Economic crises do not always topple governments, but some alter the rules of the competition for power. That happened with the Great Recession of 2008. When the general elections are held in 2027, nineteen years will have passed since the financial collapse that shook Europe. Many of its economic consequences will have faded: austerity policies relaxed, employment recovered, and the pandemic prompted a reassessment of some of the principles that had guided Europe’s crisis response. The political effects, however, endure.
The 2027 elections will test the continuity of the political system that emerged from that crisis. The public debate centers on a possible alternation between PSOE and PP, but the vote will also take place in a scenario marked by parliamentary fragmentation, persistent bargaining, the weakening of the bipartisanship and difficulties in building stable majorities.
At first we interpreted Podemos and Ciudadanos’ breakthrough as a temporary reaction to the economic crisis. Time has proven that reading insufficient. Political science has documented that the political effects of major crises can outlive the economic recovery. In Ruling the Void, Peter Mair explained that the crisis accelerated the deterioration of political representation and widened the distance between citizens and parties. Hanspeter Kriesi, a professor at the European University Institute, has argued that globalization and the financial crisis consolidated a new axis of competition capable of reorganizing European party systems. Alongside these authors, Jonathan Hopkin, a professor at the London School of Economics and author of Anti-System Politics: The Crisis of Market Liberalism in Rich Democracies, maintains that the Great Recession opened a period of “anti-system” politics whose consequences still condition electoral competition across much of the continent.
“The governments of Pedro Sánchez can only be understood within the fragmented system that emerged from the crisis”
The Spanish trajectory has its own features, although it fits into that European transformation. Pedro Sánchez’s governments can only be understood within the fragmented system that emerged from the crisis. He did not cause it, but he has been the first Spanish president fully adapted to its logic. He probably reached his position because he understood before other leaders the possibilities of that new scenario.
Nobody at the helm since the restoration of democracy had governed for so long through simultaneous accords with parties to his left, nationalist and separatist formations, and parliamentary partners with very different priorities. His main political contribution goes beyond a concrete legislative agenda: he demonstrated that Spain could also be governed within a multi-party system, in which negotiation ceases to be exceptional and becomes part of the ordinary exercise of power.
The PSOE did not follow the path of much of European social democracy either. Historic parties like Greece’s PASOK or France’s Socialist Party were reduced to marginal positions or were replaced by new forces. The Spanish socialists, however, retained the centrality of the progressive space. They did not rebuild the old bipartisanship, but they remained the axis around which a parliamentary majority could be formed.
The center-right has undergone a parallel transformation. The PP remains its main force, but it has not regained the absolute majorities of the Aznar and Rajoy eras. Vox has durably reorganized the conservative space and has placed Spain in a debate that runs through nearly all of Europe: what relationship should traditional center-right parties maintain with the radical right.
“The color of the Executive will change, but the rules of party competition are unlikely to change”
This will probably be one of the main questions of the 2027 elections. If Alberto Núñez Feijóo reaches the presidency, he will inherit the same political system that Pedro Sánchez faced in 2018. The color of the Executive will change, but the rules of competition are unlikely to change. It will not be enough to know whether the PP has a sufficient majority to govern. It will also be necessary to determine what role Vox will assume: to enter the Government, to facilitate an investiture from outside the Cabinet, or to preserve its parliamentary autonomy to protect its political profile.
The dilemma runs through Europe. Italy has normalized the presence of the radical right at the helm of government. In France, a second round between the left and the radical right could hand victory to Le Pen. In the Netherlands, forming governments has long depended on how that relationship is managed. The German CDU officially maintains a cordon sanitaire against Alternative for Germany, but the rise of the far right forces the main conservative party to constantly rethink its strategy.
Spain is part of that same debate. The process, the motion of no confidence, and the repeated elections were often read as Spanish anomalies. In reality, they were political consequences of the Great Recession. Spain today resembles other European democracies much more than fifteen years ago: parliamentary fragmentation has become normal, absolute majorities are less likely, and governing requires constant negotiation. Medium and small parties thus gain veto power, while stability depends less on the winner’s strength than on its ability to build agreements.
“Stability depends less on the winner’s strength than on its ability to build deals”
That is why it is worth rereading Pedro Sánchez’s governments from a less cyclical perspective. His personal style and tactical decisions matter, but those governments primarily reflect Spain’s adaptation to a deeper transformation of European democracies. Sánchez did not invent coalition politics. He was the first president to learn how to govern within it.
Feijóo, if he reaches La Moncloa, will probably have to adapt to that same logic. He will not be able to govern like Aznar, and he will hardly be able to govern like Rajoy. He will have to operate in a fractured Parliament, negotiate support continuously, and confront the problem that today conditions almost all European conservative parties: how to relate to a radical right that can no longer be treated as a passing phenomenon, because it has entrenched itself in the political system.
In addition to deciding who will occupy La Moncloa, the 2027 elections will measure which candidate is best prepared to govern within the cycle opened by the Great Recession.
The rebound in growth and employment did not end its political consequences. They remain in institutions, in parties, and in citizens’ expectations. The Transition shaped the system that dominated Spain for more than three decades. The Great Recession broke that balance and opened a multipartite era.
“The 2027 elections will decide the next Government, but they will also measure whether fragmentation and permanent negotiation continue to define Spanish politics”
The generation of Felipe González governed the country that emerged in 1978; Mariano Rajoy managed the exhaustion of that model and Pedro Sánchez has governed the system born from the financial crisis. If Alberto Núñez Feijóo reaches the presidency, he will have to operate within that same framework. The 2027 elections will decide the next Government, but they will also measure whether fragmentation and permanent negotiation continue to define Spanish politics or whether a different cycle begins to take shape.
