Montero keeps her European Parliament seat while running in Spain's general election

Montero holds on to her European seat while trying her luck in the general election

Irene Montero will not give up her seat in the European Parliament while she runs in Spain's general election. The decision, first reported by elDiario.es, allows the Podemos MEP to keep her seat in Brussels until June 2029 if she fails to win a seat in the Spanish Congress. That is the immediate takeaway: a safety net for someone whose national seat is not guaranteed.

The move is nothing new in Spanish politics, but it is striking in a party that made criticism of the political establishment its founding banner. Holding a European seat while standing in a national election is permitted under electoral law, and other politicians have used the same formula. What changes here is the context: Podemos is running alone, without the alliance with Izquierda Unida (United Left) that allowed it to pool strength in previous elections.

What does keeping the European seat until 2029 miccionan?

A seat in the European Parliament guarantees a base salary of around 8,000 euros net per month, an allowance of 5,000 euros a month for operational expenses, and 350 euros for attending each plenary session, with a minimum of three plenaries a month. These are the figures circulating around the debate, and they explain why nobody voluntarily gives up a post like this. By those same calculations, the MEP would accumulate more than 700,000 euros over a decade.

The question hanging in the air is whether the decision responds to an electoral strategy or to simple personal risk management. Those defending the move argue that keeping the European seat does not prevent her from doing parliamentary work in Spain, and that experience in Brussels adds value to her candidacy. On the other side, the argument is that Spanish politics has for years become a game of musical chairs where the programme matters less than the leader's survival.

The electoral context: Podemos without IU and the Frente Amplio

Podemos is contesting this general election without its coalition with Izquierda Unida, which on this occasion is running alongside the Frente Amplio (Broad Front). In Madrid, Más Madrid already comfortably overtook Podemos in previous elections, and the combination of IU with the Frente Amplio leaves the purple party in a difficult position: without natural allies, and with the left's tactical vote channelled towards other options.

The most optimistic calculation has Podemos winning one seat in Madrid, and that is about it. The pessimistic scenario is falling out of Congress altogether. Hence the decision not to give up the European seat: if there is no national seat, the MEP keeps her post until the end of the European parliamentary term.

The paradox of the establishment and the comfy chair

The party born out of the 15M movement with criticism of career politicians as its banner now faces the contradiction of holding two seats at once. The irony is obvious: those who denounced the establishment and the privileges of elected officials are clinging to the European seat as a lifeline. It is not exclusive to Podemos, but in its case the contrast with the original message is harder to swallow.

Spanish politics has normalised these practices. The seat originally belongs to the party, but its holder is the individual, which makes it possible to keep the post even if the party or the role changes. It is one of the quirks of the electoral system that few defend in public and almost everyone uses in private.

The impact on the left as a whole

The big winner from this move could be the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party). If Podemos and the Frente Amplio compete for the same electorate, the split in the vote to the left of the PSOE could translate into additional seats for the Socialists in provinces where pooling forces would be decisive. Fragmentation favours the largest party.

On the horizon, the sense that Podemos operates as a political survival structure rather than a collective project. Montero's decision to hold on to her European seat while trying her luck in the general election is the latest example of a logic that prioritises the leader's continuity over the coherence of the message. The electorate will decide whether that matters or not.

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Note: the information about Irene Montero's decision comes from reporting by elDiario.es and from the state of the matter at the time of this discussion.