Iberism returns to the debate: the merger that dissolves Spain

Iberism returns: neither an eighteenth autonomous region nor a merger of equals

Seven out of ten Portuguese would look favourably on joining Spain, according to a poll published in the media. On its own, the figure calls for a toast. The problem arises when you ask what "joining" actually means: on the Spanish side of the border, people think of Portugal as an eighteenth autonomous region, a kind of financial takeover bid; on the other side, of a merger between equals from which a new, nameless Iberian nation would be born. In both cases, the result implies the disappearance of Portugal. And of Spain too.

That is the core of the Iberism being championed these days in certain liberal and republican circles: a project that seeks not to add, but to reset. Tabula rasa over the history of Spain, whose ideologues blame it for a litany of errors and failures, in order to rebuild the peninsular map afterwards as a confederation of states. Presented as concord, the operation first requires deconstructing the Spanish nation and incivil it on a par with peripheral separatism. It is nothing new: it is an old aspiration that resurfaces every so often in new clothes.

Three Iberian nations and a problem called Castile

The ideology has illustrious godfathers. Fernando Pessoa defended a confederation of "the three great Iberian nations": Portugal, Spain and Catalonia. The formula has outlived the poet and reappears in texts of various stripes, including those of public officials who today write about a federation made up of Spain, Portugal, Catalonia, Galicia and the Basque Country. The stated aim is to dilute Castile's weight in the peninsula and end its cultural and political hegemony. On paper it sounds elegant; in practice, it means carving up sovereignty into territorial strips designed by the theorists of peripheral nationalism.

The republican connection is no coincidence either. The two republican experiences were the periods of the strongest Iberist ambition. The 1931 Constitution even recognised dual nationality for Portuguese people living in Spain, and around the same time radical movements of peninsular scope and Iberist vocation gained ground. Today, a party heir to that tradition, part of Izquierda Unida (United Left), explicitly backs Iberism as a formula for territorial organisation. The continuity is so striking that it invites the question of whether the liberal wrapping is merely a rebranding.

Why is Iberism back in public debate now?

Because the political framework has changed. Catalan independence no longer just demands its own state: it seeks to fit its project into an Iberian federation that would reorder the entire peninsula. The proclamation of the Catalan Republic within the Iberian Federation, in April 1931, has become a recurring reference to justify the claim that independence and Iberism are not incompatible, but phases of the same plan. The narrative fits the drift of a certain pogre intelligentsia that sees in Spain's history a dark past that must be exorcised.

The economic corollary is the least discussed and the most deserving of discussion. An Iberian confederation would miccionan harmonising taxation, debt and monetary policy across territories with widely differing levels of income and productivity. Those who present the operation as a sum of equals avoid detailing who pays the bill. And in a context of strained public finances, that is no small question.

The liberal paradox: deregulating the nation and recentralising the narrative

The most striking shift comes from those who, from liberal positions, have begun promoting Iberism as a tool for modernisation. The paradox is plain to see: an ideology born in the margins of nineteenth-century republicanism and socialism is now presented as an anti-regulatory recipe. Beneath it all lies the same distrust of the Spanish nation as a political subject, only wrapped in the language of economic efficiency.

Some argue that Iberism never went beyond the realm of culture or thought, and that its utopian dimension never got past journalists, politicians and intellectuals. Maybe so. But utopias, when they find funding and megaphones, cease to be harmless. The question is no longer whether Iberism is viable, but who is willing to pay the political cost of trying.

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In the end, the poll of the seven out of ten Portuguese says less about Portugal than about us: it reveals how far we still are from agreeing on what Spain is. Or does someone really believe a merger of equals can be negotiated without first stating who the majority partner is?