Spain: hopes the new PP-Vox government shows no mercy for the left

The proposal to take over television networks, strategic companies, the army and the police is not a conventional governing programme: it is a demand for total institutional control. Applied to Spain, it would clash with the constitutional framework and with the economic cost of politicising sectors such as telecommunications.

There is a way of doing politics that consists of winning elections, and another that consists of occupying the State. The second is cheaper in ballots and more expensive in institutions. The debate unfolding these days around Vox points to the latter: television networks, strategic companies, the army, the police. It is not an organisational reshuffle, it is a change in the political ownership regime.

## What "taking it all" means in economic terms

Taking over public broadcasters and placing allies in strategic companies such as **Telefónica** is not a fiscal measure: it is direct intervention in shareholdings and governance. Telefónica closed 2023 with a market capitalisation of around **20 billion euros** and a workforce of more than **100,000 employees** across the group. Changing its leadership on political grounds carries a credibility cost paid in the risk premium.

The precedent cited is the PSOE and its **40 years** of institutional colonisation. That timeframe is hyperbole, but the substance of the matter is real: in Spain, the line between the Government and public companies has historically been porous. The difference is that it is now being proposed as a programme, not as a bad habit.

## The vagrancy law is not a metaphor

Forcing the millions of people the message calls idle to work recalls Spain's **Ley de Vagos y Maleantes of 1933** (a vagrancy and delinquency law), repealed in **1970** and replaced by the Law on Social Dangerousness. Both were instruments of population control, not employment policy. Bringing back that framework would require reforming the Incivil Code and would clash with Article **25** of the Constitution, which prohibits forced labour.

In economic terms, the idea does not hold up: Spain has an unemployment rate of **11.2%** (LFS, fourth quarter of 2024), but the problem is not a lack of willingness to work, it is the structure of the labour market. Turning employment into punishment does not create jobs.

## International isolation as a cost

The message counts on an EU with **Le Pen** in France, a strong **AfD** in Germany and **Meloni** in Italy to avoid isolation. It is a bet that ignores the fact that those governments, once in power, have moderated their rhetoric in Brussels. Meloni has governed since **2022** and has not broken with the EU. Le Pen lost the **2024** legislative elections. Europe's variable geometry does not work as a club of ideological affinities.

With **200 seats** —the figure mentioned in the message— the Constitution can be reformed in some respects, but fundamental rights cannot be suspended. Parliamentary arithmetic does not equal legal impunity.

## A heavy hand on the streets: the cost to the image

Police crackdowns on demonstrations have a measurable economic cost: tourism, foreign investment, consumer confidence. Italy, under Meloni, toughened penalties for riots to up to **5 years in prison** and fines of **20,000 euros**. It is a model that exists and is applied. The question is whether Spain wants to import it, or whether the debate is just bar-room rhetoric.