36. Spain's Fractured Politics - Daniel Lacalle

In a previous episode (Madrid: the Capital of Capitalism), we explored the nature of governance in Spain's capital. However, the bigger picture for the largest country on the Iberian peninsula is one of political turmoil and deadlock. Economist Daniel Lacalle joins us for a thought-provoking discussion and a somewhat cautionary tale for the Caribbean region.

The current political stalemate stems from the 2017 Catalonia Declaration of Independence, which Lacalle describes as more of an unconstitutional pantomime of an actual coup d'état. Despite having no legal or even historical basis for independence, Lacalle notes the knock effects that this event has had on Spanish politics even to this day. The parties who engineered and participated in the coup have been allowed to form a coalition government which is unsurprisingly and consistently at loggerheads with the ideologically dissimilar ruling party it is now bonded with. A major point of contention is a recently passed amnesty law that allows the most egregious offenders, to be pardoned for sedition and thus remain in power. The result is a stagnant legislative and executive arm of government that is paralyzed by infighting. 

How does Spain's prosperity persist against these odds? Lacalle posits that the country is not where it should be economically. And that the government's growth reports are mostly deceptive, hiding inflationary gains following the downturn from the COVID-19 pandemic. This resembles the reporting from some Caribbean countries, keen on maintaining the delusion of a rebound after the hard-hitting effects of global tourism shutdowns. 

The key takeaway is the air of distraction from the real economic and political thorns in Spain's proverbial sides and the lengths to which a discordant government will go, to deflect from these issues. Once again, how can the Caribbean region learn from the pitfalls of political fracturing that can grossly impede the progress of even the world's largest economies? 

Transcript

Rasheed: Last year. In the general elections in Spain. The center, right party wants a larger share of full. But did not have enough seats to form a government. They were also unable to form a coalition. The incumbent socialist party with invited by the king of Spain to attempt to form a new government. To do this they struck a deal with the Catalonian separatist parties. This deal has since then put democracy on a standstill in Spain because it will include an amnesty for which the separatists who illegally declared independence in Spain in 2017 would not face any charges. Spanish politics in the last year has been in chaos.

In this episode, we will dive into the current political economy of Spain and what this chaos has led to. To do this I am joined by Daniel Lacalle He is a professor of global economy at IE University and also chief economist at Tressis a private investment bank based in Madrid.

So, onto the show.

Good morning, Daniel, and thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today.

Daniel: It's a great pleasure to be here. Thank you so much.

Rasheed: So we are sitting here in Madrid and all the talk right now in politics in Spain is about the amnesty bill which will likely pass today or tomorrow. Uh, early sometime this week. And for audiences who are not in Spain, I think they're missing quite a substantial amount of context on why this bill has essentially brought democracy in general in question here in Spain. And I assume it's goes back to at least the, most recent incarnation of this problem was in 2017 in August when Catalonia unilaterally, declared independence from Spain, following a very faulty, to put it mildly, referendum that they held at that time. So I want to start there. Why was it justified or why did Catalonia think they were justified to declared themselves independence from Spain? And how does this or that kind of independent streak make ways forward into the current problem now in 2024 politics in Spain.

Daniel: Okay, let's start with a little bit of history. The separatist parties in Spain are not forbidden. They are not even having difficulties to disseminate their message. In fact, many of them are in power in their regions and have contributed and been in the national governments, either supporting or with even with ministerial position.

In Spain, there is absolutely no problem if you want to defend a separatist position. There is a constitution in Spain. There is a constitution and there is a law. It's completely different to defend separatism than to unilaterally declare a referendum that has not been approved and without any type of legal or constitutional rights, because it wasn't even a referendum.

It was literally just a pantomime trying to make some kind of a vote that was almost predetermined by a very specific group of parties. Secondly, the regional government of Catalonia does not have the power to declare unilaterally independence. It is not an autonomous region with that kind of power. An autonomous region in Spain has a very significant level of power more than, for example, the Länder in Germany, or the many states in the United States, but basically what was happening was a literal coup d'état.

It's a literal coup d'état, in which by the way they were even going against the vote, because there's a very important context to be put as well, is that the separatist parties have never been more than 50 percent of the vote. Most of the Catalonian citizens like an autonomous region, like their culture, like to defend their unique characteristics.

That is absolutely perfect, but not outside of Spain and certainly outside. It was also not a declaration of independence because you don't declare yourself independent and at the same time continue to want the same currency, the same European union, the same legal. And by the way, the way Spain would continue to pay for things like pensions.

That's one of the elements. That created a very significant level of tension. And obviously there were a number of judicial procedures that led to people that had to go to jail for embezzlement. People didn't go to jail because of their ideas. They went to jail because of embezzlement or because of breaking specific laws, completely different thing.

And one of them, not one of them, but a couple of them fled the country, left the country, which they did, and continued to defend their position. One of them was Mr Puigdemont who was the president of Together for Catalonia and fled the country. This leads now to an amnesty law that has another important precedent. When Pedro Sanchez, the current leader of the Socialist Party and also the Secretary General of the Socialist Party and leader of the government found himself in a very weak position in terms of ability to retain a majority in Parliament they had to start to concede to the demands of some of the Catalan nationalists.

Those requests started with the reduction of the penalty for embezzlement, for public embezzlement, which in itself is quite surprising considering that this government, and Mr. Sánchez in particular, sells itself as, or prides itself on being against corruption. Reducing the penalty for embezzlement is quite surprising.

The other was to eliminate the penalty and the obvious charges of sedition. So, the Socialist Party has always been against an amnesty law. An amnesty law, let's start from the premise of what is an amnesty law. An amnesty law is usually declared when there is a change of a regime usually when you go from a dictatorship to a democracy in which you agree that there are some people that have been wrongfully declared delinquents because of their political ideas. That is not the case in Spain in any case, but there is a very important element of an amnesty law to take into account is that there is no amnesty law in the world in which in a democracy there has been any kind of amnesty to citizens that have not declared that they will not repeat those same actions or that they reject the actions that they understood that you can provide an amnesty, you could actually provide an amnesty to the Catalan separatists who fled the country if they had publicly declared that they had broken the law, accepted the penalties, and then you can receive an amnesty.

This is an ad hoc amnesty law dictated by the person who broke the law to amnesty himself from not just the things that they did and he did in 2017, but in the future. It's completely insane. It's so wide open and so dangerous precisely because of that. Because it is literally saying that all of the judicial system, which is independent in Spain, all of the proceedings have been declared as illegal as if the state had committed some kind of harm or committed some kind of illegality.

I think that the most important fact here is that there is never been an amnesty law ever in any democratic country. I don't think that in any country, but certainly no developed country, that has been dictated by the person that is going to benefit from that amnesty law without any kind of repentance and without any kind of change in the political position of that person.

Rasheed: Yeah, it's very surprising of course, that this has even gone to this stage.

And of course Sanchez's coalition couldn't exist without the agreement that he gave to the separatists in this amnesty bill. But going back a few years, I guess the original reason why Sanchez essentially came to power was, that he cast a no-confidence vote against Rajoy at the time and how the constitution is worse in Spain here is for our listener context is the person who cast a vote of no confidence if it gets supported, he then actually becomes the president of the government. That's how Sanchez became prime minister or president of the government to use Spain’s language. At that time it was him, he had to get collaboration from other separatist parties the Basque, Basque groups included to vote for his no-confidence motion.

So I'm wondering if, in this political history is collaborating with separatist groups an outlier in politics or is this a very normal par for the course?

Daniel: The Socialist Party and the Conservative Party have collaborated and even reached agreements with separatist parties in the past, numerous times, but always within the constitution and always within the rule of law.

The first time that we have seen somebody give in to the demands of separatists and change the law to keep his position in power has been with Mr. Sanchez and Mr. Sanchez since 2019. In fact, if you go to press clippings from the past and you read what Mr. Sanchez said in 2016, 17, 18, and 19, about all these things, you would be very surprised, you would be actually amazed just at how rigorous and how radical in and how strong in his defense of the constitutional framework and the rule of law and the law as it was, as it is. So his change is a very important one, it's a very significant one because it's the first time that the Socialist Party agrees to a 180-degree change in the legal framework that places the independent judicial system as the evil side, and they've even used the term ‘lawfare’ as the judicial system is going against democracy. No, for them, democracy is what they agreed on after the fact because it's important also to remember for everyone listening that Mr. Sanchez and the Socialist Party were radically against the amnesty, any type of amnesty law until they required seven votes from this particular separatist party in order to continue to be in power. So until the 23rd of July of 2023, the socialist party was in complete agreement with the conservative party. So it's not that this is a difference of opinions between socialists and conservatives. No, this is a change of view from the Socialist Party that has before and after. Before they needed seven votes to remain in power, they were radically against it. After they needed those seven votes, they were radically in favor. By the way, in favor not of an amnesty law, but in favor of the amnesty law that the person who has fled the country demands, which is also outrageous in my view.

Rasheed: So let's talk a bit about Puigdemont in detail. One of the basic presuppositions that people have when they think about the separatist group in Catalonia in particular is that they are likely some kind of communist, socialist, combination of people. If that is true, or if that's not true, what do you economic political ideology of these groups that if they were to separate from Spain, what kind of ideology would they want to instill in Catalonia itself?

Daniel: I don't think it's a question of ideology. I think that it's a very big mistake that it's very typical when I travel abroad to assume that separatism in Spain has a sort of Marxist ideology. Separatism, you have right-wing parties that are separatist in the Basque region, and in Catalonia, Puigdemont is undeniably a right-wing conservative, however you want to call it.

And more importantly, it's interesting to remember that Pedro Sánchez himself used to call him xenophobic far right before he needed seven votes to remain in power. Separatism in Spain is not just a question of left or right. It's not a question of what kind of ideological type of regime they would like to implement.

Separatism is based, as so many other separatist movements, on a combination of myths and white lies. The first myth is, obviously, that Catalonia within Spain is being robbed, is being stolen, that they are rich, that they can generate, that they generate tremendous levels of wealth, and that the rest of Spain is stealing from them.

And the white lie, not white, the absolute lie, is that it was an independent nation and that somehow through an imperialistic approach, it was absorbed by Spain. Catalonia was never an independent nation, it was a county at best. So I think that it's important to understand that separatism doesn't have a specific ideology and Puigdemont is certainly a right-wing separatist.

Rasheed: So the point you mention in passing, the common sentiment that Spain, national Spain, non-Catalonian Spain is stealing money from Catalonia, what is the actual economic position of Catalonia relative to Spain?

Daniel: Catalonia is a very rich region within Spain. It's got phenomenal industry and very good businesses and thriving businesses, but Catalonia has been losing relative to other regions quite dramatically since the socialist part of separatism has taken over in terms of power.

It's got very high taxes, it's got enormous levels of interventionism, but its position is that of a rich region within a country. So the message or the idea that Catalonia is robbed by the rest of Spain is as ludicrous as when you hear from the north of Italy that the north is being robbed by the south.

But it's very tantalizing to repeat that message that all your troubles are created by an external enemy that at the same time is an internal enemy. The Catalonian economy and the Catalonian region is a very open region. Separatism is important in terms of political parties, but people in general are very open.

They feel European, they feel Spanish, and more than half or half of the population feel that they're Spanish. And they understand that as a rich region, precisely because it is in Spain and within the European Union. But separatism is always about trying to create new borders. This has nothing to do with secession.

The libertarian view of secession is to separate yourself from the state. This is not about separating itself from the state. This is about creating a state within a state. It's more about bureaucracy by multiplying the number of heads of the bureaucratic hydra than anything else.

Rasheed: Okay, so in 2023, as you mentioned, Sanchez's Socialist Party, PSOE, marginally lost the election as they didn't have enough votes to form a government, but also PP couldn't themselves get enough coalition votes to form a government, so essentially Sanchez went through.

Since then, how has the government or governance been able to essentially play out, given that many of the, let's say, separatist voters wouldn't really have a socialist leaning ideology, as you mentioned, has that stalled governance in Spain substantially?

Daniel: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. It's so evident that there has been a great deal of legislative initiatives that have been unable to be passed because of the fragmentation of the if you want to call it "coalition" or the agreements to maintain Pedro Sánchez in power.

Just in the last couple of months, there have been four legislative initiatives that have been blocked precisely because of that. We don't have a viable government as it is right now. The Sánchez government has been unable to pass the budget, so the budget in Spain, we don't have a government shutdown like in the United States or a debt ceiling crisis.

What we have is that the previous budget has to be extended, but the fact that this coalition of parties that includes two right-wing parties, Catalonian and Basque separatists, also two extreme left separatist parties, Esquerra Republicana and Bildu in, uh, in the Basque country. Plus the communists, SUMAR.

Plus the different small parties that are also, came out of the old Podemos. It's a very strange, animal. In fact, it is called the "Frankenstein coalition" here in Spain because it's built up of all of these different elements that have completely different agendas politically. So governance has certainly been suffering quite significantly and we have seen quite relevant diplomatic crisis because everybody seems to be talking, people in government, you have the vice president that comes from SUMAR, which is the communist sort of coalition, saying one thing and then be having to be shut down or quiet down by the minister of foreign affairs.

So governance is a disaster.

Rasheed: And yet there have been many comments from international observers, like the IMF, World Bank and others that have been very positive about Spain or at least moderately positive about Spain in aggregate. And this has been the last two years. So what is the disconnect? What are they missing?

Daniel: Oh, I don't think that they're missing.

I think that they don't pay attention to debt, which is very typical. I remember in 2006, and 2007, when many international bodies saw Greece as the economic powerhouse of the European Union. Why? Because GDP is bloated by government spending, government hiring, and debt. And it's very typical of international bodies, and obviously, it's logical, and it's perfectly legitimate, to be diplomatic.

But when an economy is growing 2 percent and public debt is growing 5%, when between 2019 to 2023 in the Spanish economy, investment is down 5%. Consumption is flat. And the only thing that has gone through the roof is government spending, which always comes back to bite. When I intervene in debates or different media outlets in the United States, there's a tremendous amount of independent views saying, "Oh, my gosh, two trillion deficits, 1. 5 trillion GDP growth. Something is not going well". Yet here it seems that just because Spain is growing, it looks like everything is fine. But You need to look at the quality of that growth. Furthermore, it's not even growth, it's a balance.

Because people are looking at the last couple of years, of course, the economy is growing 2 percent after a monster slump of 20 percent in 2020. So basically, it's disingenuous, I would say optimistic approach to the fact that Spain is growing, because by the way, considering that Spain has a record level of tourist activity, it should not be growing at 2%.

It should be growing at 4%.

Rasheed: One of the things I've been realizing more here, comes to statements from the government. So obviously recently, Javier Milei, Argentina has been a, let's call it a mild annoyance because it mildly, to parties, to parties like, like PSOE and so on. And this recent impasse, or supposed impasse between the current government in Spain and Argentina, is very strange.

And people kind of figure, why is this happening? What's your view on this?

Daniel: Oh, it's very easy. The Spanish government, the socialist government, is creating scapegoats that distract the attention of the population out of the mounting number of corruption cases that the Pedro Sánchez administration is suffering and then there’s the inability to pass laws, the mounting level of debt, all of those things. And the discontent, by the way, the general discontent with living standards, et cetera.

So it's a very typical way of distracting the attention, creating a scapegoat, creating an external enemy. It's interesting because if you think about it, the Spanish government interfered in the Argentine elections, which could have created a diplomatic impasse because they interfered by taking very direct sides, not just with the Kirchner mass coalition, but against Milei, not just in favor, but against Milei and Miler won the elections.

Rasheed: How will they do that?

Daniel: Mr. Sanchez presented himself in the middle of the election in Argentina with a video supporting Massa, the candidate of the Peronist movement. And supporting him, not just saying Mr. Massa is great, which could in itself have created a diplomatic impasse, but saying not just negative, but derogatory things about Milei.

Miss Diaz, Miss Yolanda Diaz, vice president of the Spanish government, also did the same. And since Milei in Argentina won the elections, with a much larger level of support than the entire coalition of the Spanish government, to start with. Since then, ministers, the vice president, the president himself, have continuously used Milei, this foreign evil, with very aggressive insults.

Now, so far, it's very interesting that just when corruption cases start to appear when other corruption cases that had already appeared start to develop and accelerate. And there is more and more news about all of that, suddenly the Spanish government creates a diplomatic impasse. It's very typical, by the way, the Kirchner government in Argentina and the Venezuelan government also do that all the time.

They're always trying to create an external enemy to avoid the debate about internal issues.

Rasheed: On the same Milei topic. So Milei was here maybe a week ago or two weeks ago, ostensibly for a business trip, but also at a Vox event. He seems to be very explicitly supportive of Abascal at Vox. Has that surprised you in some way? Or is it warranted?

Daniel: No, I don't think it's warranted. I think it's a personal thing that Abascal was evidently somebody who supported him at the beginning, so there's a personal element there. But, there is no real, I would say, overlap in terms of policy. Milei is libertarian. It's a libertarian that sees the state as a problem, that wants to open the economy, that wants to reduce the intervention of the state.

Vox is more of a classic European right-wing party that is not libertarian in any shape or form. But I think that there is an ulterior motive. I think that Millet understands that libertarian messages resonate closer to a voter that is currently close to right-wing parties than elsewhere. I think that what he sees is that the message of economic freedom, libertarianism, a Mises-Rothbardian type of view of the economy and the state better resonates with audiences that may be today’s voters of a conservative right wing statist type of approach, who yet may actually have a closer allegiance with the messages of libertinism in terms of the economy, etc.

Rasheed: But isn't, for example, PP, much more close to that viewpoint, at least in Madrid, close to that viewpoint relative to libertarianism?

Daniel: Than Vox?

Rasheed: Yeah, than Vox.

Daniel: Okay, probably, yes. I think that in Spain, libertarianism is not present in any shape or form in institutions or parties. You have a very long tradition in Spain of parties, for example, the Conservative Party in Spain has always been closer to the Democratic Party in the United States than to the Republicans.

It's always been much more of a sort of European type of social democrat. If you start by that, obviously the government in Madrid and the Més and the PP in Madrid, they're much closer to classic liberal free market viewpoints. But parties in general in Spain are, very statist, and that's one of the very typical things is that if you look at conservative parties within the landscape of the European Union, they have been traditionally closer to what the Democratic Party in the United States at least used to be until and including the Obama administration.

I would say that the Biden administration as well. They're closer to that a social democratic view with a free market economy, within a free market economy. That's the conservative parties. The right-wing parties in Europe are very different, hugely different. Some are very nationalistic and very traditional in terms of viewpoints.

Others are more parts of the old conservative party that have moved into a different spectrum. Others are more free market-oriented classic liberals. They're very different. I don't see any resemblance. When I saw that gathering, Vox, the Melonie party, and Le Pen, I don't see any resemblance between those three.

They seem so different in so many aspects. And the only reason why they're put together in Europe is that the conservative party in the European Union, the European Popular Party, and the European Socialist Party, are almost indistinguishable in many aspects. They're different in some sort of, but not in many of the aspects that we would consider ideological differences, no?

Rasheed: Yeah, that is the difficulty. Every time I'm trying to explain the contours of a European party ideology, like in Finland or for example here in Spain, of course. It's very difficult if we're using American terminology, American languages, or even British terminology and frame of reference. So in the U.S. Ththeres a very somewhat clear distinction between the Republican party and the democratic party, at least in terms of social policy, or explicit support of social policies or social values. For example, think about gay rights at least these days it's sometimes a good example. But here in Madrid. At least in Madrid, there doesn't seem to be a very clear distinction in social value reference terms of at least the two major political parties.

Daniel: There's none.

Rasheed: There's none.

Daniel: There is none.

Actually, they're artificially created because the thing about Spain is that it's an incredibly tolerant, beautifully tolerant society in which there are no real issues of gender, of social issues, all these things. I mean, there may be fringe things here and there. I'm not going to say that it's perfect. But this is a very tolerant society.

We've had the LGBT community organizing the gay parade since, I don't know since I was a kid, which is something that in other countries was not even fathomable. You don't have real differences in terms of gay rights, gay marriage, LGBT viewpoints, race, gender. There are no real differences. Obviously In the debate, the left is going to say that the right is against that, and the right is going to say that the left is pretending to defend those things, but they don't.

But in reality, in society, you go throughout the entire landscape, including those that are considered extreme right, amazingly tolerant, I've lived in the United States, and I've lived in the UK, there's no comparison.

Rasheed: I see.

In a previous episode where it had on Diego Sanchez, we discussed a lot about how the policy differentiation in Madrid was a lot more liberalized than other autonomous regions in Spain, but he did mention there is some hope for some other regions that are currently liberalizing. But on a national level in Spain, what should be some of the main, short-term priorities or even medium-term priorities of the national government to put Spain back on the trajectory it had before COVID even perhaps before '08?

Daniel: Yes, the Spanish economy needs to let the private sector breathe. There are a number of things that are not usually in the political debate, but one of the striking differences between the Spanish economy relative to others is the very small size of businesses. This is not a small business economy. This is a micro business economy.

Which is businesses with less than one employee. This is important to understand because a lot of the challenges of productivity of employment come from all of the barriers, not just taxation-wise, but regulatory-wise and critically that prevent small businesses from thriving and growing into mid-sized and then large companies.

So that's one of the big problems. The other problem obviously is a completely obscene level of unemployment. I find it infuriating as a Spaniard who has lived in the United States, and the UK, to hear the government say that there's a record level of employment, what stupidity, when you have the highest unemployment rate in the world, only surpassed by, I don't know, Ukraine, that's in war.

So I'm particularly concerned about this complacency that exists in Spain with things that have always been that way. You probably hear this a lot. This has always been done that way. This is what has done wrong. It's wrong. It's wrong. Businesses cannot thrive. There's a tremendous level of legal and investor insecurity.

This is a country that should be attracting capital like there's no tomorrow and still sees foreign direct investment falling 22 percent in 2023. A lot of things have to do with lifting regulatory burdens, lifting a lot of taxation burdens that make it very difficult to hire. No, it's very expensive to hire.

Many people here say that salaries are very low, but they don't look at what the cost is for the employer. So all of those things make me on the one side, hopeful that there is a solution, but very frustrated about the level of complacency.

Rasheed: Did the complacency get worse under Sanchez or has it come through since the Rajoy government?

Daniel: No, I think that we've had a problem of complacency about the state of the Spanish economy since the burst of the real estate bubble. Interestingly enough, when Spain was growing a lot in the middle of the real estate bubble and everything was phenomenal, there was quite a level of criticism, healthy criticism, and open debate about this.

For some strange reason, the Zapatero government, with PSOE, in the middle of a financial crisis, decided to use a lot of propaganda. Green shoots, the "we are in the Champions League of the economy", all those. A lot of ludicrous propaganda that I understand, obviously that a government is going to try to sell the economic data in the best possible way.

One thing is to sell economic data in the best possible way. Another completely different thing is to use propaganda that tries to sell that you are the best out there. Now the best thing after the invention of sliced bread or something like that. It's ludicrous and it reminds me of the Franco regime.

When I was a kid, I'm 56, I'm going to be 57 years old this year. When I was a kid in Spain, the Franco regime tended to use a lot of propaganda saying, "Ah, the evil British and the evil Americans, everybody was evil and we were the best". And things in Spain were amazing, obviously not now for anybody that traveled.

Interestingly enough, it's been the Socialist Party of 2008 to 2010, and the Socialist Party of 2019, and 2024, the ones that have taken complacency to new extremes. In the Rajoy government, there was an active interest in trying to say that we were getting out of the hole. But one thing is saying, we're getting out of the hole and things are better and all of that.

And another completely different thing is to say, we have record employment where the economy is going like a rocket. I heard the other day, no, it's ridiculous. But complacency, yes, there is, in general, one of the biggest problems, big flaws of governments in Spain, instead of being, I'm not going to say critical, but instead of being realistic about the shape of the Spanish economy, especially compared with our neighbors, with thriving Baltic countries, et cetera, you just basically fiddle about with data to say that everything is going well.

And it's not, obviously.

Rasheed: It’s very surprising, across many countries that of course, the government in power can have objectively bad policies and many people still support the government. But I'm curious if there has been an increase in tension with the population against the government national government here in Spain because for me, you know, being in Madrid is a bit difficult to tell.

Sometimes what Madrid is like versus what Spain is like in terms of politics. So has there been an intensification of anti-government sentiment on the national level here in Spain?

Daniel: Absolutely. The level of fragmentation in Spain, polarization, is unseen. I have always, my life, I have always had socialist friends, conservative friends, and even people from the extreme left.

No problem. And you just laughed about it. This is a very open country now. You laughed about it, and went on. "Ah, you're always with this. Ah, didn't matter". We have reached a point in which it has the level of fragmentation is so enormous that the government is constantly trying to make everybody else an enemy It's not asking people to be with them is asking to be with them.

Or against them, you know, you may not be the concept that every single policy that the Sanchez government implements is perfect. It's all the time in the media, everything, even if he says one thing and changes the opinion, like with the amnesty law, completely 180-degree change, and it was great before.

And it's great now. I cannot understand the lack of internal criticism. It's like, it's the political parties, I would say in particular the PSOE. It's like PSOE has become a sect. Doesn't make any sense. In PSOE there was one thing, they were called families. Different groups within the party had different sort of ideological views.

There was internal debate, there was criticism, but it's become a very personalistic party since Zapatero. By the way, this was done by Zapatero in 2004, not in 2004 to 2008. There is a point that almost coincides with the financial crisis in which the internal debate is basically just erased from the socialist party, which was a very, I would say, Hodgepodge of very different opinions being presented all the time.

The internal debate was not just accepted but encouraged when Felipe González was in power. The Socialist Party of the 80s has absolutely nothing to do with the Socialist Party of 2000 and, 19, 2023. And it's basically because The influence of the Sao Paulo Forum and the Puebla group is very large. It's very large, and those are groups that are basically built to whitewash and defend the Cuban and Venezuelan dictatorships.

Interestingly enough, the Socialist Party, which was a very interesting, very interesting party with a lot of different families, with different debates, has become literally almost a carbon copy of the Socialist Party of Venezuela. That is a personalistic thing that basically whatever the leader says goes.

Rasheed: I would hear that and many people that listen will hear that and say that kind of sounds a bit extreme. It's still Europe, Western Europe. How could it be that a party in Western Europe could get to that point so quickly?

Daniel: Oh, how?

Because it's incredibly powerful for the leader. And by the way, you may say that it sounds radical, but it's not a coincidence.

It is happening all over. It is not a coincidence that in Colombia, in Chile, which is a very developed nation, and in other nations, you have the influence of the Puebla group creating these very extreme parties out of what were initially parties that had a sort of social Democrat open and an avid debate, but it's happening in Spain.

It happened in Greece, and it's very typical of the debate to hear "oh, but that is going too far. That is not going to happen here". Guess what? That's what they said in Venezuela. Guess what? That's what they said in Argentina. Guess what? That's what they said in Chile. And guess what? That's what they said in Greece as well.

Everybody, the only way in which radical ideologies get to power, is by the inaction of the people that could stop it inaction within the socialist party inaction within the Spanish society.

Rasheed: The comment I hear a lot is on a national level, the current PP leader, Feijóo, isn't charismatic enough to carry a well-worn victory for PP in a general election. Is that a fair assessment?

Daniel: I think that's very typical of Spain to say that. I heard the same thing about Rajoy, and Rajoy won with an absolute majority.

I heard the same thing about Aznar, and Aznar won with an absolute majority. Furthermore, you live in Madrid. I heard it over and over again about Ayuso. Go on. And as you saw one with an absolute majority, there's always a media construct being generated about the profiles of leaders that suddenly changes, suddenly changes.

And probably the leader has done nothing different. It's how it's portrayed. I heard when Biden was one of the candidates to be a democratic candidate, I heard that he wasn't able to win an election and that he didn't have an agenda. That he didn't have policies, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's very typical and it's particularly typical of the assessment of the media of the leader of the opposition. And the media said exactly the same about Pedro Sánchez. Isn't it interesting? Pedro Sánchez is like, ah, he doesn't have a personality. He's very obscure with no discernible ideology, no real leadership, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And look at him.

Rasheed: Is migration or immigration a particularly large economic issue in Spain? It's coming to be a big topic across Europe now, especially in the UK, of course.

Daniel: Not as big as in other countries in Europe, not as big because in Spain, we have seen the positives of migration. We have seen a very large number of people coming from South America and from the north of Africa that come here, that work, that, that are integrated in the community.

It's a completely different thing. Then what other countries have seen, I'm not saying that there is not an issue in some communities or some regions, what I would say, destructive migration, people that come with no desire to integrate themselves with no desire to work, but to live out of subsidies.

There may be. And I'm not saying that it is not there, but it is not the norm. And that's why there is such a low level of xenophobic viewpoints within the Spanish regions because you have seen a lot of people, a lot of people coming from north of Africa, from different countries that have come here, and that they want to work.

They want to contribute. They want to integrate themselves. They want to bring their culture but also accept our culture. We have had episodes, but not large bouts of problems the way that other countries have.

Rasheed: Final question. I am a tourist coming to Spain for the first time in one week. I do not want to go to Ibiza.

I want to do something more cultural, something more in-depth. What do I do?

Daniel: Oh my God, how many days do you have?

Rasheed: One week.

Daniel: One week. Okay, you have a fantastic rail system, and railway system, and therefore you would need to go to visit Madrid, visit Sevilla, visit Valencia, visit Barcelona, visit Bilbao. And that is going to take you a few days and you definitely need to also visit Extremadura one day to rent a car because the railway system is not that great to get there and visit Galicia.

So the great thing about is that you can come to Madrid, set it as the starting point, and then go to all of those regions within a week. And that, for example, the girlfriend of one of my kids has done that and, uh, seen seven regions in seven days and, you know, going to see everything, but you get the diversity of the culture, which is phenomenal, is so different.

The North is so different from the West and the West from the South, no?

Rasheed: Perfect. So, Daniel, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. It has been a very insightful conversation.

Daniel: Thank you so much. It's been a great pleasure.

Rasheed: That's it for this episode. For updates about the podcast, please subscribe to our Substack blog found on cpsi.media. You can also read our newsletters and long-form content on Caribbean policy improvements.