The Rise of (Faulty) Euroscepticism? The Impact of a Decade of Crises in Spain

ABSTRACT

Euroscepticism in Spain has so far constituted a marginal phenomenon. A decade of political and economic crises could, however, be setting the stage for rising Spanish opposition to the European Union (EU). By analysing recent survey data and party manifestos, we verify to what extent this might be the case. We find that both public and party-based euroscepticism has gained ground in the traditionally euro-optimist Spanish context over the period under study. We argue, however, that such critical stances towards the EU do not constitute a fundamental turn against the process of integration in Spain. Rather, the country has witnessed the rise of ‘faulty’ euroscepticism rooted in the domestic political crisis.

KEYWORDS:

• European integration
• European Union
• public opinion
• political parties
• party positions
• political trust
• Podemos
• Vox

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the journal Editors and the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and their constructive criticism of the earlier versions of the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Notes

1. Existing studies suggest that exclusive regional identification in Spain has a stronger negative effect for European attachment than Spanish national identity (Brigevich 2012). Therefore, the national/regional dynamics of identification could be relevant for Spanish euroscepticism, in particular, given the contested position (or lack of it) of the EU on the Catalan conflict (see below). However, this is beyond the scope of this paper and should be explored in future research.

2. The predominance of Euro-optimism explains the existence of only a few works that deal with the topic of euroscepticism specifically. These include Llamazares and Gramacho’s article (2007) on public euroscepticism; Gómez-Reino, Llamazares and Ramiro (2008) on the party side of the phenomenon; and the review of the subject by Ruiz Jiménez and Egea de Haro (2011), which constitutes a complementary paper to the present one as it surveys Spanish euroscepticism before the crisis in more detail.

3. The decision-making group formed by the representatives of the European Commission (EC), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

4. Figures are yearly averages computed from the responses to the question about the ‘three most important problems’ in the country, appearing in the monthly survey barometer of the Centro de Investigaciones Sociológicas (CIS) (http://www.cis.es/cis/export/sites/default/-Archivos/Indicadores/documentos_html/TresProblemas.html).

5. According to the Eurobarometer data, the statement ‘immigration of people from outside the EU’ evoked ‘a positive feeling’ for 64 per cent of Spaniards in the Spring of 2019, compared to 39.8 per cent in the whole of the EU. These percentages were, respectively, 55.1 per cent and 33.4 per cent in 2015 (https://ec.europa.eu/commfrontoffice/publicopinion/index.cfm/Chart/getChart/chartType/gridChart//themeKy/59/groupKy/279/savFile/646).

6. The Aquarius was a rescue ship operating in the Mediterranean on behalf of a humanitarian NGO. In June 2018 both the Italian and Maltese governments denied permission for the disembarkation of 629 migrants from Sudan and Bangladesh whom the ship had saved from the sea. The government of Spain offered the port of Valencia as a docking alternative. See ‘Spain to accept migrant ship Aquarius’, BBC News, 12 June 2018 (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-44441386).

7. In 2007 and 2008, on average 28.2 per cent of Spaniards considered immigration as one of the three main problems in the country (see note 3). During the first years of the crisis (2009–2011) this figure decreased to 13.5 per cent, and between 2012 to June 2018 the average was about 3.7 per cent. Then, after the Aquarius crisis, in September 2018, the percentage of Spaniards who considred immigration one of the top three problems in Spain increased again to 15 per cent, and remained at about 11 per cent until September 2019.

8. In October 2017, after the failed unilateral declaration of independence, a group of Catalan secessionist leaders (including former Catalan prime minister, Carles Puigdemont) fled to Belgium and Scotland in order to avoid arrest on charges of rebellion, sedition, and misuse of public funds (The Guardian 2017). The Spanish Supreme Court initially issued a European arrest warrant (EAW) but this was dropped in December 2017 after concerns of the Spanish Supreme Court that the Belgian courts would not support extradition under the charge of rebellion, which would hinder trying Puigdemont and their associates on this charge (El País 2017). The EAW was subsequently reactivated in March 2018. A few days later, Puigdemont was arrested in Germany. In July 2018, the regional court of Schleswig-Holstein authorised the extradition of Puigdemont but only for the charge of misuse of public funds, but not rebellion. Following this ruling, the Supreme Court dropped the EAW again, while the judge in charge of the prosecution strongly criticised the German court’s decision (El País 2018). In addition, the ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union of 19 December 2019 established that the former Catalan vice-president and secessionist leader, Oriol Junqueras, in provisional detention since October 2017 while being prosecuted by Spanish courts, and who was elected as an MEP in May 2019, should have enjoyed the immunities guaranteed by EU law to take up his seat in the European Parliament. This ruling made it possible for other secessionist leaders who fled from Spanish justice (including Puigdemont) and who were also elected as MEPs to take office in their EP seats (El País 2019), and it forced the Supreme Court to drop the EAWs against them once more.

9. In January 2017 Vox participated in a meeting in Koblenz with other eurosceptic radical right parties, including Front National¸Alternative für Deutschland, Lega Nord, and the Partij voor de Vrijheid. See ‘VOX participa en la cumbre de la ultraderecha europea contra la UE’, Agencia EFE, 22/01/2017 (https://www.efe.com/efe/espana/politica/vox-participa-en-la-cumbre-de-ultraderecha-europea-contra-ue/10002-3155999).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

José Real-Dato

José Real-Dato is Associate Professor of Political Science and Public Administration at the Department of Law, University of Almería (Spain). One of his areas of research is the attitudes of national political elites towards the European Union. On this subject he has co-edited (with Nicolò Conti and Borbála Göncz) the book National Political Elites, European Integration and the Eurozone Crisis (Routledge, 2018).

Aleksandra Sojka

Aleksandra Sojka is Visiting Professor at the Department of Social Sciences, Carlos III University of Madrid. She has previously been a Visiting Fellow at the LSE European Institute and a Visiting Scholar at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University. Her research focuses on EU politics and the political sociology of European integration, with a particular interest in the role of attitudes, values, and social identification.