Can Spain’s faith in the EU survive Covid?

According to ancient Moorish legend, when the world was created each land was given five wishes. Spain’s first four wishes – for clear skies, seas full of fish, good fruit, and beautiful women – were all granted, but the fifth, for good government, was denied on the grounds that to grant that too would create a paradise on earth.

Certainly over the last couple of centuries, good government in Spain has tended to be conspicuous by its absence. Philosopher Ortega y Gasset summed up Spain’s tragic history and its desire to become more like the liberal democratic European countries in his famous phrase: ‘Spain is the problem and Europe the solution.’

It seems that many Spaniards agree: the European Union is widely regarded as an unquestionably good thing for Spain. Both the major parties, the left-wing PSOE and the right-wing PP, who have alternated in power over the last forty years, are unconditionally pro-EU.