The nine-candidate debate was ultimately marked by a clash between the Socialist Party and the Popular Party. As in the entire campaign, Teresa Ribera and Dolors Montserrat starred in a permanent exchange of accusations on Spanish television. On the one hand, the approach of Alberto Núñez Feijóo's men to the extreme right. On the other hand, the amnesty law and the alleged corruption affecting the government. The far right, Ciudadanos and also the PP used xenophobic speeches in a tense bloc over migrations and borders.
Ribera and Montserrat in turn monopolized most of the attacks of the rest of the opponents, especially of the far right Vox, which denounced a large coalition of socialists and conservatives, and of Sumar and Podemos, who are trying to regain space in the niche of voters of Pedro Sánchez's formation. The nationalist forces promised to bring the official Basque, Catalan and Galician languages to Europe.
The public television debate presented a complex opening scenario, with nine candidates from state formations and coalitions spanning different state formations; with the main forces that will compete in these European elections, but also with some like Ciudadanos, which is on the way to disappearing or who are hardly trying to retain a Member of the European Parliament.
The format still led to some exchanges and clashes. Although the intersection between PP and PSOE predominated, the far right and also Ciudadanos confronted Podemos and Sumar mainly with migration issues. “I have more immigrants at my door than you certainly do at yours, okay?” said the Liberal candidate Jordi Cañas to Irene Montero, with a reproach indistinguishable from that of Vox.
Despite being a European event, national politics clouded much of the speech in both ideological blocs. Especially in the first one, which paradoxically sought to get the candidates to outline their ideas for the next term in Europe.
The PP started first. Its candidate, Dolors Montserrat, took advantage of her first turn to accuse the PSOE of handing over the governance of Spain to Puigdemont and of pointing out the judges investigating both the Junts leader and Sánchez's partner, Begoña Gómez . “You can choose and correct: side with the rule of law or Moncloa's arguments,” he told him.
Ribera, dressed in a dark blue suit, responded with a reflection: “Earlier I went to the European Councils and they asked me awkwardly about Catalonia; Nowadays they don't ask me about Catalonia, but they do ask me about the extreme right,” he said. The far right that has persisted in Spain condones groups like Vox. In that first turn, he also took the opportunity to respond to Montserrat: “I think it's a shame that the entire PP program focuses on a false complaint from an extreme right-wing group Clean Hands,” he said about the complaint against Gómez in the court.
This struggle has been repeated throughout the debate: in defense policy, in the economy, in agriculture or in the field of migration. “I prevented the Socialists from putting a label like tobacco on wine,” Montserrat said at one point, as Ribera reminded her that it was her party that approved cuts to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).
When it comes to migration, the Minister of Ecological Transition has demanded an apology from Montserrat for her xenophobic statements during the campaign, after Feijóo's people adopted some of Vox's speeches in recent weeks. “Anyone who comes to commit crimes in Spain is not welcome,” the PP candidate said during the debate. “Their agreements with Vox ensure that they become extreme right-wing,” Ribera accused him.
Vox and Ciudadanos exploit their xenophobic speeches
One of the most tense moments of the evening was the blockade of immigration and borders. At that time, Buxadé and also Cañas exploited all their xenophobic speeches, comparing immigration to crime.
The far-right candidate, with his shirt unbuttoned and a cross on his chest, started his turn with one of his party's classics. “There is a direct link between illegal immigration and crime,” he said after accusing Sumar's candidate, Estrella Galán, of spending half the money of the organization she led on salaries. “The help is given to people, with psychologists, with lawyers, with social workers… to defend them against their policies,” replied the former general director of the Spanish Commission for Aid to Refugees (CEAR).
Buxadé's intervention was also interrupted several times by Irene Montero: “That's racism! I don't see you criticizing foreign vulture funds.”
Buxadé did not limit himself only to criticizing immigrants within this bloc. He also took advantage of other issues, such as defense policy, to expand his xenophobic speeches. “The best security plan we have ever seen is that of Morocco, which has emptied its prisons and sent criminals to us,” he said, followed by unverified figures. “It seems that no one here is concerned about the crime we have seen, we had never seen machetes, gang rape and such serious crimes,” he summed up.
Cañas, from Ciudadanos, has joined these speeches, having engaged from the beginning of the debate with the majority of the candidates, especially with Montero. At one of those border crossings he accused the former Minister of Equality of her place of residence. “The good nature is very nice if you live in a chalet in Galapagar, but it is very different if you live in a popular neighborhood or in a working-class area,” he began. At that point, Diana Riba, the candidate of Ahora Repúblicas (to which ERC, EH Bildu and BNG belong), intervened and reminded him that she lives in the central Born district, in Barcelona: “That is not a working-class neighborhood.”
“I certainly have more immigrants on my doorstep than you do on yours, okay? So don't teach me either. Come to my house,” Cañas responded immediately.
These exchanges were repeated throughout the block. At one point, Montero defended that a simple administrative offense does not give undocumented people access to the right to housing, work or assistance for victims of gender violence. While arguing this in response to Buxadé, Cañas interrupted his speech again: “Let everyone come here! “Let all of Africa come to Spain!”
Irene Montero warns of the escalation of the war
One of the protagonists of the debate was the Podemos candidate in these elections, who focused her entire speech during the debate on the defense of peace. “[Úrsula] Von der Leyen started the campaign in a bunker and asked for a change in mentality. He wants us to build bunkers while there is a shortage of pediatricians in health centers. We have not known any other bunker than in the films and it must remain that way,” he defended.
Much of his strategy involved criticizing Ribera for his “belligerent” positions. “I'm asking you, Vice President Ribera,” he questioned her. “If we're not going to the International Court of Justice to accuse Netanyahu of genocide, why on earth are we going? Why is this government slow to break trade ties and why are we unable to do what is necessary to stop the genocide? “If it's a genocide, why don't we do anything to stop it?” I asked him again in a second turn. The Socialist candidate has avoided responding.
“Peace is the most urgent task. Jordi, you are wrong: democracy means that we are shocked by any injustice, that the mortgage goes up and that Palestinian children are burned. We must make peace. Maybe we thought it would not be necessary to do it again, but we must say again: 'No to war',” he defended in another of his interventions.
Even more vague is the Sumar candidate, who has tried without much success to confront Teresa Ribera in the bloc on ecological transition, reminding her that her party is in favor of giving tax credits to electricity companies, or in the position on the ecological transition. Palestine, where he has asked the government for more ambition: the withdrawal of the Israeli ambassador and a total embargo on the sale of arms with that country.
Nationalist parties demand the recognition of official languages
Nationalist formations have also had less prominence, but all agree on the importance of official languages within the European Union. In his first intervention in the RTVE debate, Riba asked for Catalan, Basque and Galician to be made official in the EU. For her, it is “indispensable” that this official status is recognized in the parliamentary term that starts after next Sunday's elections.
The representative of the CEUS coalition in the debate, PNV spokesperson Oihane Agirregoitia, has requested that in the next legislative term the European Commission has a specific Commissioner who “guarantees respect” for the co-official languages of the European Union, among which it includes Basque, Catalan and Galician.
For his part, the representative of Junts, Aleix Sarri, who has also joined this statement about the official languages, has primarily regretted the absence of his colleague Toni Comín on the RTVE set. “I shouldn't be here,” Sarri said. “It should be Toni Comín, but if he had been here he would have been imprisoned,” he said in a debate in which he spoke throughout in Catalan.