“Becoming legal in Spain: 5 months... Appointment with the dermatologist: 16 months.” Social media in Spain was flooded with messages of this kind upon learning how the Government approved a regulation by Decree Law – that is, without the need to go through Parliament – that could benefit more than half a million irregular immigrants (of the 840,000 estimated to be in Spain now). It will be enough to prove that one was in Spain before 2026 and has no criminal record.
What is striking is that just two years ago, Congress approved processing a Popular Legislative Initiative, backed by more than 700,000 signatures, to proceed with a massive regularisation. Only the far-right Vox party voted against it. With that precedent, and given the need of Spanish society to have immigrants to move forward (Spain has 148 people over 64 years old for every 100 young people under 16, it is an ageing society that needs immigration), the Government could have drafted a text agreed upon by all the parties that had voted in favour and submitted it for approval by Parliament. But it opted for a very different route: Negotiating the regularisation with Podemos (the far-left party that seems willing to accept the transfer of immigration powers to Catalonia in exchange, a prerequisite for Puigdemont to support the Government again) and allowing Podemos to announce the agreement, which was later formalised in the Council of Ministers.
Since the regularisation will be done by decree, bypassing Parliament, the Government did not actually need any agreement. But it wanted to use the regularisation as a bargaining chip to try to rebuild the majority that led Pedro Sánchez to investiture, which has been completely broken for months. Thus, what could foster agreements and should be done by consensus becomes a weapon and a source of discord.
On the same day that the Council of Ministers announced this regularisation, another surprising episode took place in Congress: The Government suffered a new parliamentary defeat when the so-called “omnibus” Royal Decree, which included disparate matters such as the revaluation of pensions, the freezing of Social Security contributions for the self-employed... or the extension of legal protection for squatters (a measure implemented during the pandemic and which its coalition partner, Sumar, demands to extend despite having shown to reduce the rental housing supply and exacerbate the huge housing problem) was rejected – with votes from the PP, Vox, and Junts.
Both the PP and Junts had warned that they would not approve a text in which retirees were used as hostages to “push through” other measures that had nothing to do with pensions. But the Government ignored the warning. Exactly as it did last year. And in the media aligned with “sanchismo”, the tactic used to “depict” the right was praised, which, according to Sumar, “today has taken 50 euros from each pensioner”.
In short, Pedro Sánchez reached the general secretariat of the PSOE by dividing the party – he literally split it in two – and then he reached the Government by splitting Spain in two. “Divide and conquer.” And since then he has not stopped playing to divide. So, after the last elections, in his first investiture speech, instead of saying – as is customary – that he would govern for all, for those who voted for him and for those who did not, he announced that he would raise “a wall” against the right (which has more seats than him) and the far-right. And that although he had promised to bring the fugitive Puigdemont back to be tried, he would grant him amnesty and put his investiture in his hands. Thus, another measure that could have served to reconcile – amnesty – became a partisan bargaining chip and a sowing of discord.
The worst thing about this Government is not the takeover and degradation of all institutions, the poor management – there is chaos in railways, electricity, postal services... – or the corruption of the party and family... The worst, without a doubt, is that effort to divide and sow discord. To always point to others as “bad”, to appear as the good one. That, indeed, is unforgivable.♦
