“Would this also be your plan for Germany, Mr Weber? To bring back to the streets and squares of Berlin the names of the leaders of the Third Reich?” This was the question that Spain’s prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, recently addressed to German center-right politician Manfred Weber, head of the largest group in the European Parliament. Center-left leader Sánchez was speaking to EU parliamentarians in Strasbourg, France, shortly after his reelection by Spain’s Congress last month, following a sharply contested general election in which the far right appeared close to reaching government for the first time since Francisco Franco’s death.

In that heated debate at the European Parliament, the Christian-Democrat Weber strongly criticized Sánchez for negotiating the support of Catalan pro-independence parties in order to remain prime minister. In exchange for their votes in Congress, Sánchez’s Socialist Party offered an amnesty law for those who participated in the failed Catalan bid for independence in 2017. Weber chided Sánchez for discarding the option of instead reaching an agreement with the right-wing Partido Popular (PP).

The conservative PP had in fact received the biggest vote share in the July 2023 general election, but could not reach a parliamentary majority even with the support of far-right party Vox. Pacts between these two parties had become widespread after last May’s regional and local elections across Spain, where the PP made major gains but often failed to secure absolute majorities. In these cases, Vox voted in favor of PP candidates after reaching agreements that sometimes included a place for this Spanish-nationalist force within the various regional and local governments.