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2024 EUROPEAN ELECTIONS

Spain right wins EU vote ahead of PM’s Socialists

Spain's right-wing Popular Party (PP) won Sunday's EU vote in the country, just beating Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez's Socialists, official results showed.

Published: 9 June 2024 21:35 CEST

Spain right wins EU vote ahead of PM's Socialists

Right-wing opposition party Partido Popular (PP) leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo casts his ballot for the European Parliament elections at a polling station in Madrid, on June 9, 2024. (Photo by OSCAR DEL POZO / AFP)

With almost all ballots counted, the opposition PP won 22 seats with 34.2 percent of the votes, ahead of the Socialist Party which secured 20 seats after securing 30.2 percent.

During the last European polls in 2019, the Socialists came first with a strong lead, taking 21 seats compared with 13 for the PP.

The far-right Vox came in third in Sunday’s vote, securing six seats, or 9.6 percent of the votes, up from four seats in 2019.

A new far-right faction called “Se Acabó la Fiesta” (“The party’s over”), which was founded by a controversial YouTuber, made a strong debut, obtaining some 4.6 percent of the vote and will enter the European Parliament with three seats.

Sunday’s vote came almost a year after Spain held an inconclusive July election.

Although the PP came first, it didn’t have the parliamentary support to form a government, leaving the way open for Sanchez. He mustered a majority with the backing of far-left and regional parties, including the Catalan separatists.

Campaigning ahead of the European election has been marred by allegations against Sánchez’s wife. A court opened a preliminary graft probe and on Monday said it would summon her to testify early next month.

The right-wing opposition has demanded the prime minister resign, but Sánchez has insisted that the probe was groundless and little more than a political attempt to unseat him.

The investigation was launched following a complaint filed by a group linked to the far right.

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Anonymous - 10 June 2024 at 01:29 CEST

Helpless, and without a cause!

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Could Spain ever dethrone King Felipe and become a republic?

King Felipe VI is set to celebrate a decade on the Spanish throne. He became king on June 19th 2014 following the abdication of his scandal-ridden father, former King Juan Carlos.

This meant that Felipe took over the crown needing to somewhat rehabilitate the public image of la Casa Real. According to polling data released to coincide with his decade as king, it seems he’s done a decent enough job of it so far. In fact, after 10 years on the throne his approval rating has grown.

Felipe obtained an average score of 6.6 among Spaniards polled, surpassing, for the first time, the 6.5 mark. This is according to a survey carried out by the IMOP Insights Institute for Vanitatis.

In fact, after a decade the majority of Spaniards approve of the King’s performance: 46.4 percent have a positive view of his work, compared to 20.9 percent who are critical or hold a negative view.

Older people generally have more favourable views of Felipe and the monarchy, whereas under 25s are the only group with a negative opinion of him.

In terms of regional breakdown, the most pro-Felipe part of the country was found to be Andalusia and the least, to the surprise of absolutely nobody in Spain, was Catalonia.

Many royal commentators in Spain argue that Felipe, along with his daughter, Princess of Asturias Leonor, have taken big steps to restoring the Spanish crown’s credibility.

That Felipe’s personal approval rating has grown over time is testament to that, and positive ratings, especially after a decade in the public eye, is something most politicians could only dream of.

That is to say, there doesn’t seem to be any danger of Spaniards turning on their king for now. But what if Spanish public opinion changed over time and suddenly Spain did want to become a republic?

Legally, constitutionally speaking, could Spain ever dethrone King Felipe and become a republic?

Spain’s King Felipe VI and Spain’s Queen Letizia attend a ceremony for the Spanish Crown Princess of Asturias. Photo: JAVIER SORIANO/AFP.

The steps to a republic

Even if Spaniards themselves wanted it, transitioning from a constitutional monarchy to a republic involves a lot of steps that make it highly unlikely, perhaps even impossible.

The change would require two-thirds support in both chambers of the Spanish Congress, something that is very unlikely in the current political climate. Such consensus across both houses is very, very rare.

But, theoretically speaking, to get rid of the king the Spanish legislature would first need to amend Article 1 of the título preliminar of the Spanish Constitution, which outlines the state structure and clearly says that: “the form of the Spanish state is a parliamentary monarchy”.

To do this, the government or Congress would have to call for a vote on constitutional reform in the Congress of Deputies and it would have to pass with a qualified majority, that is, with a majority of two thirds or more, which is equivalent to 234 or more deputies.

It would then have to be ratified in the Senate with the same qualified majority. Of the 265 senators, 177 would have to be in favour.

But it doesn’t end there. If both chambers agree, Congress would be dissolved, a general election would have to be called, and the voting would have to be repeated among the new deputies.

However, there’s still one final hurdle: a general referendum. The people’s referendum is meant to function as a sort of fail-safe or quality control on the actions of the legislature, especially on such a huge constitutional question.

Javier Tajadura, Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of the Basque Country, told Spanish website Newtral that “the referendum serves as a form of citizen control of what the Cortes want to carry out, and it must be carried out after the votes [in both houses] have been taken.”

If, after all the votes in Congress pass with suitable majorities, the referendum also results in a yes and it is undeniable that Spaniards want to change from monarchy to republic, Spain would become a republic.

Then the debate would shift to whether Spain would need an entirely new constitution, or it would need to make some (pretty huge) changes to the pre-existing constitution of 1978.

So, yes. Spain could, in theory, become a republic. Clearly, the Spanish system has a lot of checks and balances embedded within it that makes moving from a monarchy to a republic constitutionally complicated, politically unlikely, and, in realistic terms, very improbable to the point of being almost impossible.

As Miguel Ángel Cabellos, Professor of Constitutional law at the University of Girona, puts it: “Beyond the fact that it is a change of an essential and core element of the political system, which would also radically divide society, the truth is that from a legal point of view the difficulties are very notable, one could almost say insurmountable in practice.”

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