Our View – One Month To Go

ONE MONTH TO GO

IT seems rather strange that as Spain assumes, with much fanfare, the Presidency of the Council of the European Union until the end of 2023, that the current Government may have to hand over the reigns of power to another party.

As previously observed in this paper, whilst it was clear that there would have to be a general election by December, the decision to call the election early and on July 23 did come as something of a surprise.

Local and some Provincial elections held in May saw some movement towards the more right wing parties and away from the left, but it wasn’t a total debacle for the ruling coalition and clearly Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez thinks that he has a chance of holding on.

The fact that the Podemos Party with its supposed links with Iran and Venezuela is being replaced by the new party Sumar created by the popular Minister of Labour Yolanda Díaz could give some confidence to voters, especially as on the other side, Vox continues to utter some fairly unpopular statements concerning domestic violence for example.

Despite the fact that Spain is awash with EU money, much of which should be repaid at some time, many businesses have suffered from a string on new laws which make it more difficult to hire and fire or indeed to keep hard earned profits.

There will be a clear polarisation between the political parties and their supporters and whilst businesses generally will hope for the Partido Popular to take control, the hard right or the hard left (who still exist) may actually tip the balance one way of the other.