This text belongs to 'Peninsulas', the newsletter that Enric Juliana sends out every Tuesday. If you want to receive it, sign up here.
"Spain stops the Meloni wave". This is the title of the chronicle that yesterday opened the Politics section of La Vanguardia. I wrote it just after one in the morning, when we were approaching the exceptional closing time. Usually, the newspaper closes between ten and eleven at night, but on election days the hours are longer. At dawn all cats are brown and ideas begin to dance by themselves. So I went to sleep after three with the suspicion of having put a somewhat geeky headline. Today, Tuesday, I am convinced that it was adequate.
The Peninsulas bulletin began on April 18 warning of the arrival of a current of cold air from northern Europe. The weather report referred to the alliance of the traditional right with the extreme right in Sweden and Finland, countries with an old social democratic tradition. The first Peninsulas referred especially to Finland, where the famous Social Democratic Prime Minister Sanna Marin had just been defeated by the classic conservatives of the National Coalition, attached to the European People's Party, and by the Finns Party, a far-right formation.
The current government of Finland is made up of the National Coalition and the Finns Party, plus two minority formations: the Christian Democrats and the party of the Swedish minority in Finland. That government, which is barely two months old, has already recorded some significant incidents. The economy minister, the far-right Vilhelm Junnila, was forced to resign a few weeks ago due to his former relations with a neo-Nazi group. Those were the winds that came from northern Europe.
“Will the municipal and regional elections of 2023 bring us a new cycle change, as an early expression of the conservative wave that seems to be growing in Europe as a result of the war? This is the question I have been asking myself for a few weeks, after seeing the results of the elections in Finland, the polls in Germany, the political evolution in Italy and the demonstrations in France, which are more than just a protest against the extension of the retirement age”. That was the question of the first Peninsulas.
Subsequently, Manfred Weber, a Bavarian politician who chairs the European People's Party and who for months has been working to establish agreements, alliances and harmony with extreme right-wing parties, faithful to the Atlantic Alliance, meeting in the Conservative group of the European Parliament, entered the scene in this newsletter. A strategy that is not entirely shared by the German CDU. Objective: to move to the right all the axes of the European institutional framework. This is how we explained Weber's roadmap:
“Spain governed again by the PP, with the support of Vox, a party in turn supervised by the Brothers of Italy, which would establish a special alliance with the PPE. After advancing in Scandinavia through agreements with the extreme right in Sweden and Finland, the EPP would take control of southern Europe, waiting to see how the succession of Emmanuel Macron in France is resolved, who by constitutional mandate will not be able to aspire to a third term. That's the map."
The local and regional elections on May 28 in Spain confirmed this forecast. Overwhelmed by the adverse result, Pedro Sánchez advanced the generals and Giorgia Meloni, leader of the Brothers of Italy, did not miss the appointment. In an act held by Vox in the city of Valencia, on July 13, to celebrate her entry into the government of the Valencian Community, the Italian Prime Minister stressed how important the presence of Vox would be in the future Spanish government for the advancement of a new conservative bloc in Europe. Objective: a new majority, with the Social Democrats in a corner, for the election of the future European Commission. A thorough redefinition of European politics.
What would not be my surprise, when last week, two days before the elections, the Corriere della Sera reproduced on full page an interview from the newspaper El Mundo with Alberto Núñez Feijóo, in which he openly spoke out in favor of Meloni joining the European People's Party. (The newspaper El Mundo is owned by the Cairo publishing group, which currently publishes Corriere, the main headline of the Italian press). I was surprised that Feijóo made such explicit statements two days before the general elections. The plan was perfectly laid out.
Indeed, Spain has stopped the Meloni wave. This data was surely not in the minds of the vast majority of voters, but it was in the international coordinates of July 23. And Peninsulas was born to talk about the link between domestic policy and foreign policy. I can assure you that in the main offices in Brussels, in the Élysée Palace in Paris and in the chancellery in Berlin, there were faint smiles of satisfaction yesterday. Not so in the Palazzo Chigi in Rome, seat of the presidency of the Council of Ministers of the Italian Republic.
I refrain from commenting on Ursula von der Leyen's state of mind so as not to create misunderstandings. We have just experienced very underground elections in which the programs have hardly been debated. There has been an obsessive discussion about truth and lies, that is, about trust. And at the bottom of the underground were the power relations in the governing bodies of the European Union.
I leave you with this tweet from Matteo Renzi, former Italian Prime Minister, a European who could be described as liberal-centrist, attached to the dominant European values for the last seventy years. I translate below.
"In Spain we do not know who has won, but we know who has lost: Vox, the extreme right. It is an interesting sign: the elections against Europe are not won. And the next European elections will be won in the center. A message that from Madrid also reaches Rome loud and clear. Giorgia, do you hear that Vox?
Three short comments:
-The direct election of the head of government is needed, in Spain, as in Italy and in the European Commission. Otherwise, there will be more and more distance between the voters and the institutions.
-Sánchez has been bold and skilful in using all institutional mechanisms to block the success of the right. The complete opposite of Enrico Letta [former secretary of the Democratic Party], in short.
The polls are not always correct.
