The former President of the Government José María Aznar maintains that the next General Elections will be the "most transcendental" held in Spain since the Transition. In his opinion, if the current coalition manages to regain power, the constitutional system as it has been known until now will "end".
Aznar traveled to Bilbao this Thursday to present his book 'Order and Freedom'. During the event, he warned that the permanence of the Executive headed by Pedro Sánchez would have direct consequences on "the Spanish nation and its historical continuity, on the Constitution as a framework for legal coexistence of all Spaniards, on the parliamentary monarchy as head of state, and on coexistence among Spaniards".
In this regard, he pointed out that "no one can think of liquidating a constitutional, institutional system, a parliamentary monarchy, putting the unity of our country at risk, without it affecting coexistence among Spaniards".
Faced with this scenario, he defended that the alternative involves a formation capable of gathering a broad social majority, which upholds the constitutional pillars and guarantees institutional stability. He admitted that the challenge will be complex: "It will not be easy at all, because the challenges we face in a profoundly unstable environment are very complicated".
Therefore, he expressed his willingness to promote the recovery of the national community, the prestige of the State and institutions, as well as the principle of political responsibility. He also advocated for "morally recovering the country and making the economic and social decisions that make for a sustainable economy for the country, which is absolutely fundamental". In this context, he called for "a broad, firm, secure government that is willing to withstand the blows that will soon come its way, which will come".
"Complete political collapse" and impossibility of agreements
In his diagnosis, Spain is going through a "complete political collapse" that prevents the adoption of the "fundamental decisions that should be made". As he denounced, "due to the sectarian, counterproductive, and criminal policies that are being produced, it is impossible in Spain to maintain a serious debate on security, on defense, on artificial intelligence, on education, on the development of the country, on the need for infrastructure, on the future of the welfare system, on demographics, or on immigration".
He also recalled that "because we can't, we haven't had general state budgets for three years. We have some in the government that don't have a majority in Congress." In his opinion, "the desirable thing for Spain is that Spaniards could speak and make our decisions, and that a broad majority of Spaniards would come together to end this situation."
Beyond the episodes "that are being seen daily now and that are enormously serious and harmful," he said he felt especially concerned by a process prolonged over time, "which is institutional deterioration: the deterioration of institutions, of the State, of coexistence among Spaniards and what can happen in our future."
He appealed to citizen responsibility by stating: "We are the ones who decide if we want to take the country into our hands and say we are going to take it this way. We are the ones who decide. Nations, their destiny, are marked by their citizens." Therefore, he called on the "responsible citizen, whoever they voted for in the past, to realize the circumstances we are currently experiencing and contribute, because it is a time for important decisions, to that broad majority that will make political change possible, which will be difficult to manage, but which is absolutely indispensable."
Criticism of nationalism in the Basque Country and Catalonia
At another point in his speech, Aznar asserted that the Basque Country and Catalonia share, in his opinion, the same underlying problem: the "historical failure" of nationalism since the Transition, which would be generating scenarios of decline. "The model it represents is completely exhausted," he stated.
To justify this, he alluded to various indicators: "If we look at educational terms and educational results, if we look at what the presence of foreign investment in the country means, if we look at the fact that in the last 12 years 25% of young people from the Basque Country have left the Basque Country, if we look at terms of a country as industrial as this, with such an industrial tradition, the number of companies that open here or the number of companies that leave here, if we look at terms of labor absenteeism or strikes produced or hours lost, something is not working."
He warned that this reality is "worrying for the Basque Country, but above all it is worrying for all of Spain". In his opinion, "that is the consequence of an absolutely exhausted model and an absolutely clear historical failure".
Likewise, he stressed that the Basque Statute and the Economic Agreement derive directly from the Spanish Constitution, which is why he considers it incoherent to promote policies that aim to erase that constitutional framework and "everything that it means" to replace it "to focus on ideas of confederal republics or confederal little republics, it is an absolute nonsense".