would provide Spain and the EU with leverage. This could help to build better relations between Algeria, Morocco and also the troubled area of the Sahel. When trying to understand the politics of different nations, following the money often offers a good guide. One might also follow the gas.

      *[This article was originally published by Arab Digest, a partner organization of Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      From the Maghreb to the East, Poking the EU Has an MO

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      Contemporary diplomatic relations between Morocco and Spain saw their genesis after the Spanish departed from Western Sahara and the tripartite agreement was reached in 1975. Signed in Madrid, this agreement between Morocco, Mauritania, and Spain tried to normalize the future of the region’s borders and of the people of Western Sahara.

      However, after signing the deal, the government in Madrid never formalized its political and diplomatic position regarding Moroccan sovereignty over Spain‘s former colony in Western Sahara. A geopolitical matter of vital importance for Morocco, the question of Western Sahara remains an unhealed wound in the relationship between Madrid and Rabat.

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      In 2021, this wound was reopened after Spain, in a somewhat secret and irregular move, welcomed Brahim Ghali, secretary-general of the Polisario Front, a nationalist movement seeking independence for Western Sahara vis-à-vis Morocco. On top of the fact that Ghali is wanted in Spain for crimes against humanity, rape and torture, among others, he is also a staunch enemy of the government in Rabat.

      This politically embarrassing situation, a product of a diplomatic miscalculation by the Spanish government, created a feeling of betrayal in Rabat. Morocco quickly conveyed its discomfort, considering Spain’s harboring of Ghali a challenge to the kingdom’s sovereignty and interference in an internal state matter. Thus, Morocco issued a warning that continuing to host Ghali would have consequences.

      Spain in North Africa

      Despite these warnings, the government in Madrid decided not to make any political or diplomatic overtures to Morocco, declining to resolve the misunderstanding in a consensual manner. Therefore, in a way, the Spanish government forwent its diplomatic relationship with Morocco and disregarded the important role that Rabat has always played as a critical partner in the fight against illegal trafficking and terrorism stemming from the Maghreb and the Sahel.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Though the relationship between Morocco and Spain has lived through ups and downs, the tensions last year felt much different. Through relaxation of its military controls, Rabat‘s threat became a reality in May 2021 when Morocco effectively opened its border with Ceuta, a Spanish enclave and autonomous city located on the African continent, which made it easier for waves of irregular migrants to reach Tarajal beach. Around 8,000 people, including more than 1,500 estimated minors, tried to cross the Spanish-Moroccan border on foot and by swimming to enter Spanish soil illegally.

      As crude as it may seem, this political move by the government in Rabat, using Moroccans and Africans in general as a weapon against Spain, is not new. For years, Morocco has used this modus operandi as a diplomatic weapon to pressure and obtain concessions from its European neighbor. However, there has not been such a mass arrival of people, especially such a high percentage of minors, to the Spanish border in recent history.

      The diplomatic crisis last May led to authentic moments of chaos and siege along Ceuta‘s border, making the passage of many of these immigrants to the European territory possible. Through its actions, Rabat sent a message without palliatives and implored the Spanish government to back down from political moves, such as open invitations to regional nationalist leaders.

      The Existential Issue of Territorial Integrity

      Morocco’s red lines related to Western Sahara have been drawn, and the kingdom has reiterated that interferences with its national sovereignty will not be tolerated. The crude political response at the Spanish border of Ceuta represents the harshness of Rabat‘s diplomatic relations, choosing, yet again, to weaponize its population.

      Spain needs Morocco; indeed, Europe needs Morocco. Rabat is a crucial partner in Africa, especially given the many challenges in the region. However, Spain and the European Union should not allow the pressure and blackmail from their North African neighbor to stand because they embolden others. Spain and the EU should impose strict red lines on Morocco as well as clear and intelligent economic sanctions concerning development, education and health funds.

      Political, and diplomatic issues can be resolved with class and delicacy without cheap blows and without trivializing despair and compassion. For this, Spain needs to reach a rapprochement with Morocco regarding the status and future of Western Sahara.

      Energy and Copycats

      In tandem with Morocco’s migrant valve vis-à-vis Spain, Algeria started leveraging its gas valve to counter France’s escalation on matters like issuing visas to Algerian citizens. In this latter issue, Spain and Morocco, neither of whom are particularly close with Algeria, are collateral damage to the Paris-Algiers feud whether in the form of declining pipeline revenues or a higher power bill.

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      Since these episodes toward the middle of last year, the same playbook has been used by Moscow’s client in Minsk, who has fostered a migrant cul-de-sac along the EU’s Polish border. In doing so, Russia and Belarus are feeding the euroskeptic spirits within the Visegrad countries and beyond, which are particularly sensitive to migration and border sovereignty issues. Moreover, Alexander Lukashenko and Vladimir Putin are playing good cop, bad cop on the issue of Europe’s gas supply by offering both threats and assurances that further highlight the EU’s vulnerable dependency on external providers when it comes to energy.

      On the migration front, the European Union needs to reinforce its external borders and FRONTEX agency, particularly within the Schengen area, and formulate a common framework to tackle both migration quotas and allocation throughout Schengen member countries. Not only is the migrant reality in places like Spain, Greece, and Poland a human tragedy, but it is also increasingly a geopolitical lever weaponized by Morocco, Turkey, Belarus and other adversaries to destabilize the EU and bolster internal chaos to the benefit of figures such as Viktor Orban, Geert Wilders, Santiago Abascal, Marine Le Pen, and Eric Zemmour.

      Whether nuclear, solar or wind, a common and comprehensive European defense framework urgently requires a holistic approach that tackles the issue of energy independence, in addition to that of border security, particularly in an increasingly hostile and multipolar neighborhood.

      Building Solutions Where Possible

      Along the Maghreb, one of the best solutions would be a new pragmatic and flexible bipartisan agreement between Spain and Morocco. An agreement that commemorates the golden jubilee of the Tripartite Agreement provides a firm solution to the Western Sahara dispute in a framework that benefits coexistence in the region and maintains collaboration in critical matters such as the fight against terrorism, illegal immigration and human trafficking.

      In the same way, Spain and the EU must encourage the good behavior of Morocco with humanitarian aid and fruitful commercial relations to definitively close the post-colonial wound that sometimes reopens between the two countries.

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      Proscribing the Far Right: Is Spain Doing Enough?

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      Proscription, the listing of some groups or organizations as terrorists, has become a crucial counterterrorism initiative adopted by liberal democratic governments. Despite the criticism proscription has caused due to it occurring at the discretion of individual states, it has proved to be an effective preventative strategy.

      Since the banning of the far-right National Action in the United Kingdom in 2016, other countries have followed suit. In Germany, groups like Combat 18 and Citizens of the Reich have been proscribed as terrorists. Canada has done the same with Combat 18, Blood and Honor, Three Percenters, Aryan Strikeforce and the Proud Boys.

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      Spain has also designated particular organizations as terrorists. Their legal prosecution has affected the nature and activity of the far right at the national level.

      Hate and Radicalization in Spain

      In 2017, the educational SM foundation launched a study on the behaviors and attitude of Spanish millennials. The study unveiled the increasing ideological radicalization of that generation, as one in five young individuals (out of a total sample of 1,250) supported either the extreme left or right.

      Four years later, Spain witnessed an anti-Semitic speech delivered in front of 300 attendees at an event held at the Almudena cemetery in Madrid to commemorate the Division Azul (Blue Division), a group of 14,000 young men who fought for Adolf Hitler in World War II. Torn between bewilderment and outrage, Spaniards wondered about the speaker but also about the speech.

      Embed from Getty Images

      The inflammatory speech was given by Isabel Medina Peralta, an 18-year old history student, member of the Francoist party La Falange (The Phalanx) and a self-described fascist and national-socialist. Her comments are currently being investigated by the prosecution office in Madrid as a hate crime.

      Medina’s case is just the tip of the iceberg of a much larger problem: the increasing presence and relevance of extremist groups in Spain. That increase has been partly driven by a growing sense of dissatisfaction toward the political elites and rising immigration, with the subsequent perception of economic and cultural threat this may represent.

      It is such factors that, in turn, facilitated the relative success of far-right parties like Vox, which was founded in 2013 and holds 52 seats at Spain’s Congress of Deputies, the lower house of parliament. Spain has ceased to be an “exception” among European countries that have witnessed the steady growth of right-wing radicalism since the mid-2010s.

      Legislation

      Spanish law does not condemn any display of Nazi and fascist symbology unless it is related to criminal behavior. In other words, it does not punish the display of extremist symbols unless they are accompanied by active conduct. It is criminal actions and messages that allow for law enforcement to get involved, rather than the use of symbols. The mere display does not make the act a crime. The only exception to this is Law 19/2007 of July 11 against violence, xenophobia, racism and intolerance at sporting events. The law states that the display of Nazi symbology could lead to a fine of up to €3,001 ($3,400) and a six-month ban from attending any sporting event.

      However, there are some existing laws in Spain that could be used to enable the proscription of extremist groups. For example, the Spanish penal code, specifically Article 510, states that those who publicly encourage, promote or incite hatred, hostility, discrimination or violence against a group because of their ethnicity, religious beliefs or sexual identity will be “punished with a prison sentence of one to four years and a fine of six to twelve months.” This also applies to those who produce or disseminate material that encourages, promotes or incites violence against groups.

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      Article 510 also allows the prosecution of those who publicly deny, trivialize or extol genocide and other crimes against humanity. Article 515 of the Spanish penal code could also be applied in prosecution and proscription processes. Section 4 of this article, in particular, states that associations or groups are punishable if they promote discrimination, hatred or violence against people, groups or associations by reason of their ideology, religion or beliefs, ethnicity or gender.

      Where the Spanish penal code would not be enough to proscribe an extremist group, the  Rome Statute of International Criminal Court may be employed. Article 7 on crimes against humanity specifically indicates that a group may be prosecuted under international law if it is responsible for the persecution of a community or collective based on political, racial, national, ethnic, culture, religious, gender or other grounds. When inciting, promoting or motivating such persecution, international law should be applied as a preventative measure.

      Organized Extremism in Spain

      Proscription in Spain began with the dissolution of the neo-Nazi organization Sangre y Honor (Blood and Honor) by Spanish judges, who condemned 15 of the 18 defendants to prison terms of up to three and a half years. Several extremist groups remain active in Spain today.

      Democracia Nacional, a far-right party founded in 1995, is one example. Its current leader, Alberto Bruguera, and 14 other members of the party have been accused by the special public prosecutor on hate crimes for attacking a mosque in Barcelona’s Nou Barris neighborhood in 2017. The prosecutor has requested a 10-year sentence for its leader. The party’s vice-president, Pedro Chaparro, has also been accused of threatening photojournalist Jordi Borras in 2015.

      Alianza Nacional is another problematic group. In 2013, a judge in Vilanova i la Geltru, a city in Catalonia, sentenced three leaders of the organization to two and a half years in prison due to the dissemination of Nazi ideology online. Their message spread hatred against black and Latinx groups as well as immigrant communities and liberal multiculturalism. They blamed these groups for taking the jobs of Spaniards, along with fostering the use, abuse and trafficking of drugs, amongst other crimes.

      Hogar Social is a neo-Nazi group that is well known for its campaigns to collect and share food “only for Spaniards” as well as to squat in buildings.Some of its members have been prosecuted and were due to be judged in December 2021 for inciting hatred and attacking a mosque in March 2016 after a terrorist attack in Brussels, Belgium. They face potential sentences that range from one to four years in prison. The leader of Hogar Social, Melisa Jimenez, was arrested in 2020 and later released for attacking the Socialist Party headquarters and displaying resistance to authorities.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Bastion Frontal is a neo-Nazi group related to the French organization Social Bastion. It was established during the COVID-19 pandemic in the working-class neighborhood of San Blas in Madrid. The group claims to have around 100 active members who are between the ages of 15 and 25. The creation of Bastion Frontal was mainly triggered by the decay of Hogar Social and the rise of VOX, but it does not identify with the latter due to it being a constitutionalist party. Instead, Bastion Frontal aims to abolish the Spanish Constitution. Although its members claim to have a physical headquarters, Bastion Frontal’s presence is mainly online. The prosecutor’s office in Madrid has filed a complaint against the group because of hate crimes due to its threats against unaccompanied minors from Africa, including Morocco.

      Echo Chambers

      Spanish society has been going through a process of polarization, which has been pointed out by academics and civil society actors. The situation, as scholars have mentioned, has remarkably worsened during the pandemic, mainly due to the amount of time people have spent in front of their screens. In particular, young adults are amongst the most vulnerable. In this context, isolationism and echo chambers have further contributed to the strengthening of an already growing extreme right.

      Spain’s practice of prosecuting after crimes against human rights have been committed is only a relatively effective strategy, as it focuses on the individual rather than on the social, economic and ideological networks that the individual relied upon to carry out the violence.

      *[Fair Observer is a media partner of the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in US Politics

      A global agreement on taxing corporations is in sight – let’s make sure it happens

      by

      For more than four years, France, Germany, Italy and Spain have been working together to create an international tax system fit for the 21st century. It is a saga of many twists and turns. Now it’s time to come to an agreement. Introducing this fairer and more efficient international tax system was already a priority before the current economic crisis, and it will be all the more necessary coming out of it.Why? First, because the crisis was a boon to big tech companies, which raked in profit at levels not seen in any other sector of the economy. So how is it that the most profitable companies do not pay a fair share of tax? Just because their business is online doesn’t mean they should not pay taxes in the countries where they operate and from which their profits derive. Physical presence has been the historical basis of our taxation system. This basis has to evolve with our economies gradually shifting online. Like any other company, they should pay their fair share to fund the public good, at a level commensurate with their success.Second, because the crisis has exacerbated inequalities. It is urgent to put in place an international tax system that is efficient and fair. Currently, multinationals are able to avoid corporate taxes by shifting profits offshore. That’s not something the public will continue to accept. Fiscal dumping cannot be an option for Europe, nor can it be for the rest of the world. It would only lead to a further decline in corporate income tax revenues, wider inequalities and an inability to fund vital public services.Third, because we need to re-establish an international consensus on major global issues. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, with the support of our countries, has been doing exceptional work in the area of international taxation for many years. The OECD has put forward fair and balanced proposals on both subjects: the taxation of the profit of the most profitable multinationals, notably digital giants (Pillar 1), and the minimal taxation (Pillar 2). We can build on this work. For the first time in decades, we have an opportunity to reach a historic agreement on a new international tax system that would involve every country in the world. Such a multilateral agreement would signal a commitment to working together on major global issues.With the new Biden administration, there is no longer the threat of a veto hanging over this new system. The new US proposal on minimal taxation is an important step in the direction of the proposal initially floated by our countries and taken over by the OECD. The commitment to a minimum effective tax rate of at least 15% is a promising start. We therefore commit to defining a common position on a new international tax system at the G7 finance ministers meeting in London today. We are confident it will create the momentum needed to reach a global agreement at the G20 in Venice in July. It is within our reach. Let’s make sure it happens. We owe it to our citizens.
      Nadia Calviño, second deputy prime minister of Spain, is the country’s economy minister. Daniele Franco is minister of economy and finance in Italy. Bruno Le Maire is France’s minister of economy, finance and recovery. Olaf Scholz is German vice-chancellor and minister of finance More