Dear Madam President:
I am writing this letter from a strategic conviction: the future of Spain will be decided in Europe, and the future of Europe will be decided by the quality of its political leadership.
You will assume office at a decisive moment because much evidence suggests that the changes affecting the international order have come to stay. “Much of what we took for granted in the last fifty years is crumbling; movements and technologies that aim to redefine the next fifty years are breaking through,” wrote a columnist for the New York Times in an analysis published by Agenda Pública on the day Trump, for the second time, took office as President of the United States.
Europe is leaving behind the comfort of the passive consensus. For years, the European Union advanced through broad formal consensus that, in many cases, avoided open political conflict. That model provided stability. It allowed the expansion of the single market, the consolidation of the common currency, and the management of complex enlargements. It worked. But it no longer suffices.
“Today Europe needs political leadership. It needs to confront democratic conflict rather than hide it behind technocratic formulas”
The crises accumulated—financial, health, energy, geopolitical—have shown that the Union cannot merely manage balances. Today Europe needs political leadership. It needs to confront democratic conflict rather than hide it behind technocratic formulas. It needs to decide.
And here lies the first mistake that Spain cannot permit: continuing to treat Europe as exterior policy. Europe is not exterior. It is an extended domestic policy. It is our regulatory framework, our market, our currency, our security and, increasingly, our political battleground. European Central Bank decisions affect our households directly. European industrial regulation defines the competitiveness of our businesses. Energy policies determine the cost of living. Migration decisions shape our cities and our social cohesion.
Moreover, electoral dynamics in other countries influence our own pacts. In the coming months there will be elections in two very important German Länder. What happens there—whether certain alliance formulas normalize, whether the political center reconfigures, whether center-right cooperation with far-right forces consolidates or is constrained—will not be merely a German matter. It will be a mirror for Spain. Europe operates as a shared political laboratory. Formulas travel. Boundaries too.
“To be influential in Europe we must be internally strong. Without internal structural settlements we are weak”
Understanding this is fundamental. To be influential in Europe we must be internally strong. Without internal structural agreements—in housing, in territorial financing, in immigration, in foreign policy, in the energy transition—we are weak, and moreover, an unstable political architecture ends up eroding citizen trust.
Now, making durable and ambitious policies has become far more difficult. The search for majorities has transformed into a game of variable geometry, and the big reforms—such as those required for housing—dissolve amid fragile coalitions and short-term horizons.
Madam President, political economists have long observed a challenging pattern: more fragmented societies—by ethnicity, class or ideology—tend to invest less in durable public goods, from infrastructures to social housing. When voters hold increasingly divergent preferences, governments find less consensus on how to allocate resources and who to benefit. The result is lower spending on collective policies and a stronger tilt toward clearly visible and immediate gains.
Here the debate between consensus and agreement becomes decisive. For too long we have equated consensus with stability. Consensus, understood as broad and comfortable unanimity, tends to dilute responsibility. It postpones conflicts. It reduces ambition. Agreement, by contrast, acknowledges difference, accepts disagreement, and channels it into an operational decision.
Europe can no longer live on abstract consensuses. It requires concrete, demanding, imperfect but effective agreements that enable governance in plural societies.
“Spain should not aspire to permanent unanimities but it does need a culture of agreement”
Spain should not aspire to permanent unanimities, but it does need a culture of agreement. Not the ad hoc agreement that resolves a single vote, but the structural agreement that sets stable frameworks for investment, social policy and international projection.
But the question, Madam President, is no longer solely about how to govern Spain. It is how to govern Spain within Europe.
Because Europe is entering a more political and strategic phase. The competition with China is not purely commercial; it is technological, industrial and regulatory. Transatlantic relations are undergoing fundamental recalibrations. Defense autonomy is no longer a theoretical discussion. The energy transition demands decisions that will affect generations. Migration management remains a challenge far from being merely a short-term issue.
In all these areas, Spain cannot simply react.
Our geographical position places us at the axis of the Mediterranean. Our history links us to Latin America. Our economic scale positions us among the Union’s major economies. We have the capacity to influence energy policy, the industrial agenda, and the design of European migration policy.
But influence is not an automatic attribute. It is the result of internal coherence, institutional credibility and a sustained long-term vision.
“Your term will not be judged solely by macroeconomic indicators. It will be judged by your ability to place Spain at the center of European decisions”
Europe is watching. Markets are watching. Our partners are watching.
If Spain projects structural division, its bargaining power will diminish. If Spain demonstrates stability in its core agreements, its weight will grow. European politics is increasingly a policy of balancing power and accrued credibility.
Therefore your mandate will not be judged solely by macroeconomic indicators. It will be judged by your ability to place Spain at the center of European decisions. By your capacity to explain to citizens that what happens in Berlin, in Rome or in Warsaw is not an international anecdote, but part of our own democratic conversation.
Europe needs more politics. And Spain needs more agreements. Not agreements that hide the conflict, but arrangements that order it. Not consensuses that dilute it, but decisions that manage it with responsibility.
The generation that today begins to assume responsibilities — the generation born and raised in democracy — cannot afford to treat the Union as mere decor. It is the central stage. It is the arena where the coming decades’ competitiveness, security and cohesion will be defined.
Madam President, European history is written by the decisions. And decisions require leadership.
“The generation that today begins to assume responsibilities — the one born and raised in democracy — cannot afford to treat the Union as decor. It is the central stage”
The question is not whether Europe will change. It is changing. The question is whether Spain will influence that change or observe it from the periphery.
May your mandate consolidate that political culture. May it succeed in making Spain stop reacting to Europe and start taking a position within it. May you understand that governing Spain today is, inevitably, governing in European terms.
Europe is our shared political destiny.
Sincerely,
