The future for Spain does not look bright.
A fertility crisis has reached such proportions that it is now an existential threat, while a migrant crisis is changing the very fabric of the nation. Although the country has some of the most magnificent cathedrals in the world, church attendance is plummeting. It has the highest unemployment rate in the European Union, and its young adults are increasingly unable to fly the coop and start independent lives. If it's true that antisemitism "signals societal collapse," then Spain, with the highest antisemitic attitudes in Western Europe, is in trouble.
Spain is also led by Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, who rivals any world leader when it comes to his animus against Israel, which he sanctioned this week for what he calls its "genocide" in Gaza. Sánchez also pledged "to increase aid for the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, known as UNRWA, and to impose an embargo on goods made in Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories."
Related: Human Rights Lawyer: UNRWA Is ‘Terrorism-Infested’
There's a kind of historical irony when a Spanish leader criticizes Israel for occupying land, considering that radical Muslims have viewed Spain itself as occupied territory since the Reconquista, when Christian kingdoms reclaimed the Iberian Peninsula from Muslim rulers. I challenge Sánchez to find any Muslim terrorist dedicated to the destruction of Israel who doesn't also pine for the "Return of Al-Andalus."
There is a Spanish political leader, however, who has displayed moral clarity about terrorism and the war in Gaza. Santiago Abascal, the leader of the right-wing populist Vox party, visited Israel in 2024, right after Sánchez's government said it would recognize Palestine as a state. His message to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was clear: "No prizes for terrorism. No state for Palestine."
Similarly, back home, Abascal opposes Catalonia becoming an independent state. As he said in Israel, "We face a similar thing in Spain — all kinds of groups that claim sovereignty based on nothing and nothing." Sanchez, meanwhile, spends more time defending the amnesty deal for Catalonia’s separatists that he brokered than advancing policies that preserve Spanish nationhood.
The prime minister's immigration policy, which The Telegraph describes as "opening the country's door to illegal immigrants," also does not promote national cohesion but rather fuels unrest and division. By contrast, Vox this year said it would deport 8 million people who haven't adapted to Spain's customs if it wins the next election.
Related: Spain’s Muslim Migrant Crisis Through the Lens of History
In an interview with Rachel Campos-Duffy on Fox News, Abacal sounded like President Donald Trump on immigration (I've translated from Spanish):
All of Mexico doesn't fit in the United States, and all of Africa doesn't fit in Spain and Europe. It's very reasonable to say this. We are worried because, at this moment, the message that is being advanced by part of the Spanish and European authorities — with some exceptions, for example, Giorgia Meloni and Viktor Orbán and some others — the rest of the political establishment in Europe and Spain advance the message of open doors to immigration.
Spaniards seem to be responding to Vox's common-sense platform for national renewal, which also includes lowering taxes and reducing the size of the public workforce. A new poll this month shows Vox with 17.4% support, five points higher than in last year's election. As with MAGA in the U.S., Vox is increasingly appealing to young men; it is the leading party among Spanish men under 25.
Many of these young voters will be at the Vox-sponsored "Viva Europa 2025" event in Madrid on September 13-14. Leaders such as Hungary's Viktor Orbán, France's Marine Le Pen, and the Netherlands' Geert Wilders will gather to support sovereignty, prosperity, and security in Europe. A slogan for the event is: "The reconquest begins."
It would be easy to give up on Europe, to say that it's already too far gone. The great Douglas Murray issued his warning to the continent's leaders in his 2017 book The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam. Those three "I"s now stare Spanish citizens squarely in the face. Will they surrender and allow a Muslim reconquest — or regain pride in their heritage and begin a reconquest of their own?
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