The core of the fight between Feijóo and Abascal: the Spain that Vox wants

The noise of the week around the PP and Vox, of the agreed pacts and the frustrated ones, has managed to put the accent on the tensions between the two parties and within them. The background that profiles such as Iván Espinosa de los Monteros have assumed has triggered rumors about a recomposition in the ranks of Vox, and the strategy of agreeing and rejecting at the same time has led to Genoa being accused of lack of definition. The attacks from the left, both against Vox and the PP, due to the agreements reached and the disappearance of the term gender violence, have engulfed the debates.

Beyond these angles, there is a series of ideological questions, of significant relevance, that fly over the daily noise. Vox is not just a Spanish party, but is linked to a right that is growing in northern Europe, which is based in the east and has a significant presence in the south. It is part of an international movement, within which there are appreciable differences between the different parties, but which shares a common nucleus with which they are challenging and, sometimes, destroying traditional liberal formations. It is natural that Vox tries to emphasize that nucleus that is ensuring triumphs outside our country.

Likewise, they are also obliged to position themselves ideologically in a different way if, as the surveys anticipate, there is a change of government. The departure of Sánchez would mean that all this flow of discontent with the president would disappear from the scene, with which Vox would lose part of its speech, at the same time that it would have to deal, whether inside or outside Moncloa, with a PP that surpasses it in vote.

Both aspects make it necessary to point out, beyond specific people, lists and electoral fights, the country model that Vox offers, what its ideological keys are and what its political position will be in the near future.. Especially when, in Brussels and Berlin, the rise of those of Abascal is analyzed with concern.

The fears of Brussels

Vox is in the same line as Giorgia Meloni and the Polish right of Law and Justice; they are part of the same group and have a very similar vision of the future of the continent: more Europe and much less European Union. They advocate the sovereignty of nations and the defense of the nation state, which has a complicated fit within the current European framework.. AfD has proposed in Germany the breakup of the EU and the creation of a federation of States, and this is the limit position towards which the rest of the right tend. Vox is very hostile to the Brussels bureaucracy and the idea of national sovereignty is present.

Another aspect that arouses debate is his defense of protectionism. It is a position that they hold from a nuanced position, which links with the sign of the times. The Vox management team, which claims to subscribe to political liberalism and, therefore, to the separation of powers and institutional counterweights, is less kind to the economic liberalism deployed in the era of globalization.. They understand that all the big nations, such as France, the United Kingdom or the USA, are deploying protectionist policies that are useful in a context like the present.. They believe that this idea of liberalism, according to which the market was a kind of god that would manage to evangelize authoritarian states, has proven to be a failure.. It is time to change the pace: “When Kissinger and Nixon negotiate with Mao, they do not do so to democratize China, but to distance it from Russia. They were pursuing their interests, and that perspective is important today.. The proof is that the countries that have promoted economic liberalism the most, such as the US or the United Kingdom, are returning to protecting their interests,” they say from Vox.

They warn that this defense of protectionism, however, is perfectly compatible with other elements of economic liberalism: the functioning of the market, the absence of the State in the economy and the fiscal perspective (less taxes) clearly belong to that area.. “That is the perspective adopted by the current Polish and Italian governments and it is working for them”.

Another controversial aspect is its international position. The leader of the German CDU, Friedrich Merz, has recently stated that he will never agree with the extreme right, the AfD, because they are an anti-Semitic party.. Similarly, formations of this spectrum have been accused of sympathizing with Putin and being against NATO.. Vox is pro-NATO, pro-Israel and anti-Putin. They insist that the European group of which they are a part, the ECR, has Likud and American Republicans as partners, which clearly demonstrates their allegiance, that they are totally in favor of NATO and that no speech of theirs has been favorable to Putin, more to the contrary.

The fourth issue for which Vox is feared in Brussels is its position on immigration. In this case, the alarm is much less, given that migration policies are changing within the Union. The rapprochement between Macron and Meloni on immigration is a clear sign, as are the measures that northern European governments have been taking for some time..

In the Spanish case, however, there is a peculiarity. Vox always insists that they are opposed to illegal immigration, since “in addition to violating the law, it is a grievance for legal immigrants, implies additional and high spending on the public resources of the Welfare State and disturbs the possibility of decent employment conditions, by pushing wages down”. They also believe that this kind of immigration is a problem, because the majority of those who come through these channels are young men, the segment of the population “that has the greatest tendency to commit crimes.”.

They affirm, therefore, that they are in favor of controlled immigration, on demand and in accordance with economic criteria and the employability needs of the country.. However, and this is the Spanish particularity, they understand that the assimilation criteria must be important: they prefer Latin American immigration, since we share with them culture, history and many values, rather than the Maghrebi or African, whose customs and ways of life collide with ours. They also warn of the negative potential of this kind of immigration: “The experience of the Nordic countries puts us on alert, since it has generated a lot of insecurity, maladjustment and more danger for women”.

The last aspect that concerns Brussels is relevant, insofar as it is one of the central issues of contemporary politics. Vox places great emphasis on the 2030 Agenda as an essential part of a series of policies aimed at combating climate change. The green transformation is relevant, to the extent that the populist right-wing has found an electoral vein among those who oppose it. The growth of the German extreme right, the AfD, which is at 20% of voting intentions, cannot be understood without the insistence of the German government on accelerating the transformation: the cost that citizens are facing has generated a lot of discontent. Something similar happened with the Dutch farmers' party or, earlier, with the yellow vests. The controversy of Doñana and the irrigated lands also has to do with this type of discomfort. Vox opposes climate policies and the green transformation, and is committed to nuclear and hydrocarbons. This goes completely contrary to that marked by the Commission, for which the green transformation is crucial.

The Spanish disagreements

The popular ones are convinced that, given their position on the party map and their greater electoral strength, they will be able to deal with Vox (“tame it”) in the event that they are forced to govern with those of Abascal. They expect a coexistence that may suffer tensions, but that will be solvable thanks to the greater popular power. However, the projects of both in the national field, which may coincide in many aspects, vary notably in terms of intensity.. Vox, for example, has a pro-family vision, which is based on the rejection of it, which they understand has been promoted by postmodernists and Marxists.. They believe that it is a “space of freedom against the State and against its authoritarian drift”, as well as “a basic and minimal redoubt in which everyone can resist”. The defense of the family is common in the European right, and Vox does not separate one iota from it.

However, there is an added nuance, which refers to demographics. They advocate active birth policies, and not only for economic rationality, in order to have inhabitants who can support future pensions, but they perceive it as “a commitment to the continuity of Spanish culture, which can be weakened if there are more and more less nationals”.

Secondly, Vox understands that the unity of the nation is weakly defended by the popular, and an example has been Barcelona, “where the PP has promoted the Socialists to the mayor's office; we do not differentiate between the greater evil and the minor, and the PSC and ERC are part of the same”. They believe that Feijóo will assume nationalist postulates if they are useful to him to govern, “as he already did in Galicia”, and that means “gaining oxygen at the cost of disrupting the State”.

The third issue of confrontation revolves around the woke ideology, “which the left introduced, but which the PP has accepted in many aspects, and has even gone ahead of it, as with Ayuso's trans law”. They insist that everything that Zapatero's PSOE legislated on democratic memory and gender violence was maintained by the PP, and that the same thing will probably happen now. Nor do they believe that the PP is going to pay any attention to the misrepresentation of the history of Spain that has been taking place in recent years, which is part of “an international movement: in Latin America it bears the name of indigenismo, and here that of historical memory “.

The final element of divergence “is the place that Spain should occupy in the world. For us, Spain is not a followerist and conformist nation, as the PP perceives it: we want a country that aspires to play an important role in Europe, Latin America and USA, and that it is a leader in some areas”.

The ideological elements, therefore, that separate Vox and PP are not minor. We will see how they combine if Sánchez leaves the Government and what role each one plays in the bloc of the Spanish right.