The Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, recently read in parliament a newspaper article from Venezuela about a battered boat that had just arrived on the coast of the South American country with 106 migrants onboard. “The undocumented migrants arrested, among them 10 women and a four-year-old girl, were in terrible condition. The 19-metre boat’s hold emitted an insufferable odour,” he quoted the article as saying.
“This news story could have been published last week, and the migrants could have been Nigerian, Senegalese or Moroccan,” said Sánchez. “In reality, it appeared in a Venezuelan daily on 25 May 1949, and its protagonists were Spaniards, 106 of the 120,000 who crossed [the Atlantic] between 1945 and 1978 to escape misery and Franco’s dictatorship.”
Sánchez emphasised that more than 2 million people fled Spain during the Franco regime, with about half of them entering other countries irregularly. Many emigrated from the Canary Islands, which is today the main destination for migrants arriving in small boats to Spain. “When we talk about migrations, you must always remember Spain is a country of migrants,” he said. “We Spaniards are the children of migrants, we are not going to be the parents of xenophobia.”
Sánchez delivered a strong defence of migration for both humanitarian and economic reasons. It was a rare moment in Spain’s parliament. Migration has not been a prominent or deeply partisan issue in Spain’s national arena until recently, and the Spanish government’s stance has largely mirrored that of other European governments in pushing against irregular migration. The so-called pushbacks by patrol officers against refugees and migrants attempting to cross the border from Morocco into the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in north Africa is common, despite condemnation from Spanish courts and human rights groups.
Spain has also signed financial deals with Mauritania, the Gambia and Senegal to help them stop people reaching the Canaries by boosting their patrol guards. The agreements also include more permits for workers from these countries to promote legal migration routes.
Recently, Kemi Badenoch, a finalist in the Conservative party leadership race, even mentioned Spain as an example of a country “able to deport illegal immigrants properly”, suggesting that Britain could follow Spain’s model to implement a more restrictive migration policy without withdrawing from the European convention on human rights.
This time, though, Sánchez was presenting a series of reforms to the Spanish immigration system that are part of a law his government had been drafting since last year. The reforms aim to simplify bureaucracy, and make it easier to obtain work and residence permits and facilitate family reunification. As Gabriela Sánchez, migration reporter for elDiario.es, points out, some of these changes are simply the result of European laws that Spain has been slow to implement. The newest part in the prime minister’s announcement was an “integration plan”, but he offered few details about it.
What stood out was Sánchez’s tone, which sharply contrasted with that of his European counterparts, including those on the left. He framed migration not just as a humanitarian issue but, more importantly, as an economic necessity for Spain’s ageing population. Migration, especially from Latin America, has in recent years been one of the main drivers of population and economic growth in Spain, which was the largest growing EU economy last year and is predicted to have significantly higher growth than neighbouring countries in 2024 as well.
Along with the leaders of Ireland and Belgium, Sánchez opposed the idea of following Italy’s example of sending asylum seekers to centres in third countries such as Albania, or what has been described as “the Melonisation” – named after the Italian prime minister, Giorgia Meloni – of the European migration debate.
For Sánchez, this approach is a way to differentiate himself from rightwing parties that have increasingly used migration as a partisan tool, particularly the mainstream conservative People’s party (PP), competing with the far-right Vox.
So what do most Spaniards think about migration? There appear to be conflicting views. A recent poll showed most Spaniards believe there are “too many” migrants in the country and make negative associations with migration. However, most respondents also reported positive personal experiences with migrants, and migration ranked only fifth among the top concerns. A poll in August from the state-owned polling bureau indicated migration was a top concern, though experts have questioned the methodology behind this finding. Meanwhile, another poll showed that most Spaniards – even PP supporters – favour integrating unaccompanied minors who arrive in the Canary Islands by redistributing them across different regions in the country.
The PP is therefore cautious not to push too far in its anti-immigration rhetoric, especially as its regional leaders in heavily impacted areas are more interested in reaching agreements with the national government. In Brussels, the PP leader, Alberto Núñez-Feijóo, for example, declined to publicly support a potential European plan to send asylum seekers to third countries.
Spain’s stance on migration may be more about rhetoric than substantial policy shifts, but its message arguably chimes more closely with public opinion than with the vocal minorities shaping the migration debate in the UK, Italy and other European countries.
María Ramírez is a journalist and deputy managing editor of elDiario.es, a news outlet in Spain
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