Schools, farms, bars, cafes would shut: Spain defends pro-migrant policies

The opposition parties seeking to shut down Madrid's pro-migrant policies are jeopardizing key pillars of Spanish life, the Socialist-led government says

With the birth rate plummeting, public services in Spain have come to rely on immigrant labor, as have the bars and restaurants that are the life blood of many towns and cities, Immigration Minister Elma Saiz said in an interview. Shut off that supply of labor, she said, and the consequences would be dramatic. 

“We have modeled what Spain would look like in 2075 if migration flows fell by 30%,” Saiz said in an interview at the United Nations in New York. “Healthcare pressures would rise. Schools, farms, many bars and cafes would close. Each citizen would have to contribute much more to sustain our public services.” 

 

Her comments highlight an increasingly fractious debate that will shape the future of Spanish politics as Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez prepares to run for re-election next year.  

Sánchez, 54, has made his liberal stance on migration, and the economic growth it has helped to generate, a central plank of his pitch for another term in office. But the far-right opposition group Vox is also seeking to play on concerns about access to services with a pledge to give people who were born in Spain priority access to public sector jobs and services.  

Those arguments will be put to the test on Sunday when voters go to the polls in Andalusia, Spain’s biggest region.  

In a world upended by Donald Trump’s return to the White House and exercised by concerns about immigration, Sánchez has embraced his role as a contrarian, refusing US demands to increase defense spending or to support the war against Iran and making himself a target for the president’s anger as a result.  

In April, he deepened his commitment to integrating migrants into Spanish society with a program to hand residence permits to undocumented foreigners already living in the country. To be eligible, applicants have to prove they’ve been in Spain for five months and have no criminal record. They don’t need to have a job.  

Initial government estimates suggested that 500,000 people might take advantage of the offer but senior officials say requests could climb to 1 million by the end of June. 

“We need population,” says Rut Bermejo, an immigration researcher at the Elcano think tank in Madrid. “Another way to have more young people is to have children, but Europe does not have a birth policy that can solve that problem.” 

With migrants boosting domestic spending and the supply of workers, the Bank of Spain forecasts an expansion of 2.3% this year, more than twice the rate for the euro-area. 

All the same, those plans are opposed by the People’s Party, the country’s traditional center-right party, and Vox, which already govern together in several Spanish regions. The parties are aiming to oust Sánchez in next year’s election and polls suggest they are on track to win a majority of the seats in the next parliament.  

“Public services are overwhelmed and there is a perception that things are starting to stop working,” said Alma Ezcurra, a PP lawmaker in the European Parliament who focuses on migration issues. She said that Sánchez is “sending a message that breaking the law is rewarded.” 

But the two groups form an uneasy alliance. Vox was formed after its leaders broke away from the PP and then cannibalized much of its vote.  

Polls suggest that the PP is set to preserve its absolute majority in Andalusia’s regional parliament despite attempts by Vox to peel away support. If the PP ends up needing to rely on lawmakers from Vox to govern that would increase the far-right group’s leverage ahead of next year’s general election.  

Divided Public 

This year’s amnesty is part of a broader policy approach that has seen Spain’s population grow by 3.5 million since Sánchez took office in 2018. It’s now pushing 50 million, up by a quarter since the start of the century. As a consequence, the foreign-born share of the population has risen from 2% in the year 2000 to nearly 20%. 

The government estimates that about two thirds of those who would benefit from the amnesty are Latin Americans, whose shared linguistic and cultural background makes assimilation in Spanish society easier. There are also significant numbers of people arriving from Africa.  

“In the current context of strain and saturation in Spain, no more people can enter, from anywhere, legally or illegally,” said Carlos Hernández Quero, a Vox lawmaker. “No country can withstand such a sharp population increase in such a short time.” 

Vox has also criticized the skill levels of newcomers in an economy with lower productivity and innovation than some EU peers. The government says most arrivals work in services, construction and care. 

Spaniards, for now, are divided on the issue. A poll published this month by 40dB for El País found 38% of respondents supported the program, while 33% opposed it.  

Next year they’ll get to choose whether their country continues down that path.  

“We will need 200,000 to 300,000 additional workers a year to sustain our welfare system,” Saiz, the immigration minister, said. “The choice was clear: to be open and prosperous or poor and closed.”