Milei lands in Spain with no photo op with VOX or the PP

Milei lands in Spain and neither VOX nor the PP want the photo

A foreign president on an official visit and not a single party claiming him. The scene, unthinkable in any other circumstances, has come to pass: Javier Milei has passed through Spain without meeting Abascal, without a VOX event, and with practically the entire official agenda empty. The only heavyweight figure to receive him was Isabel Díaz Ayuso, and in the absence of a joint photo the meeting was reduced to a video that highlights the awkwardness more than the rapport.

Some argue the calculation is not ideological but first-semester electoral arithmetic. A photo with Milei today would amount, according to that argument, to a headline about 30,000 businesses closed since he took office and unemployment rising by around 400,000 people. Nobody with any sense would stand next to that for free, least of all when, according to the figures cited in the debate, 70% of Argentines disapprove of him.

VOX's turn: from liberalism to placard-waving conservatism

The debate holds that VOX has swapped its liberal discourse for flag-and-placard conservatism because the churchgoing, law-and-order voter outweighs the Economics-manual voter. Abascal would not need the Argentine: antiestéticar-mongering and the cry of "the wolf is coming" would be enough. The party now sails in the orbit of Le Pen and Orbán, in what has been dubbed "Patriots for Europe", and its rapport with chainsaw libertarianism would be drifting ever further away.

Some argue the distancing reflects that protectionist and nationalist shift. Against that weighs the argument that the photo was avoided out of pure calculation: the happiest person about the visit is Pedro Sánchez, because every insult is a vote.

The numbers Milei won't be able to show off in Madrid

The visit was meant to be a showcase for the "great economic antiestéticats" of the man with the hairpiece. The problem is that the showcase is cracked. Mass business closures, the labour reform, falling wages and households going into debt to eat are among the points that went unamplified. Inflation, which reached 200% under Peronism, has moderated, but consumption has shrunk in what some describe as the peace of the graveyard.

As for poverty, the index shot up when Milei took power, and afterwards the calculation methodology was changed without any announcement. For a couple of quarters the two versions were not computed, so there is no way to know how much of the drop came from the methodology and how much from the government's actions. The figure is climbing again this year.

Protocol and the king: when the guest skipped the order

The finale was a protocol affair. Milei wanted to see the king without first being received by the head of government, and the Royal Household wasted no time reminding him of the order of official state visits. A detail that sums up the visit: a president who arrives with the chainsaw and leaves having cut nothing.

The visit leaves an open question. If the Spanish right does not want the photo with Milei, is it because of his numbers, or because it no longer needs him?