South European Society and Politics
Vol. 14, No. 4, December 2009, pp. 519–536
A Second Transition, or More of the
Same? Spanish Foreign Policy under
Zapatero
Charles Powell
This text explores the extent to which José Luis Rodrı́guez Zapatero’s foreign policy during
his first term (2004– 8) as prime minister should be seen primarily as a reaction to (and a
rejection of) that of his immediate predecessor, José Marı́a Aznar, or whether it is best
interpreted as an original, proactive response to changing domestic and international
circumstances. It concludes that, although Zapatero’s administration was essentially
reactive at first, it gradually acquired some unexpected, novel traits of its own, which
contributed fresh ideas to the debate over Spain’s foreign policy identity and its role in an
increasingly globalised world.
Keywords: Spain; Foreign Policy; Zapatero
This contribution seeks to examine the motivations, goals, style and outcomes of
Spanish foreign policy—with the sole exception of Spain’s policy towards the
European Union (EU) (see Closa, this issue)—during Prime Minister José Luis
Rodrı́guez Zapatero’s first term in office (2004–8). In keeping with the agent-oriented
and actor-specific focus of much of the recent foreign policy analysis (FPA) literature,
it shares the assumption that ‘all that occurs between nations and across nations is
grounded in human decision makers acting singly or in groups’ (Hudson 2005).
Careful attention will therefore be paid to the beliefs, motivations and goals of the
head of government, who was ultimately responsible for the formulation of policy in
this area. However, given that foreign policy in a globalised world increasingly involves
a multiplicity of actors and levels, this text will take into account not only the
individual level of analysis, but also the state and international system levels. This will
allow us to explore the performance of the Spanish Prime Minister while taking into
account both the domestic and international environments (and constraints) within
which he operated.
ISSN 1360-8746 (print)/ISSN 1743-9612 (online) q 2009 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/13608740903503886
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C. Powell
In the wake of the March 2004 elections that brought Zapatero and his Partido
Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE, Spanish Socialist Party) to office, a number of
(mainly British and North American) commentators greeted his arrival as evidence of a
‘second transition’, a metaphor that was intended to suggest that Spain was ‘entering
a new phase of democratic development’ (Grimond 2004). Interestingly, this notion
proved far less popular with Spanish authors, possibly because they recalled that a
decade earlier, his predecessor, the Partido Popular (PP, Popular Party) leader José
Marı́a Aznar, had published a book—which went largely unnoticed abroad—with the
title Spain: The Second Transition (Aznar 1994). Whether or not it can fruitfully be
applied to other policy areas, in our view the notion of a second transition is not
particularly useful in helping to understand the evolution of Spanish foreign policy
under Zapatero, because it fails to reflect both its contradictions and the fundamental
continuities that it shared with earlier periods. This is not to say, however, that foreign
policy did not experience some interesting departures under his leadership, which are
explored in detail below.
The central research question addressed in this text is the extent to which Zapatero’s
foreign policy during his first term should be seen primarily as a reaction to (and a
rejection of) that of his immediate predecessor, or whether it is best interpreted as an
original, proactive response to changing domestic and international circumstances.
Inevitably, this also raises the question of whether, by reversing Aznar’s policy goals,
his successor was also departing from the well-trodden path frequented by his Socialist
predecessor, Felipe González. This contribution will argue that, although Zapatero’s
foreign policy was essentially reactive at first, it gradually acquired some unexpected,
novel traits of its own, which contributed fresh ideas to the debate over Spain’s foreign
policy identity and its role in an increasingly globalised world.
On coming to office, Zapatero went to great lengths to dissociate his government’s
policies from those of his immediate predecessor, as if acting under the influence of
what has only half-jokingly been described as a Swedish pop group syndrome (after
ABBA, or ‘Anti- Bush, Blair & Aznar’) (Powell 2006). Like Aznar in 1994, he believed
the time was ripe to move beyond certain ‘givens’ of Spanish foreign policy and
explore uncharted waters, albeit in a markedly different direction. As with Aznar, this
was also a highly personal, ideologically driven departure, and one that was arrived at
somewhat intuitively, without prior consultation or debate within his party or cabinet.
What is perhaps most surprising is that, in marked contrast to both González and
Aznar, it was undertaken by someone who had never shown much interest in foreign
policy matters during his surprisingly long career as an obscure back-bencher
(1986–2000), who had barely travelled abroad as leader of the opposition (2000–4),
who spoke no foreign languages and seemed generally impervious to external influences.
Interestingly, this vehement rejection of Aznar’s perceived legacy did not lead his
successor to identify wholeheartedly with that of his Socialist predecessor either.
Zapatero claimed to have become interested in politics after attending a González rally
in Gijón in 1976, when he was only 16 years of age. Furthermore, given the latter’s
standing both amongst PSOE voters and with international public opinion at large,
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521
the incoming prime minister naturally paid lip service to his leadership and his
outstanding contribution to recent Spanish history. However, Zapatero also went out
of his way to dispel the notion that he regarded González as his mentor, or that he
would be turning to him for advice in times of crisis. The most obvious reason for this
is generational: González was born in 1948, Zapatero in 1960; the former was a
relatively young member of the generation that entered politics during the transition,
while the latter is very much a post-transition politician, who obtained his law degree
in 1982, the year his predecessor took office. Additionally, it should be noted that
Zapatero became party leader in 2000 (at the age of 39), after defeating two prominent
González supporters, José Bono and Matilde Fernández. Furthermore, he did so as
leader of a new political platform, Nueva Vı́a (New Route), whose members largely
belonged to the same age group. Although Nueva Vı́a has sometimes been compared
to Tony Blair’s New Labour and Gerhard Schroeder’s Neue Mitte (New Middle), it is
perhaps better understood as the expression of a post-transition generational mood
than as an ideological platform critical of the policies implemented by González
in 1982– 96.
Zapatero’s Perceptions of Spain and the World
In spite of a surprising reluctance to commit his foreign policy views to paper even
after reaching office, it is possible to infer Zapatero’s ‘operational code’ (George
1993)—in other words, those fundamental beliefs that provide norms, standards and
guidelines for decision-making—from major speeches, interviews and other public
statements. What is perhaps most original about his operational code is that it was
explicitly premised on the notion that, due to the progress of globalisation and
economic interdependence, a ‘middle power’ such as Spain could only hope to
maximize its potential for global leadership by defining a new international identity
for itself. In turn, this led him to develop a new ‘national role conception’ (Holsti
1987), by which we mean a different perception of the role Spain should play in the
international system, and hence a new definition of the types of foreign policy
decisions and behaviours that should be considered appropriate for a country such as
his to undertake. At one level, of course, this new national role conception was simply
an expression of his rejection of his predecessor’s: in Zapatero’s view, Aznar’s decision
to seek a ‘special relationship’ with the United States (US) and support the invasion of
Iraq was not only wrong, but also totally out of character with Spain’s foreign policy
identity. At a deeper level, however, it grew out of a firmly held belief that, as a result of
globalisation, distinctions between foreign and domestic policy were rapidly being
eroded (Ortega 2006). Consequently, the Socialist leader believed that the values he
professed at home (peace, justice, solidarity, social cohesion, tolerance, secularism and
so on) should also be those that identified Spain abroad. This, in turn, led him to
attach far greater importance than had hitherto been the case to ‘soft power’, which has
been defined as ‘the values a government champions in its behaviour at home
(for example, democracy), in international institutions (working with others), and in
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foreign policy (promoting peace and human rights)’ (Nye 2004). The future standing,
reputation and influence of a middle power such as Spain would therefore increasingly
depend less on specific actions than on what it might represent to the outside world.
National role conceptions are closely related to leaders’ views of the international
system as a whole. Given his age—he was 29 when the Berlin Wall fell—Zapatero may
be considered Spain’s first post-Cold War prime minister. The Socialist leader felt no
nostalgia either for the ‘certainties’ of the bipolar, Cold War period, or for those of the
subsequent ‘unipolar moment’, during which the US emerged as the world’s only
superpower. His public statements also suggest that on coming to office he already saw
the international system as a multipolar one, in which the US, China, Russia, Japan
and the EU should all play leading roles. He was also of the opinion that peace and
progress would best be served by ‘effective multilateralism’ (a concept that Spain,
together with other EU member states, had formally embraced in 2003 when it signed
up to the European Security Strategy), though he rarely sought to clarify its precise
meaning. In public, Zapatero invariably linked effective multilateralism with the
United Nations (UN) system and a vigorous endorsement of the principles of
international law, both out of genuine conviction and as a way of distancing himself
from (and implicitly condemning) his predecessor’s behaviour during the Iraq crisis.
In doing so, however, he seemed blissfully unaware that even the most enthusiastic
defenders of international law were often highly critical of the workings of the UN
system, and that the dynamic of the Security Council in particular had frequently
produced results that were contrary to the values (democracy, solidarity, human
rights) that he so strongly identified with.
In terms of its foreign policy style, Zapatero’s government mainly differed from its
predecessor in that it was initially less ‘presidentialist’, which is not to say it was truly
collegiate. Partly as a reaction to Aznar’s very high foreign policy profile, the Socialist
leader initially went out of his way to emphasise that policy would be conducted from
the Foreign Ministry, and not from La Moncloa, the prime minister’s office. His
appointee, Miguel Angel Moratinos, a career diplomat ten years his senior, who had
specialised in the Middle East and had represented the EU as special envoy to the region
(1996–2003), seemed well suited to the job. Like González’s first foreign minister,
Fernando Morán, he was also a member of the Socialist Party, and had won a seat in the
Congress representing Córdoba in the 2004 elections. In keeping with this spirit,
Zapatero was also quick to announce a long-awaited overhaul of the Foreign Service,
implicitly suggesting that if his predecessor had listened to the impartial, professional
advice that only highly qualified civil servants can provide, certain excesses might have
been avoided. True to his word, the Prime Minister (who was notoriously reluctant to
spend time abroad) was initially happy to have Moratinos in the driving seat, but
the growing need to oversee and coordinate policy closely and give some key matters
his personal endorsement gradually forced him to become more involved. However, it
was not until his second term (beginning 2008), when he finally developed an appetite
for international affairs, that the centre of gravity of foreign policy decision-making
shifted back to La Moncloa, as had happened under both his predecessors.
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As part of a broader effort to make decision-making more democratic and
accountable, while in opposition the Socialists had also promised that parliament would
play a much more active role in defining foreign policy, a pledge that was only partially
honoured, as we shall see below. Unlike Aznar during his second term (2000– 4),
Zapatero needed the support of other parliamentary groups to pass legislation, but he
was generally content to woo those whose support was most forthcoming, and the
foreign affairs committee’s traditionally sleepy existence went largely unperturbed.
In opposition the Socialists had also claimed to wish to make the decision-making
process more inclusive by bringing in new actors, most notably autonomous
communities, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), interest groups and thinktanks,
but once they were in office progress in this regard was disappointingly modest.
Principles versus Expediency: The US, Iraq and Afghanistan
Given the widely held (though largely unjustified) perception that Zapatero’s first term
brought about a sea change in Spanish foreign policy, it is interesting to note that
neither the PSOE’s 2004 electoral programme nor the Prime Minister’s inaugural
speech to the Congress contained much that could be considered truly novel (PSOE
2004). What was perhaps most striking about the former was the gusto with which it
attacked the policies it attributed to the Aznar government and the pernicious
influence of ‘neoconservative centres of power’, and its determination to combat the
combined evils of unilateralism, preventive war, and regime change imposed from
abroad. Otherwise, both party and leader paid lip service to the by now traditional
priorities of Spanish foreign policy: strong support for the process of European
integration; respect for international law as embodied in the UN system; a clear
endorsement of the Iberoamerican Community of Nations; a strong presence in the
Mediterranean region, partly with a view to contributing to a just and peaceful
solution to the Arab –Israeli conflict; a recognition of the importance of a ‘robust and
balanced’ transatlantic relationship, to be conducted multilaterally, at the North
Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and EU level, and bilaterally between Spain and
the US; and a commitment to the global struggle against terrorism and organised
crime. If anything, the most innovative aspects of the electoral programme were its
commitment to a very significant increase in development aid, to a greater Spanish
role in sub-Saharan Africa and to the provision of more social benefits for the oneand-a-half million Spaniards living abroad (many of whom would shortly be voting in
the forthcoming general election).
In many parts of the world, Zapatero will probably be remembered best as the leader
who stood up to the US administration and withdrew Spanish troops from Iraq. Had
it not been for the war, he might have enjoyed the kind of relationship with
Washington that González had forged in the late 1980s to early 1990s. As the PSOE’s
2004 electoral programme recalled, since the return of democracy, successive Spanish
governments had sought to define a more balanced bilateral relationship with the US,
an effort that had culminated in the 1988 renegotiation of the bases agreement.
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By standing up to a significantly more powerful ally but later taking part in the first
Gulf War, González had proved that it was possible to engage in constructive criticism
while remaining a loyal partner. Ironically, this had enabled that Socialist leader to
enjoy a particularly close relationship with Republicans Ronald Reagan and George
Bush (senior), in spite of an obvious lack of ideological affinity. Since 1996, however,
this ‘delicate balance’ had been upset as a result of Aznar’s conversion to a more
Atlanticist worldview, an imbalance Zapatero would correct in order to return to the
pre-existing status quo. Seen in this light, his policy towards the US may certainly be
seen as a continuation of that of González, and it is interesting to note that he never
objected to the bilateral Agreement on Defence Cooperation (most recently updated in
2002 by Aznar) which enabled US forces to make ample use of Spanish military bases
throughout the Iraq War and beyond, and which was pointedly described in the 2004
electoral programme as being fully compatible with Spain’s security commitments to
both NATO and the EU.
Some critics, however, have claimed that Zapatero’s attitude towards the US was
always fundamentally different to that of his Socialist predecessor, in the sense that he
was far more hostile to the notion of American leadership per se, and tended to
empathise almost instinctively with Washington’s traditional antagonists, most
notably in Latin America and the Arab world. As a result, he regarded the ‘special
relationship’ avidly sought by Aznar as an aberration, which had greatly reduced
Spain’s autonomy and influence in these regions, and in Europe as well. Although it is
difficult to document this attitude, some have interpreted it as the expression of a
deep-rooted, latent anti-Americanism, which certainly ran deep amongst broad
sectors of the Spanish left. By all accounts, González probably shared a rather similar
worldview in the 1970s, but gradually modified his stance once he came to office, even
though it would not always be in his best electoral interest to act accordingly. However,
it could also be argued that the key variable was that the two leaders operated in very
different international contexts: while the power and influence of the US was almost
undisputed in the late Cold War and post-Cold War period most familiar to González,
his successor came to office in a markedly different, post-9/11 environment, in which
doubts concerning the US’s international standing were already commonplace.
Prior to taking up office, Zapatero had announced that Spanish troops would be
withdrawn from Iraq unless the UN passed a resolution modifying the legal status of
foreign troops there in keeping with international law before 30 June 2004, when
formal sovereignty was due to be reinstated. On 18 April, however, his government
decided to withdraw immediately, without waiting for the adoption of UN Security
Council resolution 1546 on 8 June 2004, which was construed by some as having
provided the invading troops with a modicum of legal cover.1 Spanish public opinion,
still reeling under the impact of the 14 March train bombings in Madrid, was generally
supportive of the government, and, according to one poll, withdrawal enjoyed the
support of 67 per cent of the population. The decision was also highly divisive,
however; although it met the approval of 91 per cent of PSOE voters, it only had the
backing of 26 per cent of PP ones.2 In keeping with the PSOE’s electoral promise to
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allow parliament a greater say with regard to troop deployments abroad, in April 2004
the decision was put to the vote in the Congress of Deputies, which endorsed it by 185
votes in favour, 141 against and four abstentions.
Spain’s 1,300 peace-keeping troops, which had arrived in Iraq in the summer of 2003,
once the occupation had been completed, accounted for less than one per cent of the
US-led forces there, and their withdrawal had no significant military impact, though it
did force the small Nicaraguan, Dominican, Honduran and Salvadoran contingents
serving under Spanish orders to withdraw as well. By all accounts, what irritated
Washington most was the unilateral, unnecessarily hasty manner in which the
withdrawal was implemented. Although the Bush administration claimed to respect
Zapatero’s decision, it effectively ceased to regard the Spanish government as a reliable
partner, an attitude that only prompted the Prime Minister to publicly encourage other
European leaders to follow his example during a visit to Tunisia in September 2004.
Spain’s withdrawal from Iraq led to the most serious political spat in its bilateral
relations with the US since Franco’s death, and Zapatero would go down in diplomatic
history as the only EU leader who was never invited to set foot in the White House
during Bush’s second term. More worryingly, perhaps, this had an immediate impact
on Spaniards’ attitudes towards the US, even if they were largely coloured by
predominantly negative views of the Bush administration. Somewhat tentatively,
however, both sides made efforts to mend bridges. Although Madrid refused to involve
the Spanish army in the training of troops in Iraq, it did agree to help train Iraqi police,
magistrates and civil servants in Spain. Furthermore, the new government did not
renege on its predecessor’s commitment to Iraq’s reconstruction, and donated US$20
million towards the organisation of the first Iraqi elections, held in January 2005.
Relations at the ministerial level remained cordial, and Spanish ministers travelled to
Washington frequently to engage their counterparts. In April 2007, after five years of
desultory talks, an agreement was finally reached regulating the presence of US
military intelligence in Spanish bases, which had been left pending when the
Agreement on Defence Cooperation was updated in 2002. A month later, Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice finally visited Madrid for the first time since the crisis over
Iraq. Throughout this period, the US continued to make unrestricted use of its air and
naval base in Rota, in southern Spain, its most important military facility in the
western Mediterranean.
In spite of these efforts, the potential for serious disagreement remained.
In November 2005, the Minister of Defence agreed the sale of transport planes and
patrol boats to Venezuela valued at e1,700 million, supposedly to be used in
combating drug-trafficking and terrorism. Fearing this equipment might be used
against its closest ally in the region, Colombia, Washington effectively quashed the sale
of the planes by refusing to grant the licence this transfer of technology originally
developed in the US would have required. In general, the US was never slow to object
to Spanish diplomatic overtures it did not approve of, such as Moratinos’s unexpected
visit to Damascus in March 2006. The US administration was also displeased by what
it saw as an unduly conciliatory attitude towards the Cuban regime, and did not hide
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its irritation when Moratinos visited Havana in April 2007, the first Spanish foreign
minister to do so since Aznar’s foreign minister, Abel Matutes, held talks there in 1998.
Although relations remained cool at the highest political level, it is unclear whether
this did any lasting damage to the fundamentals of the bilateral relationship, in the
same way that Aznar’s proximity to Bush does not appear to have translated into any
tangible long-term benefits. Police and judicial cooperation in the struggle against
global terrorism continued unabated, and the two governments worked closely behind
the scenes in trouble spots such as Venezuela.3 In the economic sphere, in spite of the
political crisis, in 2005– 7 the US was the fourth/fifth-largest foreign investor in Spain
as well as its seventh/eighth-largest trading partner, and it was during Zapatero’s first
term that the US briefly became the second most popular destination for Spanish
direct investment (Barbé & Soriano 2008). However, some Spanish companies may
have lost contracts with the US government as a result of its animosity towards the
Socialist Prime Minister, particularly in the defence field.
One of the few ways in which Zapatero could compensate the US administration for
its withdrawal from Iraq was by confirming Spain’s commitment to the International
Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, which dated back to 2002.4 In
principle, this was politically acceptable to the Spanish government because, unlike the
situation in Iraq, this presence had been endorsed by UN Security Council resolutions
1386 (2001) and 1510 (2003). In practice, however, this distinction was not always a
simple one to argue or explain to Spanish public opinion; having questioned the
efforts by Washington and its allies in attempting regime change in Iraq, it was not
easy to convince Spaniards that a heterogeneous, US-led international coalition would
achieve stability and progress in Afghanistan simply because it enjoyed UN support.
In spite of both the political and logistical difficulties involved, Zapatero increased
the presence of Spanish troops in the run-up to the Afghan presidential elections held
in November 2004, and again in September 2005, this time in support of the
forthcoming parliamentary elections. Spain established its own military– civilian
Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in August 2005 in western Afghanistan, and
the embassy in Kabul was reopened by Zapatero himself later that year. In May 2006,
after a rowdy debate in which the PP accused it of not owning up to the dangers faced
by what was supposedly a peace-keeping force, the government obtained
parliamentary permission to add an extra 150 troops to the 540 already deployed
there. In short, in spite of the 23 casualties incurred in Afghanistan, the pacifist
instincts of many PSOE voters, and growing concern over ISAF’s ability to defeat the
Taliban, in this area there was very little Zapatero could do other than honour his
predecessor’s commitments.
Iraq notwithstanding, there was thus considerable continuity between the Zapatero
and Aznar governments in terms of their willingness to take part in international
peace-keeping missions. When the former came to power, Spain was already making
significant contributions to the EU’s military operation in Bosnia and Herzegovina
(EUFOR-Althea), with some 500 troops, and to NATO’s long-standing military
mission in Kosovo (KFOR-Kosovo Force), with a further 700. The major novelty in
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this area was the UN’s mission in Lebanon (FINUL-UN Interim Force in Lebanon), to
which Spain contributed 1,100 troops as of September 2006, in response to UN Security
Council resolution 1701 (2006), adopted in the wake of an Israeli attack provoked by the
kidnapping of two of its soldiers by Hezbollah. In March 2007, the UN acknowledged
Spain’s long-standing commitment to its peace-keeping operations by asking it to house
its communications and data centre for all peace missions in Europe.
In spite of this basic continuity, Zapatero sought to distance himself from his
predecessor by passing a new national defence law in November 2005, which required
parliamentary approval to send troops abroad. The PP opposed the law on the
grounds that, by demanding that future missions enjoy the prior backing of the UN
Security Council, the EU or NATO, governments might be prevented from acting
expeditiously; it was unclear, for example, whether the mission to retake Parsley Island
after its brief occupation by Morocco in July 2002 (discussed in further detail below)
would have met this requirement. The defence law also limited the maximum number
of troops deployable abroad to 3,000, a somewhat arbitrary figure that was later
abandoned as impractical.
Spain’s Traditional Priorities: Europe, Latin America and the Maghreb
As leader of the opposition, Zapatero had repeatedly claimed that Aznar’s policy on
Iraq and his subservience to the Bush administration had seriously undermined
Spain’s standing in Europe, both within the EU and at the bilateral level. Once in office,
therefore, restoring close relations with France and Germany in particular became a
top priority. Gerhard Schroeder and Jacques Chirac were undoubtedly relieved by the
departure of ‘the Abominable Doctor No’, as the Financial Times famously dubbed
Aznar,5 and both went out of their way to establish friendly relations with the new
Spanish prime minister, who lost no time in visiting Paris and Berlin in April 2004.
The three leaders met again in Madrid in September, providing their host with an
opportunity to snub US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld by proclaiming that ‘old
Europe is as good as new’. More tellingly, perhaps, Schroeder and Chirac invited
Zapatero to share a summit with Vladimir Putin in Paris in March 2005, as a way of
rewarding his determination to place Spain back at the ‘heart of Europe’, or to accept
Franco-German leadership unquestioningly, depending on one’s interpretation. This
honeymoon was short-lived, however; Angela Merkel’s victory in the September 2005
elections and that of Nicholas Sarkozy in May 2007 deprived Zapatero of his closest
allies in Europe, and his public support for Schroeder and Ségolène Royal did not
immediately endear him to their successors. Like González before him, however, he
soon discovered that German Christian democrats and French conservatives make
curiously comfortable bedfellows for a Spanish Socialist leader. More surprisingly,
given Blair’s intimate relationship with Aznar, partly as a result of the sense of
solidarity generated by the July 2005 terrorist attacks in London, Zapatero also
developed a good working relationship with the British Prime Minister, who publicly
endorsed his controversial negotiations with Euskadi Ta Askatasuna (ETA) while
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advising him privately on the basis of his own dealings with the Irish Republican Army
(IRA) (Ortega 2006; Valenzuela 2007).
While in opposition, Zapatero had been particularly outspoken in his criticism of
Aznar’s foreign policy towards Latin America, or alleged lack thereof, which Zapatero
invariably attributed to his rival’s unholy alliance with the Bush administration.
According to this critique, Spain had lost much of the autonomy, influence and
prestige it had once enjoyed in Latin America, and as prime minister Zapatero was
keen to regain it. In practice, however, this would turn out to be a more complex task
than initially envisaged. Most importantly, the usefulness and viability of the
Iberoamerican Community of Nations, an organisation not unlike the British
Commonwealth, was coming under increasingly critical scrutiny, particularly in Latin
American countries with left-wing, populist leaders who were somewhat ambivalent—
to put it mildly—about Spain’s colonial legacy. Additionally, these same leaders were
becoming increasingly belligerent in their treatment of the major Spanish
multinational corporations active in the region, such as Repsol YPF (oil and gas),
Telefónica (telecoms), Endesa (electricity) and Santander and BBVA (banks), which
accounted for a very significant proportion of Spain’s foreign direct investment. As a
result, improving political relations with these governments, while defending Spanish
economic interests, would become an increasingly daunting task.
With regard to the Iberoamerican Community of Nations, the government’s most
significant effort to enhance its credibility and capacity for delivery was undoubtedly
the creation of a permanent secretariat, with headquarters in Madrid, run by the
Uruguayan Enrique Iglesias, a former president of the Inter-American Development
Bank, who took up office in October 2005. The goal of the permanent secretariat was
to provide continuity between summits, and to ensure that these did not become
irrelevant, high-level talking-shops with a tendency to be hijacked by media-savvy
leaders. However, the difficulties experienced at subsequent summits proved that the
future of the Community remained uncertain. The 14th summit, held in San José
(Costa Rica) in November 2004, was singularly uneventful, while the 15th, hosted by
Salamanca in October 2005, provoked yet another diplomatic spat with the US on
account of references to the lifting of its ‘blockade’ (as opposed to embargo) of Cuba in
the summit’s conclusions. The 16th summit, held in Montevideo in November 2006,
failed to attract the interest of eight Latin American presidents who stayed away, and
its successor, hosted by Santiago (Chile) in November 2007, attracted worldwide
attention not on account of its content but due to a colourful exchange between
Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez and the King of Spain, who memorably requested that
the former shut up.
This episode is of more than anecdotal interest, and is quite revealing of the nature
of the new challenges facing Spanish foreign policy in the region. Chavez, president of
Venezuela since 1999, greatly preferred Zapatero to Aznar, whom he accused of having
backed the coup staged against him in April 2002, and Zapatero, who invited Chavez
to Madrid in November 2004, initially saw himself as a moderating influence
in Caracas. This role enabled him to travel to Venezuela in March 2005 to mediate in
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the conflict arising between Chavez and the Colombian President, Álvaro Uribe,
triggered by a border incident involving Colombian guerrillas. However, Chavez
subsequently became increasingly arbitrary in his treatment of Spanish companies
with interests in Venezuela, and it was Zapatero’s advice to Latin American
governments to do more to attract foreign investment if they wanted to overcome their
domestic difficulties that initially prompted Chavez to interrupt the Spanish leader at
the Santiago summit in 2007, later going on to accuse Aznar of being a fascist lackey of
the US. Much to his credit, on this occasion Zapatero gallantly rose in defence of his
predecessor, reminding Chavez that, even though they had little in common, Aznar
deserved respect as the democratically elected leader of a sovereign state. Nevertheless,
the episode served to illustrate the dangers inherent in currying favour with foreign
governments on the basis of domestic political rivalries, a sport Zapatero had practised
with some relish at first. The Spanish Prime Minister did not fare much better in his
dealings with Evo Morales, who visited Spain in January 2006, shortly before taking up
office as president of Bolivia. In spite of Madrid’s efforts to dissuade him, Morales
nationalised the oil and natural gas industries in May, though Spanish companies later
agreed to remain after ceding commercialisation rights to the state. The fate of Spanish
investments in the Argentine oil industry also gave Zapatero cause for concern,
prompting a visit to Buenos Aires in January 2005 (the first by a Spanish prime
minister since 1997), though they were largely put to rest after a visit to Madrid by
Nestor Kirchner in June 2006. The irony of all this, of course, was that, after having
denounced Aznar repeatedly for allowing economic considerations to dictate his Latin
American policy, the Socialist leader found himself treading very similar ground.
During the course of his first term in office, the Spanish Prime Minister gradually
concluded that it made better sense to seek strategic partnerships with the more
predictable leaders in the region, particularly those who sought to achieve both
economic growth and greater social justice. This resulted in an explicit rapprochement
with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, whom he met in Brasilia in January
2005 and who visited Madrid in September 2007, by which time Spain had become the
second-largest investor in the country, and Michelle Bachelet, who visited Madrid in
May 2006, shortly after taking office as president of Chile. Zapatero also cultivated
Mexican President Felipe Calderón, who visited Spain in January 2007, and with
whom he signed a new action plan in Mexico City in July, aimed at developing the
strategic association agreement endorsed by the two countries during the Aznar years.
The only area in which the Socialist Prime Minister was able to distance himself
significantly from his predecessor’s Latin American policy was with regard to Cuba.
Aznar had effectively frozen relations with Fidel Castro in the spring of 2003, following
the summary execution of three people who had hijacked a ferry in an attempt to
escape the island and the arrest of 75 dissidents, and had later succeeded in getting EU
member states to follow suit. This policy, which was of course seen by critics as yet
another example of unseemly subordination to the Bush administration, was reversed
by Zapatero on the grounds that it would not allow Spain to play a leading role in the
changes that would presumably be unleashed by Castro’s departure. The Spanish
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authorities therefore sought to establish a new working relationship with both the
government and the opposition movement, a policy that resulted in the release of
14 dissidents, including the writer Raúl Rivero, in November 2004. Spain’s U-turn on
Cuba was not universally welcome, however, and its demand that sanctions be lifted
initially met some resistance, particularly from the newer EU member states, who
attributed it to Madrid’s economic interests in the island. Following Moratinos’s visit
to Havana in April 2007, in September Spain restored the flow of aid that had been
interrupted in 2003 and launched a renewed bilateral dialogue that included human
rights issues, which may have prompted the release of a further seven dissidents.
In spite of this progress, however, doubts remained as to whether the new policy would
have a significant impact on the regime’s evolution overall (Roy 2007).
Another region of great importance to Spain where Aznar was said to have
weakened Spain’s influence and credibility on account of his ideological prejudices and
dangerous friendships was the Maghreb. Admittedly, relations with Rabat had reached
an all-time low in July 2002 due to the crisis resulting from the occupation of Parsley
Island, a minuscule territory allegedly belonging to Spain, by a detachment of
Moroccan gendarmes that was subsequently evicted by Spanish troops. Although there
was no loss of life, Zapatero would have preferred to solve the crisis by diplomatic
means, but the Aznar government believed Rabat was testing Spain’s resolve with a
view to subsequently challenging its presence in Ceuta, Melilla and other North
African enclaves later on, and that therefore a determined show of force was the only
possible response. In spite of this episode, in late 2003 his government granted
Morocco a very generous financial aid package which helped to improve relations
considerably. While in opposition, the Socialists had also accused their political rivals
of drawing dangerously close to Algeria on account of its willingness to provide Spain
with much of the natural gas it consumed (60 per cent in 1998), a dependence that had
also allegedly led them to adopt an unusually belligerent stand in defence of the former
Spanish Sahara’s right to self-determination, thereby antagonising Morocco
unnecessarily.
Zapatero set out to rectify his predecessor’s policies at once, visiting Rabat officially
in April 2004 on his first trip abroad as prime minister (something Aznar, and
González before him, had also done). Given that 14 Moroccans were being held in
Spanish prisons at the time on suspicion of involvement in the 14 March train
bombings, it was important to show public opinion that anti-terrorist cooperation in
particular was high on the bilateral agenda. This was followed in January 2005 by the
first state visit to Morocco by King Juan Carlos since 1979, during which King
Mohammed VI called on Spain to upgrade its bilateral relations to the higher level of a
strategic association. In return, the Moroccan government significantly improved its
control of the flow of illegal immigrants heading for Spanish shores, though the fences
erected to keep them out of the enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in the autumn of 2005
were not always effective. Rabat also signed an agreement with the EU in 2005 which
mainly benefited the Spanish fishing fleet, allowing for a limited presence in Moroccan
waters, though it did not enter into force until February 2007. Although Zapatero’s
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531
visit to Ceuta and Melilla in January 2006, the first by a Spanish prime minister since
1980, did not appear to annoy Rabat unduly, a royal visit to the enclaves in November
2007 prompted a much stronger reaction from Morocco, whose ambassador was
recalled for two months, thereby giving the lie to the government’s claim to have
overcome bilateral tensions for good.
Zapatero also went out of his way to prove wrong those who claimed it was
impossible to be on friendly terms with Morocco without jeopardising relations with
Algeria, or vice versa (Ortega 2006; Valenzuela 2007). After his first visit to Algeria in
July 2004, Spanish energy companies signed major new contracts in November, and
his government reached an important anti-terrorist agreement in December.
Subsequently, in March 2007, King Juan Carlos conducted his first state visit to
Algeria in 24 years. However, in September 2007 the state gas company (Sonatrach)
announced it was going back on the contracts mentioned above, raising fresh doubts
about the future of Spanish investments in the country.
In the past, the main obstacle to close relations with both Morocco and Algeria had
been the dispute over the former Spanish Sahara. True to its strong commitment to the
UN and international law, the Zapatero government initially backed the II Baker Plan,
which called for immediate self-government for Western Sahara and a referendum
after five years, but abstained when it was put to the vote in the UN’s Special
Committee on Decolonisation in October 2004, on the grounds that it was clear that
the international community had no intention of forcing Morocco to hold such a
referendum as the UN had been requesting since Spain’s departure in 1976.
Subsequently, Spain appeared to endorse the autonomy proposal for Western Sahara
unilaterally presented by Morocco in April 2007, a change of attitude that inevitably
gave the Algerian government renewed cause for concern. In short, the goal of
developing a balanced relationship with Morocco and Algeria remained as elusive as
ever (Amirah-Fernández 2008).
Breaking New Ground
The argument that Aznar’s relationship with the Bush administration had jeopardised
Spain’s standing in regions of the world where it had hitherto enjoyed a degree of
influence and autonomy was used to considerable political effect by his Socialist critics
while in opposition. The natural corollary to this was that once this unseemly alliance
was terminated there would soon be ample evidence of the benefits of having reversed
this misguided policy. Ultimately, this is probably the reasoning that best explains
Zapatero’s somewhat surprising decision to commit himself personally to the
launching of an ‘Alliance of Civilizations’ in a speech to the UN General Assembly in
September 2004.
The Alliance of Civilizations initiative was initially envisaged as a coming together
of ‘the Western world’ and the ‘Arab and Muslim worlds’ in order to prevent ‘hate and
misunderstanding’ from erecting a new wall that might divide the world far more
permanently than that which had fallen with relative ease in 1989. Like the ‘Dialogue
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C. Powell
of Civilizations’ originally promoted by Iranian President Mohammad Khatami in the
late 1990s, the initiative was conceived as a reply to Samuel Huntington’s view that
religious and cultural divisions (or what he termed the ‘clash of civilizations’) would
motivate the defining conflicts of the early twenty-first century, an interpretation he
believed had been largely borne out by the terrorist attacks of 9/11. The Alliance
therefore aimed to avoid the fulfilment of this predicted clash ‘by promoting security,
understanding, tolerance and mutual respect in a globalised world’ (Zapatero 2009a).
Initially, the Alliance of Civilizations failed to attract much attention, particularly in
academic circles, though some objections were raised at once with regard to its
fundamental tenets, including doubts about the use of the term ‘civilization’. Most
importantly, some noted that it was premised on the understanding that the ‘clash of
civilizations’ predicted by Huntington was indeed taking place, when in fact al-Qaeda
and other terrorist groups had been condemned in no uncertain terms by most
mainstream interpreters of Islamic thought. Others pointed out that, by definition, a
dialogue of this nature would be asymmetrical and artificial, since most Arab and
Muslim countries continued to live under authoritarian rule. Similarly, if this was
intended to be an alliance between societies, rather that states, the means and
instruments whereby it could be achieved remained problematic. Finally, from a
purely domestic perspective, it was also argued that, given Spain’s difficulties in
coming to terms with its own Muslim and Jewish identities, the nation that invented
the Inquisition was hardly in a strong position to lead by example (Elorza 2008;
Riordan 2006). Although the Alliance of Civilizations initiative was at least partly
designed to improve Spain’s standing in the Arab and Muslim worlds, the government
no doubt hoped it would be well received by the half million Muslims already living in
the country as well. In short, this initiative is perhaps best understood as a by-product
of the Prime Minister’s new national role conception, which led him to believe that,
given its growing multiculturalism and its capacity to act as a bridge between different
regions and cultures, Spain should position itself globally as a ‘reliable mediator’
(Zapatero 2009b).
To his credit, the Spanish leader convinced Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayip
Erdogan, who was no doubt grateful for his outspoken support for Turkish
membership of the EU, to co-sponsor his initiative, and in July 2005 the UN Secretary
General appointed a high-level cross-cultural group, consisting of 20 world figures,
who produced a report containing specific proposals. The report, released in Istanbul
in November 2006, led to the appointment of former Portuguese president Jorge
Sampaio as the UN Secretary General’s high representative for the Alliance of
Civilizations, and to the celebration of its first forum in Madrid in January 2008.
Thereafter, the Alliance (which by that stage enjoyed the support of more that 80 states
and international organisations, and a budget of e350 million) would seek to develop
specific programmes in four areas, namely education, youth, migration and the media.
Against all odds, Zapatero, probably Spain’s most parochial prime minister since
Adolfo Suárez, had succeeded in launching a major international initiative, whose
future success or failure would largely depend on others.
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533
The Zapatero government also broke new ground in seeking to extend Spain’s
presence and influence beyond its immediate North African vicinity and into the subSaharan region (Guerrero 2008). Admittedly, this was partly in response to two
relatively new developments, namely the growing influx of illegal immigrants from the
region, who either sailed to the Canary Islands from the coast of Senegal in precarious
fishing-boats (cayucos) or used Morocco as a transit country, and the increasingly
serious threat posed by Islamic fundamentalist terrorists present in a number of failed,
or rapidly failing, states. Though hardly revolutionary either in terms of its content or
ambition, the government’s Africa Plan for 2006–8 envisaged a novel package
combining debt relief, a significant increase in development aid and an enhanced
diplomatic presence (with new embassies in Mali, the Sudan and Cape Verde), which
added up to a significant departure in Spanish foreign policy priorities. In spite of its
pacifist rhetoric, the plan was of course silent about the fact that Spain was the leading
exporter of munitions to sub-Saharan Africa. Overall, its most remarkable significant
short-term achievement was the signing of highly innovative repatriation agreements
with Mali, Gambia, Ghana, Nigeria, Guinea-Buissau, Guinea Conakry and Senegal,
whereby these countries agreed to take their immigrants back in return for significant
Spanish investments in education, training and infrastructure. As a result, the number
of boats sailing to the Canary Islands from sub-Saharan countries carrying illegal
emigrants halved from 2006 to 2007, and there was also a very significant increase in
the number of detained immigrants, some 5,000 in 2006 alone, who were returned to
their countries of origin.
Overall, the Africa Plan is best understood in the context of Zapatero’s
determination to place development aid at the heart of Spain’s foreign policy agenda,
a concern that soon became apparent when the government department in question
was quickly renamed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation. This is
probably the clearest example of how Zapatero’s national role conception influenced
his foreign policy priorities, and may be seen as an attempt on his part to position
Spain as a ‘norm entrepreneur’ (Ingebritsen 2006), by which we mean a state that
fosters the development of norms and standards within international organisations
that favour an increased transfer of resources to the poorest countries in an effort to
lessen global inequality. In opposition, and in keeping with the UN’s so-called
‘millennium goals’, the PSOE government had promised to double Spain’s official
development aid by 2008, with a view to reaching the 0.7 per cent of gross domestic
product (GDP) goal set for developed nations by the UN by 2012. Once in office,
development aid rose from e1,985 million in 2004 to e5,509 million in 2008, making
Spain the eighth-largest aid donor worldwide.
In order to bring about a qualitative improvement in the nature of Spanish aid
commensurate with this remarkable quantitative increase, the government adopted an
ambitious Master Plan for Spanish Cooperation (2005–8), which aimed to modernise
and overhaul the state’s development-aid-related institutions and methodology.
In keeping with its political traditions and other foreign policy objectives, about
40 per cent of Spanish aid was earmarked for Latin America (mainly the poorer
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Central American countries), the rest going to the Maghreb (including the displaced
Sahrawi population resident in Algeria), sub-Saharan Africa (in keeping with the
Africa Plan), the Middle East (with special emphasis on the Palestinian territories, but
also Iraq), the Philippines (a former colony) and Vietnam. In practice, this meant that
Spain was spreading its resources too thinly, only 36 per cent of the total reaching its 23
priority countries, against a target share of 70 per cent. Furthermore, critics
complained that Spanish aid policies were excessively bilateral, unnecessarily
expensive to implement and not always coherent with some of the country’s
immigration, trade and commercial policies (Olivié 2008). Although the PSOE had
accused the Aznar government of having subordinated its aid policies to narrow
commercial interests, some members of the NGO development community felt that
not much had changed in this regard either (Intermon-Oxfam 2009).
Conclusion
Zapatero’s foreign policy has received rather poor reviews, many of them justified
(Areilza & Torreblanca 2009; Grant 2009). The criticism most frequently levelled at him
is that, partly due to his initial lack of knowledge and experience, he did not take foreign
affairs seriously, and saw policy in this area almost exclusively in electoral terms. Given
the political consequences of the March 2004 train bombings, which many Spaniards
attributed to Aznar’s proximity to Bush and his support for the Iraq War, it was perhaps
inevitable that he should have concluded that reversing his predecessor’s policies was an
easy vote winner. Nevertheless, it should be noted that this concern did not prevent him
from sending fresh troop contingents to Afghanistan, which was bound to prove
unpopular with his voters, even if his government seemed hesitant as to its role there.
Furthermore, it is important to note that his regard for the UN system, international law
and ‘effective multilateralism’ was broadly in tune with Spanish public opinion.
Zapatero’s foreign policy undoubtedly incurred a number of contradictions. His
rhetorical emphasis on democracy and human rights, for example, sat uneasily with
his generally conciliatory attitude towards the governments of Cuba, Russia, China
(the Socialist leader refused to meet the Dalai Lama) or Equatorial Guinea, a former
Spanish colony governed by one of the region’s most unscrupulous and corrupt
dictators, whose famished territory boasts abundant oil reserves. Similarly, his
government’s enthusiasm for multilateral institutions and procedures was not much in
evidence when Spain broke ranks with the vast majority of EU members states by
refusing to recognise the independence of Kosovo, and later abruptly withdrew its
troops from NATO’s KFOR mission, disregarding the consequences this might have
for the stability of the country and the region overall. If this was done to curry favour
with Serbia and (or) Russia, the reasoning was surely faulty, and the results meagre.
Finally, Zapatero’s enthusiasm for Spanish membership of the G-20, which was
justified in terms of the need to contribute to the emergence of a new multilateral
world order, was curiously reminiscent of Aznar’s (much maligned) aspirations for
G-8 membership.
South European Society & Politics
535
Spain’s foreign policy during these years also suffered from a lack of strategic
thinking, something its Foreign Ministry has never been famous for, in spite of the
undeniable quality of its professionals. On occasion, there was also evidence of
insufficient coordination between the various departments involved in policy
implementation, most notably the Foreign and Defence Ministries. Most regrettably,
the government failed to push through the long-awaited modernisation of the Foreign
Service, promised in 2004.
Judged in terms of his own professed priorities, however, Zapatero’s foreign policy
can be cast in a reasonably favourable light. There is little doubt, for example, that he
succeeded in reversing his predecessor’s infatuation with the Bush administration,
though his later efforts to forge a special relationship with that of Barack Obama on
the strength of personal chemistry and ideological affinity, rather than more
permanent shared interests and values, is once again reminiscent of Aznar. Similarly, it
could be argued that his enthusiastic endorsement of ‘effective multilateralism’ paid
off handsomely, allowing Spain to join the G-20 (albeit informally), even if his
government’s tangible contribution to the debate on the future of global governance
was not much in evidence. Overall, it is likely that Zapatero’s attempt to change
perceptions of Spain abroad (and at home) by promoting his own national role
conception, visible in areas such as the Alliance of Civilizations and his emphasis on
development aid, will prove his most lasting foreign policy legacy. Even his most
enthusiastic admirers, however, would probably hesitate to describe this as a departure
amounting to a second transition.
Notes
[1] The haste with which it was carried out may have been related to the fact that elections to the
European parliament were due on 13 June 2004, which the PSOE narrowly won with 43 per cent
of the vote against the PP’s 41 per cent.
[2] El Mundo, 26 April 2004.
[3] Author’s interviews with State Department officials, Washington, DC, May 2006.
[4] Zapatero gave Bush personal assurances that Spain would send more troops to Afghanistan at
their very first meeting, during a NATO summit in Istanbul in June 2004 (Valenzuela 2007).
[5] Financial Times, 15 June 2004.
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