Alberto Núñez Feijóo boasted throughout last week about the PP’s “solidarity” and “humanity”. The break-up of Vox from the coalition autonomous governments due to the reception of several dozen migrant minors housed in the Canary Islands by the communities was the reason given by Santiago Abascal to put an end to a year of cohabitation of the right. But the examination of his party’s “moderation” will be seen in the coming weeks and on the same subject, on the rise in Europe and also in Spain: migration policy.
The PP’s narrative was clear even before the voluntary distribution of 347 minors from the Canary Islands to different communities on the peninsula was confirmed. Abascal threatened on Monday to break the government agreements if the arrival of those few children was accepted, a maximum of 30 per Autonomous Community. “They welcome unaccompanied minors out of solidarity, humanity and a legal issue,” responded PP spokesman Borja Sémper on Tuesday.
The day after, the agreement with the central government was confirmed. And on Thursday, after a tense and long meeting of the Vox leadership, Abascal announced the expected break. Feijóo closed the week with an appearance in which he distanced himself from the extreme right: “The PP will always comply with the law and assume responsibilities as a state and government party, and will always be in solidarity with everything that happens anywhere in our nation.”
Feijóo wants to take advantage of Vox’s decision to “center” his own image and that of the party, which are more to the right than they would like due to their multiple alliances with Abascal’s party since Juan Manuel Moreno took over the Andalusian Government in 2018 after losing the elections with the PSOE and thanks to the votes of Vox. The same thing happened later in the Community of Madrid with Isabel Díaz Ayuso, in Castilla y León with Alfonso Fernández Mañueco and in cities such as Madrid. Between 2019 and 2023, many of these autonomous and municipal governments became coalitions. And that same year, Feijóo added the votes of Vox, UPN and Coalición Canaria for his failed investiture, which blocked any option of attracting other parties.
But this moderate change will have to pass two concrete tests in the coming weeks after the summer holidays.
The first will be the reform of the immigration law proposed by the PSOE and Sumar Government to regulate the system of reception of migrant minors and make it obligatory for the autonomous communities. It is one of the demands of the Canary Islands, where the PP co-governs under the leadership of Coalición Canaria, and which complains that its reception resources are saturated.
The system is currently voluntary, which means that, for example, in 2022 and 2023, the autonomous communities have not fulfilled their commitments to host minors. Twelve of them did not receive any in those years. The bureaucratic process is also complex, as it is not regulated by law, which lengthens the time.
And the PP wants it to stay that way, as its leaders have publicly stated. Last week, Sémper called for “agreement and not to impose a distribution system”, and revived the hoax that the Government is transferring migrants from the Canary Islands to the peninsula without warning.
Feijóo did not even respond to questions from journalists on Friday about the reform of the law, and limited himself to criticising the Government’s lack of migration policy. “I think we have been very clear from the beginning,” he said, before leaving his position in the air regarding a legal modification that the party already knows about because the text was sent to the regional governments before the meeting on Wednesday where the distribution of migrant minors was discussed.
“We need a declaration of a migration emergency now,” he said, after citing Italy and Greece as examples. Hundreds, if not thousands, of people have drowned in the waters of both countries in recent years. Italy, with Giorgia Meloni at the helm, has declared such an emergency and is now paying Albania to deport migrants there and thus avoid dealing with them as they are already outside the EU. Feijóo has also asked for more money from the central government.
The reform process will begin imminently and the enigma will finally be solved.
But Feijóo has also pledged the PP’s “solidarity” with every corner of Spain. And last Wednesday, its regional governments blocked the allocation of some 3,000 minors to be transferred from the Canary Islands to mainland Spain. In fact, the 347 that they did say they would take in are part of a group that had been waiting for a destination for months.
The PP argued that it was a gesture of humanity and a challenge to Vox, although, as Feijóo himself admitted on Friday, it was a matter of complying with “agreements already reached previously.” The far right also took advantage of the situation to justify an exit that, at least the national leadership, seemed to want.
The problem is that those 3,000 could be many more after the summer. This was announced by Sémper himself last week. “We are not talking about a one-off problem, we are talking about a phenomenon that will continue to grow in the coming months and years,” he said in an interview.
NGOs also predict that this summer there may be many arrivals of boats from the coasts of continental Africa to the Canary Islands, which will push their capacities to the limit of what they are now. And, at the moment, there is nothing to suggest that the PP will willingly accept their reception, much less that it will be obligatory.
And Feijóo himself reproached Vox for its actions these days: “A curious way of understanding patriotism, abandoning autonomous communities that are having a hard time.”
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