Forget 'polarization': Sánchez and Feijóo offer two incompatible projects for Europe

Last Thursday, I attended the first session of the European Pulse Forum in Barcelona, promoted by POLITICO Europe and by the Spanish public advocacy consultancy beBartlet. This forum was conceived with a disruptive approach: to use public opinion data from Europe as a compass for structuring debates at the highest level on security, energy, mobility, and competitiveness.

On the first day, the organizers spent the afternoon analyzing Spain's contribution to the European Union on the 40th anniversary of its accession. To that end, they invited lawyer and former Minister of Foreign Affairs Ana Palacio, who evoked with some nostalgia the broad social, business, and political consensus that prevailed in Spain at that decisive moment four decades ago.

After a foundational stage, there arose a tendency by Spain toward what some have called 'passive consensus': supporting positions promoted by the large founding states, especially France and Germany, whose leadership served as a stabilizing element of the European system.

"The proposals of Spain's two major parties as concerns Europe could not diverge more sharply"

Following Palacio's discourse, I came to a conclusion: a direct connection can be drawn between the evolution of Spain's position and the geopolitical moment that Europe is now experiencing. While 'passive consensus' was predominant from Spain's Transition until Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the current context (with Europe in the midst of a strategic redefinition) is leading to another transition in which the proposals of Spain's two major parties as concerns Europe could not diverge more sharply.

Fed by Spanish opinion-makers, Europe's political ecosystem frequently offers a diagnosis of Spain as being 'polarized'. But beyond a clear rise in polarization, Spain is now exhibiting a strategic repoliticization of the European question. For decades, passive consensus diluted all political conflict related to the EU; today, that consensus has been broken - Europe has ceased to be a technical issue and is now a space for deeply political decisions. In this new context, the divergence between the major parties responds less to affective polarization (based on the delegitimization of one's adversary) and increasingly to substantive polarization, with authentic differences in diagnoses of the current historical moment and the correct responses. It isn't merely that they disagree over solutions: it's that they no longer share the same starting point. And when the framework changes, so does the very meaning of the political debate. After listening to Ana Palacio, I decided to compare the appearances of Pedro Sánchez and Alberto Núñez Feijóo at the European Pulse Forum, to corroborate my intuition: while Spain's Transition corresponded with a time of passive consensus, the current paradigm shift in global geopolitics is being echoed by active dissent in Spain.

"The divergence between the major parties responds less to affective polarization and increasingly to substantive polarization, with authentic differences in diagnoses of the current historical moment and the correct responses"

I therefore paid special attention to the two leaders at the European Pulse Forum. And voilà: Sánchez and Feijóo weren't arguing about how to drive the same car; they were driving two completely different vehicles. From the question of how the euro's fourth-largest economy fits into in global geopolitics, to the electrical systems that illuminate factories, to border-related matters, Moncloa and Génova are working from two very distinct instruction manuals. What follows is an x-ray of that structural conflict, almost word for word.

Geopolitics and defense: pure Atlanticism versus strategic autonomy

At a time when Berlaymont and NATO are closely monitoring the loyalties of Europe's capitals, Madrid is offering two foreign doctrines that could hardly be further apart.

For Feijóo, Atlanticism is the only valid bargaining chip. The conservative leader is demanding seamless alignment and denouncing the anomalous approach of the current government: "In short, there are anti-European and anti-NATO parties in Spain - and even in Spain's government." His military commitment is categorical: "I want to make it clear: NATO is the best instrument for guaranteeing security on both sides of the Atlantic, and everyone - I say everyone - must preserve it." As regards Latin America, Feijóo draws a red line to distance himself from the government's diplomatic tightrope walk: "Spain's place is not beside Nicolás Maduro or Delcy Rodríguez;" instead "our place is with peace, with democracy, with freedom, and therefore with Edmundo González and María Corina Machado."

"Sánchez defends the creation of a common European army: 'Not in ten years, not in two years. Tomorrow'"

Sánchez, on the other hand, defends the creation of a common European army: "Not in ten years, not in two years. Tomorrow." The President of the Government is projecting for Europe a "progressive multilateralism" that seeks autonomy and carries its own weight, outside the shadow of Washington. In addition, he warns against the West's double-standard and sends a crucial message to the Global South: "In the face of flagrant violations of international humanitarian law, Europe must act with vehemence if we want the rest of the world to look up to us and support us."

The key: Feijóo proposes that Brussels be the most loyal student of the old Western order. Sánchez wants Europe to be an autonomous superpower with its own moral agenda.

The economic engine: nuclear taboo versus green vanguard

The debate over the EU's loss of competitiveness vis-à-vis the U.S. and China also makes an obligatory stop at the issue of energy, and here again, consensus is non-existent.

Feijóo's approach connects directly with the pragmatic wing of the EPP, demanding that we abandon the notion of green 'utopias'. For Spain's opposition, the ecological transition cannot mean deindustrialization; he therefore decrees an end to the nation's taboo on nuclear power, promising "the preservation of technologies that provide dependable power and that avoid blackouts." That sentence was a dart aimed at Moncloa: "Almost all of Europe has realized the immense strategic mistake of disallowing nuclear power, and you have my word that Spain won't commit that mistake."

"For Spain's opposition, the ecological transition cannot mean deindustrialization; he therefore decrees an end to the nation's taboo on nuclear power"

Sánchez is at the opposite end, setting himself up as a champion of the European Green Deal. For the president, the ecological transition is not a regulatory toll but Spain's macroeconomic lifeline. He defends his own reforms aimed at "making the ecological transition not a brake but an engine of competitiveness and economic development in our country." His recipe is clear: "The security and prosperity of our society depend on electrifying our economy - and therefore on the promotion of renewables."

The key: either Spain revives its nuclear reactors to secure the industrial base (PP) or it entrusts its productive muscle to the sun and wind (PSOE).

Fortress Europe versus open migration

Demographics and border control are rewriting the continent's electoral maps. On this front, Génova and Moncloa speak in diametrically opposed languages.

Feijóo assumes a tone of security, warning that Spain is "exporting a migratory problem to the whole of the European Union." He strongly criticizes "the decision to regularize en masse, without conditions, more than a million irregular immigrants." His view is clear: "I want Spain and therefore Europe to have sufficient controls over something as obvious as criminal and police records."

Sánchez frames migration as a necessity, both demographic and economic. He dismisses the fortress model, stating that "closing Europe is simply a poor dead-end, not a project" and repeating his commitment to "legal, safe, orderly immigration."

The key: control and closure versus regulated openness.

The war for "the rule of law"

The final battleground concerns the very legitimacy of the system.

"For Feijóo, the problem lies in institutional deterioration: 'In recent years, the institutions in Spain have deteriorated...'"

For Feijóo, the problem lies in institutional deterioration: "In recent years, the institutions in Spain have deteriorated...." In his view, Brussels is the ultimate guarantor: "The European umbrella is precisely the best antidote to institutional decay."

"Without a social pillar, there will be no democracy." For the social democracy that currently governs in Spain, the real institutional erosion doesn't derive from parliamentary pacts but from material inequality (housing, wages). He warns that "there cannot be a strong and competitive Europe if it isn't a Europe of cohesive borders." His political axiom is non-negotiable: "Strengthening the social pillar is an indispensable condition to sustain our community project."

Conclusion

The political and media elite need to update their vocabulary. The term 'polarization' is an exercise in simplification; it assumes that these leaders agree in substance but differ in form. Their own words prove otherwise. Spain is witnessing a brutal collision between two models: one that prescribes Atlanticist orthodoxy, nuclear pragmatism, armored borders, and conservative institutionalism; another that advocates a vanguard green project, military autonomy for Europe, demographic openness, and an expansive social pillar.

Yes, the noise is deafening. But after all, it's the sound of two tectonic plates colliding in real time.