The European elections, in times of crisis: what were the results during the euro crises (and other crises)

This June 9th is day of european electionsso we vote on what will be the future European policies that will affect the almost 450 million citizens of the community bloc. On this occasion, we go to the polls in a complicated international context with the ukrainian wars and Gaza at the gates and the economic consequences they have caused. Although, if we analyze most of the topics that the candidates in this electoral campaignit seems as if we were going to vote nationally.

It shouldn’t be like this, but Nor is it unusual in this country that any electoral appointment be channeled and interpreted as a plebiscite on the current Government. And as a response to the economic crises that Spain has experienced since its entry into the European Union. Do Spaniards vote economically? We compare it with the results throughout history.

The main economic crisis that Spain has experienced since it entered the EU was that of boom real estate that exploded in 2008although the recession that devastated the Spanish economy in 1993 and led to some historical unemployment rates in Spanish democracy.

The The first European elections after the 2008 crisis were those of 2009, in the heat of the crisis; There, the Spaniards voted as the first option for the Popular Party (in the previous ones it had been the PSOE), despite the fact that only a year before José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero (PSOE) had managed to renew the presidency by winning easily in the general elections. Although he alone surpassed PSOE in two seats and 4% of the votesthis would be the first vote to punish the PSOE that would be endorsed in the following general elections in November 2010 with the victory of Mariano Rajoy.

In the following graph you can see the European election results in seats since Spain entered the EU: by clicking on each donut you can also see what percentage of the vote each party obtained, since the seats have varied in each electoral event.

The crisis of ’93 did not penalize the Europeans

However, the crisis of ’93, which raised unemployment rates from 16% to 24%, did not lead to an electoral disaster in the 1994 European elections. The PSOE was the winner of the European elections in Spain with 40% of the votes and 28 seats, which left it a long way from a PP with 22 seats and 31% support. It is true that the PP greatly improved its position with respect to the first European elections – for Spain – in 1989, which was mostly due to the fact that it absorbed the five from the now-defunct CDS of Adolfo Suárez.

The crisis of bipartisanship

The big hangover from the 2008 crisis We noticed it years later in another crisis that was reflected in some European elections voted entirely nationally. These were those of 2014, the elections of the breakdown of the two-party system that decimated PP and PSOE in the face of the rise of the new policy, which emerged after the era of crisis cuts, the major corruption scandals and the 15M movement: Podemos and Ciudadanos.

The two major parties suffered a major setback, which left the PP with eight fewer seats that went to Ciudadanos (2) and UPyD (4, three more than in the previous ones), going from 23 to 16. Also the PSOE, which remained Second, it lost more than 15% that went directly to a recently released Podemos and to the Plural Left.

Pablo Iglesias, along with Juan Carlos Monedero and Teresa Rodríguez | EFE

For this 9J, we will see if the Spanish vote again nationally. They can influence the economic crises unleashed by the Covid pandemic, which already sounds distant, and the crisis in Ukraine, which caused strong inflation and rising prices; The latter has been partially corrected after two years of raising interest rates by the ECB, which has just initiate a change of course in its monetary policy. However, what is happening is a remilitarization of countries to confront Russia, which also has economic consequences.

What these two recent crises have left is a reaction throughout Europe that greatly worries the EU: anti-Europeanism and advance of the extreme right threatens to increase its strength in these elections, including Spain. On 9J we will see to what extent we vote again in European elections, but looking towards our borders.