Spain’s governing Socialists have come out with a punchy response to the opposition People’s Party tougher residency and citizenship rules for foreigners, describing the immigration plan as “a pack of lies” and a “copy and paste” of Vox’s measures.
The governing Socialists (PSOE) have slammed the opposition’s immigration proposals, criticising them as a “pack of lies” and for adopting far-right rhetoric.
In recent months, the centre-right Partido Popular has rolled out a series of immigration policies. These includes a points-based visa system, toughening up the arraigo residency process, making foreigners sign a commitment letter and tougher language exams for citizenship.
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The programme has been portrayed by PP sources as a recalibration of the Spanish immigration system towards integration and contribution. Polling suggests that the PP would likely win the next general election in Spain – scheduled for 2027 – but could also need the support of Vox to form a government.
Many in Spain have interpreted the immigration announcements not as a concrete policy platform but an attempt to prevent the PP being outflanked on cultural and migration questions by the far-right Vox party. Polling also showed the PP losing large numbers of voters to Vox in the months before the rightward shift in rhetoric.
However, PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo has sworn that his party’s policy programme is “aligned” with measures on which Brussels is working on, as confirmed to him by the European Commissioner for Migration, Magnus Brunner, according to Spanish news agency EFE.
READ ALSO: The 10 migration laws that will impact foreigners if Spain’s PP reaches power
In response to the raft of proposals, PSOE released the forthright communication on its official website, stating that PP leader “Alberto Núñez Feijóo could have decided to put his people to work, he could have given the order for his party to finally start thinking about measures to improve the lives of citizens.”Â
“But instead,” the message reads, “what the PP leader seems to have indicated is to wait to see what Vox proposes and make it his own.” Going on, the statement claims immigration is not the only policy area in which the PP are now echoing Vox rhetoric and policy: “This is the trend on at least three issues: climate change, abortion and especially immigration.”
Focusing on the PP’s immigration policy blitz, the PSOE statement claims it is “a set of proposals and concepts that the far-right has been repeating for years, inside and outside Spain. The set of measures that Feijóo outlined can be summed up as a copy and paste of Vox’s most radical promises, together with a series of initiatives that have already been provided for in our country’s laws for years.”
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The punchy statement went on to criticise Spanish right’s association between migration and crime: “Associating immigration with delinquency is another of the maxims wielded by Vox, and one that the PP has embraced with a great deal of glee and little data.”
Marking a clear dividing line between the PSOE and PP on immigration, it added: “Yes, it is foreigners who drive the locals out of their neighbourhoods, but another type of foreigners, the vulture funds,” suggesting the problem in Spain is not immigrants but wealthy foreigners and investment funds.
Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has been one of the few if not the only pro-immigration leaders in Europe in recent years.
He and the PSOE have repeatedly made the economic argument for migration, as does the statement: “The Bank of Spain estimates that millions of immigrant workers are needed in our country to balance the ageing of the population or that the same body estimates that 25 percent of the growth of our GDP is generated by the migrant population.”
READ ALSO: Spain’s opposition plans to make it impossible for overstayers to get residency
