Hungarian anthropologist Karl Polanyi says that there are certain critical periods of history when time expands. In recent years, time has expanded in Spanish politics. The country has become a global hotspot of social movement contestation. A new civic culture has emerged which has provided good space for civil society. A Spanish transition to democracy is considered a global exemplar.
Post-Franco Spain has avoided both a sense of victimhood and a delusion of grandeur. How did that happen? The credit goes to Spain’s political leaders, to compromise between the reform ist right and the non-violent left. Consensus became the watchword which was epitomised by the “Pacto de Olvido” (Pact of Forgetting). A collective memory has often led to war rather than peace. As Edna Longley, a Northern Irish writer, suggests the next memorial to Irish history should be “raising a monument to amnesia and forgetting.” In more and more countries, political leaders seek glory in the past and the media is obsessed with the eternal present. Spain institutionalised the pact of forgetting.
The Democratic Memory law, introduced by the government pardoned all victims of the regime who were sentenced on grounds of political, religious beliefs, ideology and sexual orientation. Spain’s journey towards democratic consolidation and democracy-deepening has been incredible, though not without challenges. Main players, parties, organised interests and institutions view and accept democracy as the only game in town. Spain has enshrined fundamental individual rights following the high standards of the UN Declaration and the European Convention on Human Rights.
Many consider Spain among the world’s more advanced democracies. It has also made several innovations like a digital parliament and citizen assemblies to deepen democracy. Both left and right broadly agree on key foreign policy goals. The European Union is Spain’s main foreign policy priority. However, Madrid punches below its weight in Europe. The country has a visibility problem. It is not seen, even when it is there. Spanish diplomats are proud of quiet initiatives and behind-the-scenes diplomatic brinkmanship. They are good at nurturing close personal relationships with key stakeholders.
Spain pursues a minimalist and managerial foreign policy which is focused on geo-economics and security. Spain’s natural network of partners are fellow members of the Southern Seven (Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy, Malta and Portugal) and the Big Six (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland, and the United Kingdom). Evidence suggests that Spain lacks close links with the Affluent Seven (Austria, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands) and the eastern member states. Spain’s most favoured partners are France, Germany, Italy, and Portugal for almost all the political priorities in the EU. For Madrid, Berlin and Paris have always been the capitals to look up to, and it has actively sought their acceptance as a third leg of the Franco-German axis.
Gills Tremlett, fellow at Canada Blanch Centre of the London School of Economics, says Spain has many friends, but few allies. Prime Minister Pedro Gonzalez has embraced Emmanuel Macron’s idea of the “Europe that protects” as a way to reassert Spain’s Europeanism. In a speech to the European Parliament in January 2019, Sanchez adopted an even more proactive stance, proposing to forge an environmental union and complete the foundations of the economic, social, and political union. This was a first step for Spain moving from words to deeds and starting to think bigger. Democratic Spain’s diplomacy itself has undergone a democratisation process.
A democratic Foreign Service is a basic requirement of the new foreign policy of Spain. In an address at the UN, Marcelino Oreja, who served as foreign minister from 1976 to 1980, highlighted respect for human rights and individual freedom as the “cornerstone” of Spain’s new foreign policy. In a speech at the School of Diplomacy on 26 May 1977, Oreja highlighted the three main features that a democratic foreign policy should have: first, to be the expression of internal democratic change; second, to be effectively controlled by Parliament; third, to be deployed by a modernized Foreign Service. A strong Europe in the world has been the common line wheeled by successive Spanish governments. There are four axes of Spain’s foreign policy: the European axis, the Atlantic axis, the Latin American axis and the Mediterranean axis. Integration in the EU is the primary objective of the European axis. The two major components of the Atlantic axis are ties with the US and a role in NATO.
As far as the Latin American region is concerned, Spanish foreign policy has moved from Hispanism to Ibero-Americanism. In 2021, the Pedro Sánchez government approved the first draft of the ‘Foreign Action Strategy 2021-2024’, which outlines Spain’s foreign priorities and goals for the next four years. Sustainable development has been outlined as a core instrument to achieve Spain’s foreign goals. Spain has also reformed its Spanish Agency for International Development Cooperation. Spain is a medium power but it has a foreign policy of a big benign power. There is a lot to learn from the way Spain has, in such a short span of time, created instruments of enhancing its global reach. It is not its economic might or its military prowess but its ideas and innovations that explain the high stature that it commands in the comity of nations. Prime Minister Pedro Sanc – hez’s views on migrants are bold and imaginative. Unlike Italy where migrants are sent to a third country, Sanchez has characterised them as “synonymous with wealth and development.” He has extolled “the contribution” of migrants to Spain’s economy, social system and the sustainability of its pensions as “fundamental”. He has said famously: “We Spaniards are the children of migration, and we are not going to be the parents of xenophobia.” A country doesn’t have to be big to have global influence.
The Scandinavian countries are powerful players when it comes to conflict resolution or sustainable development. Canada and Australia have been great advocates of cooperative security. Some big countries are big bullies. As Mexican writer Carlos Fuentes says, American foreign policy “is like a Hollywood movie. You have to know who has the white hat and who has the black hat and then go against the black hat.” In contrast, Spain has the belief, as pointed out by Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, former Prime Minister, in a foreign policy “in which Spain’s name is synonymous with solidarity, justice and humanity throughout the world.”
(The writer is director, Institute of Social Sciences, Delhi)