*4.3. Vox*

The positions of Vox España on the structure of the Spanish state are outlined in the two source documents mentioned above: *100 medidas para la España viva* (Vox España 2018) and *Manifiesto fundacional* (Vox España 2014). Despite the linguistic and cultural diversity of Spain, this state is the home to the Spanish Nation which is "indissoluble in its unity", and of which the national sovereignty is vested in "the totality of the Spanish people" (Vox España 2014). At the same time, Vox states its awareness of the grea<sup>t</sup> human diversity of Spain—"the historical and cultural plurality of our Nation" (Vox España 2014, p. 5) and "the cultural, linguistic, legal and insular facets and facts characteristic of our country" (Vox España 2014, p. 6).

It is the two factors of the linguistic and cultural diversity on the one hand and the "indissoluble unity of the Spanish people", which, taken together with the desire to abolish the quasi-federal structure of Spain and create a unitary state, make the current and continuing question of Catalan separatism so acute and have led to the opening section of *100 medidas* having the title "Spain, Unity and Sovereignty".

On the failure of the Spanish "State of the Autonomous Communities", the Estado de las Autonomías, Vox states forcefully its rejection of the status quo and the reasons for its rejection in the following terms:

The Spanish State of Autonomous Communities has not fulfilled the goals for which it was created and its cost has reached alarming proportions. The political decentralisation which has reached extremes scarcely compatible with the Constitution, far from pacifying the national question in Catalonia and the Basque Country, has aggravated the centrifugal tensions and has pushed Spain to the verge of disintegration. (Vox España 2014, p. 3).

Spain is in a crisis situation which can only be solved in the following way:

Transformation of the Spanish State of Autonomous Communities to a unitary Spanish State founded on the rule of law and promoting equality and solidarity in the place of privileges and division. A single governmen<sup>t</sup> and a single parliament for the whole of Spain. (Vox España 2018, Item 6).

These are views which are reiterated and emphasised in the manifesto for the elections to the autonomous communities (Vox España EA 2019) where the rejection of the communities is expressed very forcefully. The position in the documents (*100 medidas*, *Manifiesto fundacional*, the *Programa electoral para las elecciones europeas de 2019* (Vox España EP 2019), and the *Vistalegre* speech, which formed an overture to the coming election campaigns of 2019 (Abascal 2018), is that Spain and the Spanish people precede, and possess a separate and well-developed existence from, the state created by the Constitution of 1978: That is, Spanish national identity is, above all, ethno-cultural and pre-constitutional. Consequently, Spanish national identity is distinct also from the *Estado de las Autonomías*. Given the hostility to that particular organisational form, this becomes a loaded and hostile term to the point that it is described as "a slow suicide" and has pushed the country to the verge of disintegration (Vox España 2014, p. 3). For these reasons the political community to which individuals are invited, or expected, to identify is above all a Spain constituted by notions of the Spanish past and its heroes, its high culture and its popular cultures, its unity and territorial integrity, its imperial and European deeds (including saving Europe and European civilisation from Islam: See below), its *dignidad*, *honor*, *valor* handed down from past generations, its *destino*, and its Christianity [i.e., Catholicism] (Abascal 2018). The appeal is to a quasi-sacralised 'Spain' thusly constituted (España is mentioned 69 times) and not to constitutional values: *Constitución* is never mentioned in the *Vistalegre* speech. For Vox the only political community with which to identify and where citizens should feel they belong is Spain as a whole; the autonomous communities diminish or destroy "the subjective feeling of belonging to the political community [of Spain]".

The contrast here is that between the AfD's satisfaction with the federal structure of its political community and Vox's total dissatisfaction with the form of its political community. It is a contrast relating in both cases to an awareness of real sub-national di fferences and their place within the whole, but to an entirely di fferent attitude towards such di fferences: After the achievement of a German nation state, whether the unification of 1871 or the unification of 1990 following the forced split into two states after WWII, regional di fferences are accepted as falling within the broader definition of "German" and are not considered threatening.

In Spain, there is a di fficult terrain for the negotiation of a national identity which is purely "Spanish" (and its feeling of belonging to a national territory and state) in addition to a regional identity or a local ethno-cultural-linguistic identity. There are the conflicting forces of the experience of an authoritarian unitary state before 1978, the very much larger language minorities (constitutionally recognised and protected: (Constitución Española 1978, Article 3), past separatism allied to terrorism, current separation attempts using quasi-legal or non-legal political means, and the constitutional recognition of the "peoples" (*pueblos* and *nacionalidades*) of Spain (Constitución Española 1978, Preamble and Article 2) within the imperative of "the indissoluble unity of the Spanish nation" (Article 2). In addition and as outlined, Vox presents a quasi-sacralised vision of the Spanish nation quite distinct from the constitutional and, as Vox sees it, fundamentally destructive framework of the State. For Vox, there is a total clash and it is this the national vision which must prevail rather than the constitutional form.

## *4.4. EU-European and Culturally European Perspectives of the Nation*

## 4.4.1. The EU-European Perspective

For both parties there are significant and comparable conflicts between national identity and EU membership. In their most fundamental form these stem from the recognition that EU membership means a curtailment of national sovereignty resulting from the transfer of sole decision-making responsibility in certain areas away from the nation state to the Commission, the European Parliament, and the EU courts. There is also awareness of the transfer of national decision-making in the area of human rights to the Council of Europe's ECHR. Given that for the AfD popular sovereignty is repeatedly defined as the foundation of both democracy and national identity (AfD 2017, Chapter 1), and that the nation state as inseparable from popular sovereignty is part of a shared European norm, the dimensions of the problem become clear.

The manifesto for the 2017 Bundestag elections issued by AfD (AfD 2017), particularly Section 1 "Defence of Democracy", as also its manifesto for the 2019 EP elections (AfD EP 2019), defend the concept of the supremacy of the nation and consequently contain serious reservations about the EU. Similarly, Vox's *100 medidas* (Vox España 2018) expresses reservations about the EU, but in its EP manifesto (Vox España EP 2019) its posture is much more critical and its views broadly but very significantly coincide with those of AfD. The insistence, for example, that sovereignty is vested in the totality of the Spanish people (Vox España 2014, pp. 4, 6; 2019a) and the position of AfD that national/popular sovereignty, *Volkssouveränität*, is the overriding principle of all political organisation, thus depriving the European Union of legitimacy as it possesses no *Staatsvolk* (see Gould 2018), lead to fundamental questioning of the European Union. Consequently, either implicitly or explicitly the parties share the view that the foundational treaties of the EU gran<sup>t</sup> too much power to the Union, and that Brussels is abusing this power. The EU should be a confederation of sovereign nation-states working in partnership. This would preserve the sovereignty and increase the role of the individual nations, which each party considers of paramount importance. This includes their total control, via the intermediary of their state, of movement across their borders and of immigration policy, with Vox demanding also the suspension of the Schengen arrangements. For AfD it implies, and for Vox it is explicit, that each country should be solely responsible for its bilateral relations. Both parties demand restriction of the role of supranational courts. Both parties insist also on restoration of preferential treatment towards their own nationals for employment or any form of social welfare payments; this principal of national preference should apply also to business entities. Each of these proposals is being made in order to restore what the parties see as the diminished power and specificity of their nation as expressed by the general will in its sovereign state. However, it is clear that each of the proposals is incompatible with EU principles.

The claims to re-establish the fundamental legitimacy and the guiding force of the sovereignty of the nation and the concomitant calls for reform of the fundamental structures of the European Union lead logically and explicitly to a possible future consequence if reform e fforts should fail. The AfD

explicitly envisions the possible withdrawal of Germany from the EU, or even the orderly dissolution of the Union and the substitution of a European Economic Community. For Vox the eventuality is couched in less specific terms, but it does express "the possibility of leaving supranational organisations which are contrary to the interests of Spain" (Vox España 2018, Item 99).

These positions in defense of the nation/the "sovereign people" against the harmful incursions of Brussels restricting the actions and protections of the Nation through the intermediary of its national state choose to ignore the fact that the preamble of the constitution of each country asserts that it was the will of the nation that the constitution be enacted and that each constitution explicitly authorises transfer of constitutional powers to international organisations (*Grundgesetz* Articles 23 and 24; *Constitución Española* Section 93). For both parties, the insistence on national sovereignty and national specificity override these constitutional provisions. Protection of the Nation is more important than any other consideration.

## 4.4.2. The European Cultural Perspective

For each of the two parties under discussion national identity is nested within European identity with no conflict between the two. In each case, also, use is made of concepts referring specifically to characteristics deemed to be shared nation-wide: For AfD it is (*deutsche*) *Leitkultur* (defining culture) and *Heimat*; for Vox it is *hispanidad* (Spanishness) and *arraigo* (rootedness) in the Spanish land and practices. Each of these clearly contains an element of nativism or essentialism, each of them also sees identity as anchored in the past and in a given territory. (Eigler and Kugele 2012) remark on the conjunction of memory and space for *Heimat*, but *mutatis mutandis* it is equally the case with *arraigo* and *hispanidad*. They combine elements of social and personal culture together with genetics in that *Heimat* refers to an individual's or group's origins in the people of a given geographical region which can be as small as a village or as large as a country. The term itself is immensely evocative and also problematic (Boa and Palfreyman 2000; Blickle 2002; Gebhart et al. 2007; Costadura and Ries 2016). Additionally, in an era first of unification and then of migration it can take on different configurations (Costadura and Ries 2016; Kronenberg 2018). The "defining culture" expressed by *Leitkultur* contains elements of culture in the sense of a complex of shared values and practices differentiating Germans from Others (particularly non-Europeans), but also linking them with shared Europe-wide practices and with values considered part of a common European heritage. Specifically mentioned are: Humanism, Christianity and its contributions to European civilisation and culture, freedom of religion, separation of religion and reason, separation of religion and the state, German constitutional values, female emancipation, and the German language (Pautz 2005).

*Hispanidad*, in addition to its geographical component, is explicit in its expression of membership in an ethno-cultural group. It covers many of the same elements of group and personal culture, essentialism and nativism as *Heimat* or *Leitkultur*, though, clearly, the Christian element is restricted to Roman Catholicism. Moreover, it covers practices and values rooted (see: *Arraigo*) in local or rural life. However, in addition it also pertains to the larger context of the Spanish-speaking world (Vox España 2018, Items 66 and 100; Aguirre 2018). Importantly, for Vox *hispanidad* strongly correlates with religion (Zapata-Barrero n.d., p. 150) and can imply or include an element of islamophobia or *maurophobia* (Zapata-Barrero 2006; Aguirre 2018), a phenomenon very evident in Vox's conceptualisation of Spanish identity (Aguirre 2018; Vox España EP 2019).

Importantly, for Vox the insistence on *hispanidad* is both complemented and reinforced by the attention given to European cultural identity in the long and strongly-worded Preamble to its manifesto for the EP elections (Vox España EP 2019). This preamble harshly criticises and opposes all and any EU trends, tendencies and legislation which impinge in any way on the national identity and sovereignty of any European nation. For Vox there is no contrast or contradiction between Spanish and European identity. Furthermore, there is a considerable and important overlap (though not total coincidence) with AfD's views of European identity to be found in its federal manifesto (AfD 2017) and EP manifesto (AfD EP 2019). Both emphasise the imbrication of national cultures in European culture and place

considerable emphasis also on the particular significance of European culture: For Vox it is explicitly *la Civilización por excelencia*, while for AfD it is implicitly, but clearly, so. For both parties this culture is founded above all on Christianity and the heritage of classical thought and values; and anything that the EU might do which would restrict or reduce these features or national specificity is harmful. In the name of its insistence on the Christian foundations of European culture and values, Vox asserts that "political deals" and "ideological prejudices" have contributed to the current crisis and "have built a Europe alienated from its spiritual foundations". More specifically, this is because of the influence of political postulates and practices of the Left and Social Democracy. For AfD the explicit rejection arising from the Christian foundation of the shared European culture is not of the Left, but of Muslim, and therefore Turkish, culture. This is parallel to the implicit element of Islamophobia perceptible in *hispanidad* (see above and Zapata-Barrero 2006; Aguirre 2018) and Vox's explicit rejection of Turkish EU membership (Vox España EP 2019, p. 9).

## 4.4.3. Social and Familial Relationships as Producers of National Identity

The traditional family is presented as providing a stable foundation for society as a whole and for its ability to prosper. It thus contributes to cohesion and to individuals' and the group's identification with the national territory.

Above all it is to be noted that the views of these relationships are distinctly conservative in nature and in the case of each party appear closely related to a vision of society as it existed before the pressures arising from globalisation and its resultant migrations, the migrations due to war and global inequalities, population movements within the EU, increasing secularisation throughout Europe and the shifts in social values of the late-twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, including those concerning marriage and women's participation in the workforce. Further information on the insecurities resulting from these changes, particularly in respect to the AfD and Germany but also generally, is to be found in (Gould 2018) drawing on (Beck 1997, 2000; Giddens 1991), and also in (Kenny 2017) who outlines the importance of nostalgia in current populist discourse. The parties are thus promoting the reassurance of the familiar, hence the appeal of everything that is implied in deutsche *Leitkultur* or *Heimat* on the one hand, and *hispanidad* or *arraigo* on the other, including the hint of superiority and the importance of Christianity in the first concept of each pair. At the same time, the use of these concepts has the important function of anchoring the individual within the national group and the territory which is the chief expression and locus of all these qualities.

## 4.4.4. Marriage and the Family

In both countries the family stands under the particular protection of the state (Grundgesetz 2019, Article 6; Constitución Española 1978, Article 39), and while admitting the existence and legitimacy (though grudgingly) of same-sex unions, both AfD and Vox ascribe a particular importance and function to the "classical" or "traditional" family of mother-plus-father-plus-children (AfD 2017, Willkommenskultur für Kinder; Vox España 2018, Section Vida y familia). As will be shown, because of the importance of family within the area of national identity and its position within country and state, it is to be promoted by a range of social and fiscal policies to encourage natality and support larger families (Vox España 2018; Vox España 2019a, Section 'Vida, familia e igualdad'; AfD 2017, chp. 7). For both parties the importance is national as well as social. The national element is paramount because of the concept, prominent in statements by both parties, that sovereignty lies respectively with the German or Spanish nation (AfD 2017, Section 1.1; Vox España 2018, Section 1 'Spain, Unity and Sovereignty'; Vox España 2014, Item 2).

This locus of sovereignty is not a peculiarly German or Spanish phenomenon, but is stated to be Europe-wide and an important positive characteristic of Europe and its culture as a whole, being a *sine qua non* of democracy (AfD 2017, 1.1) or of freedom (Vox España 2018). The weight of this view of the importance of the National is increased given the pragmatic situation in Spain of significantly increased (im)migration resulting from Europeanisation and globalisation, excess of

deaths over births within the population as a whole (sometimes referred to as a "demographic winter": (Vox Andalucía 2019; PP 2019), plus a significant proportion of births being to resident foreign women (INE 2019a, p. 12), together with the fact that the population is rising only because of immigration (INE 2019b). In Germany the pattern is similar (though with a marginally increasing population), with a low birth rate, predominance of immigration over emigration, excess of deaths over births (Statistisches Bundesamt 2018). Inevitably, this results in a reduction of the proportion of the constitutive sovereign nation (*Staatsvolk*) within the population as a whole, presented in the case of AfD as a matter of particular and explicit concern (AfD 2017, 7.1 and 7.7), and in Vox with its "strong support" for large families (Vox España 2018, Item 72) and proposals for family allowances for "Spanish families" with dependent children (Vox España 2018, Item 73) and its insistence on the importance of reducing immigration (Vox España 2018, Section "Inmigración"). This maintenance or increase in what AfD calls "*unsere angestammte Bevölkerung*" (our native population) (AfD 2017, Section 7 "Welcoming Culture for Children, Encouraging Families, and Population Trends) is necessary in order for the constitutive nation, thought of in ethno-cultural terms, to maintain the highest degree of control over both the political process and national culture and values (Gould 2018; AfD 2017, Section 7). With Vox this matter is more implicit, but can be inferred from, for example, the importance attached to the family and the proposed measures to give support particularly to large families outlined earlier, and in the *Manifiesto fundacional* item 10 (Vox España 2014) and the role of folklore and traditions of Spain mentioned above.

## *4.5. Religion and Language*

Within this perspective of social relations, the following subsection will now consider the roles first of religion and then of language.

## 4.5.1. Religion: Islam versus Christianity

The Christian foundation of the two countries and of Europe as a whole has already been outlined. Both parties see this as fundamental and inseparable from their respective societies and countries. On the other hand, in both Spain and Germany Christian religious observance is dropping noticeably (INE 2019c; Statistisches Bundesamt 2018). Within each country, however, there is the increasing presence of Islam, due principally both to labour-market immigration and to refugee movements (Gould 2018; Merkel 2018) 7. (Foroutan et al. 2014) have argued that continued migration involves a social structural change. This element is then compounded when Islam is framed as an alien and harmful religion. In the case of Vox the saving of Spain and Europe from the Muslim invasion is viewed as a historic achievement and a mark of Spanish identity never to be forgotten (see above). The task of continuing the protection of Spanish society from the Muslim presence and particularly the Islamist threat has to be maintained (Vox España 2018, Section Defensa, seguridad y fronteras; Vox Andalucía 2019, Item 11). For the AfD, with its strong opposition to Islam arising from its insistence on *deutsche Leitkultur* which is based on the foundations of German culture, Christianity and Enlightenment values, the opposition is absolute and most clearly expressed in the manifesto for the 2017 federal election (AfD 2017; see also AfD EP 2019, Sections 6 and 8):

Civil Societies in functioning states are called upon to protect and develop their cultures on their own terms. This is naturally true for German cultural identity. The cultural and religious struggle [Kulturkampf] already being fought in Europe and the West between Islam [which is] a doctrine of religious salvation and vector of cultural traditions and legal obligations lying outside any possibility of integration can only be avoided by means of a

<sup>7</sup> Chancellor Merkel to the Bundestag, "Over the last little while Islam has become a part of Germany".

set of defensive and restrictive measures which prevent further destruction of the European values of peaceful coexistence of enlightened citizens8.

Section 9.1 "German Defining Culture in the place of Multiculturalism"

In both cases, society and state can be maintained only through citizens' acceptance of a set of values which is, at least, culturally Christian and in opposition to Islam which is viewed as monolithically hostile to fundamental national and European cultural or religious values and traditions.
