Liz has turned on the light. The resounding failure of the new British Prime Minister Liz Truss in her attempt to proceed with a drastic tax cut for high-income earners in the United Kingdom has changed the lighting of the thick and sometimes gloomy Spanish political debate. There are events in neighboring countries that occasionally flip a switch or move the spotlight. Sometimes that happens. Today we have seen it in the Senate.
François Mitterrand's retreat from the ambitious nationalization policy undertaken in France in 1981 –almost the entire commercial bank and eleven industrial groups– turned on a red light in European social democracy and pointed out to Felipe González what he should not do, now forty years. (González, it must be said, had no intention of carrying out any nationalization when he won the general elections of October 1982. That was not his program, but after a few months, in February 1983, he was forced to expropriate Rumasa to avoid a catastrophe in the Spanish economy). In short, Mitterrand flipped a European switch in the 1980s by reversing French nationalisations, in the face of adverse financial market responses, capital flight and rising inflation. The world was changing.
The abrupt backtracking by Britain's Conservatives from trying to revive Margaret Thatcher's more aggressive policies amid a colossal energy crisis has also flipped a switch. They are pressing it. The slogan of lowering taxes at all costs must be reviewed after the fiasco of Prime Minister Liz Truss, a few weeks after taking office in the United Kingdom. Brexit is being a catastrophe for British society and the Thatcherite Conservatives are sinking in the polls. Liz has lit a light: watch out for tax cuts in times of turbulence. We are witnessing the Mitterrand moment of neoliberalism.
The proof of this is that the tax cut is no longer the main argument behind Senator Alberto Núñez Feijóo's intervention in the debate on the consequences of the war in Ukraine on the Spanish economy. A debate in which the leader of the opposition has once again been in a position of inferiority with respect to the head of the Executive, despite the fact that the president of the Senate, Ander Gil, has shown himself to be a little more flexible in the administration of the times than in the previous debate of these characteristics in the Spanish upper house (September 6, 2002).
Núñez Feijóo has not talked about large tax cuts - his central proposal in the September debate - and has focused his intervention on the disqualification of Sánchez as ruler, denying him the status of social democrat. Sánchez would simply be a 'Sanchista', an opportunist in collusion with the Catalan independentists and with former ETA supporters. The true PSOE is that of Felipe González, according to the current leader of the Popular Party. With this tactic he intends to continue attracting old socialist voters of mature age. An absorption that seems to have slowed down according to the microdata from the latest CIS barometer, to which more attention must be paid than to the vote projections released this week.
Núñez Feijóo has wanted to present himself today as a man almost bordering on social democracy. He has given Portugal as an example, a country governed by socialists, a country that he knows well, given its proximity to Galicia. The leader of the opposition believes that Portugal's fiscal policy, clearly aimed at attracting foreign investment and residents with good purchasing power, is the policy that Spain should follow. Portugal's main problem, already highlighted in the previous economic crisis, is a weak demography: 10.3 million inhabitants in an area equivalent to that of Andalusia. Some 2.5 million Portuguese live abroad, which means an immigration quota of 25%. Portugal needs people. Portugal needs critical mass.
Spain and Portugal currently share a common energy policy, which the leader of the opposition has not been able to refute. While the debate was being held in the Senate, sources from the European Commission announced the imminence of an agreement to put a temporary cap on the price of gas throughout the European Union with a formula inspired by the so-called Iberian exception. The Iberian cap on the price of gas today has prestige in Europe and is considered in almost all capitals as an intelligent initiative.
Sánchez has appeared in the Senate very sure of himself on the European stage. The situation is adverse in general terms, but Spain has room for manoeuvre. Sánchez has clearly won the debate against a Feijóo, who still does not name the war in Ukraine by his name. The new opposition leader appears to be losing gas.
