Needless to say, it is a mistake.
More details are coming in about the number of applications filed by illegal immigrants looking to “regularize” their residence in Spain under the amnesty pushed through by the country’s socialist government. Recent talk has been of about 1.3 million applications, although in this report in the Financial Times, the number given is just under 1.2 million, roughly equivalent to 2 percent of the Spanish population. Either number is a lot more than the 500,000 that was the official, although widely disbelieved, government forecast made at the time the amnesty was announced.
Spain’s immigration minister is quoted by the FT as saying that the size of the discrepancy can be explained by the large number of applications via a pathway for the “vulnerable,” a category that includes the very sick, victims of serious crime, or those living in extreme deprivation, something that does not do much to reinforce the government’s claim that the amnesty will boost the economy (a claim incidentally that should be tested against per capita GDP rather than the gross number) and the country’s social security system (Spain is ageing). Automation, what’s that?
Interestingly, according to the FT, Spaniards are fairly evenly divided over the amnesty, but more are in favor than opposed, a result difficult to imagine elsewhere in Europe. This may be explained in part by the fact that many of the migrants are from Latin America (although by no means all: Consistent with longer-term trends, a significant percentage are from Morocco) and thus can be more easily assimilated.
There has for a while been speculation that, however paradoxical it may seem, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez hopes to use the reaction against the amnesty as a device to prop up his faltering chances of reelection in 2027.
How so?
As the FT’s Barney Jopson explains, that reaction should push votes away from the principal opposition party, the center-right PP, toward the populist-right Vox. The PP is fiercely opposed to the amnesty, but that will be history by then. What will count more with voters still angered by the amnesty is the PP’s attitude toward future immigration. The PP has moved to the right on the issue (it now favors a points-based system and tougher enforcement), but this may not be enough to stop its supporters from defecting to Vox. This could work well for Sánchez, because the thought of Vox having more clout in any coalition with the PP may scare some centrist voters away from the latter.
¡Ajedrez en 4D!
Jopson notes that Spain’s total foreign-born population has increased from one in 20 residents to almost one in five in less than a quarter of a century. This amnesty, the seventh in 40 years, will only encourage more arrivals. Needless to say, it is a mistake.