Spain, a European anomaly in immigration

In a week, we'll mark one month since the great power blackout. There's no better example to certify the futility of Spanish politics. Behind the gaudy spectacle of partisan confrontation that is presented to us daily, there is nothing but emptiness. The more shouting, the greater the futility. If we recall the day the switches stopped working, it's not out of an unhealthy obsession, but because it clearly reveals a party-based way of functioning that no longer has any counterweight, not even that of what was once known as bullfighting shame.

Hang in there and let it subside. If this tactic, as old as the world but now taken to the extreme, works for major human tragedies, such as the Valencian storm that claimed the lives of 227 people, it should also work even more for trivialities like Europe's fourth-largest power being left completely in the dark. Fortunately, things aren't always like that. Sometimes we get tangled up in issues that really matter to us. Like the Eurovision Song Contest, for example. The fact that the Prime Minister is the one who vocally expresses the need for an audit of the public votes for the freaky European gala is undoubtedly most reassuring. We all sleep much better now that we know this is our Executive's priority.

The government's immigration policy fuels Vox and AC and forces PP and Junts to take a stand.

In the sky, fireworks in the form of headlines, and on earth, the hieroglyph of complexity that cannot be explained solely with showy phrases laden with artifice. Such is the case with immigration, an issue on which the Spanish government continues to bet against the market of European public opinion and, we'll see, perhaps also against that of Spanish public opinion.

The new immigration regulations approved in November came into force this week, offering greater facilities than the previous ones to those seeking to legalize their status in our country after entering illegally. However, as this alone is not enough to address all the issues raised by new arrivals, the Government has also sent a draft to the other political parties to promote extraordinary regularization of foreigners settled in Spain before December 31, 2024. This window of opportunity, designed for those who might have trouble stabilizing their situation with the new immigration regulations, although more lax than the previous ones, would benefit approximately half a million people, in addition to the 300,000 annual regularizations that government estimates contemplate with the new regulation.

Good news for those who believe that the current growth of the Spanish economy, an increase in nominal GDP (per capita GDP is another matter) through low-wage employment, which can only be guaranteed by regularizing foreigners, is socially sustainable in the long term. The economic criterion continues to prevail on this front, which coincides, albeit for very different reasons, with that of social organizations—Cáritas, for example—whose main concern is not to ensure that the situations of human and social vulnerability that undocumented immigrants are forced to experience firsthand become chronic.

This isn't such good news for the already raging social debate on immigration, to which Spain is no longer the immune country it was a few years ago. With its measures, but above all with a rhetoric that is far from critical of the flow of illegal immigration, the government is providing very nutritious fodder for Vox and the Catalan Alliance. At the same time, it is forcing the PP and also Junts to take a position on an issue on which both parties are obliged to take the temperature of their voters in real time to prevent the loss of votes to their right.

But beyond all that, the bottom line is that Spain is a complete anomaly at the moment. There is no other European country where the official discourse and the decisions resulting from it are so enthusiastic about the migration phenomenon. In this too, as in almost everything, Sánchez is a risk-taker and jumps without a safety net. We'll see the results.