INTRODUCTION

First let’s look at the impact of the last 70 years during which Spain changed from a war-torn economy to a modern democracy at the heart of Europe. Spain is a young country. It was 1976 when its constitutional structure was implemented and then only after years of hunger, poverty and deprivation.

This is not a historical account of Spain’s many invaders, of faded monarchies, religious persecution, conquering warriors laden with tons of gold or shipwrecked armadas. To understand modern Spain there is a need only to have knowledge of its recent past, in particular the Civil War, the 40-year dictatorship of General Francisco Franco, a brief period before tourists arrived and its transition to a new democratic government.

Understanding this short history is one thing; appreciating its effect on modern Spain will become apparent in subsequent chapters of this book.

RECENT SOCIAL AND POLITICAL HISTORY

The civil war

Spain became a republic in 1931 when King Alfonso XIII suspended royal power and went into exile. Social and political tensions grew, along with economic problems. The accompanying confrontations between political factions finally erupted with a military uprising on 17 July 1936. Spain suddenly captured the world stage. It might have been just another of the many military uprisings characterising Spanish history, but this time the rebels received the immediate support of Hitler and Mussolini. The world took sides: Stalin lined up alongside the Popular Front government, which received only lukewarm support from France and Britain.

What could have been a failed coup thus led to a long war, in which an estimated one to two million Spaniards and thousands of foreign volunteers fought and died. The world interpreted the war as a struggle between fascism, communism and democracy, but it was first of all a civil war, in which the two faces of Spain confronted each other. Rural, nationalist, Catholic countrymen fought against urban Republicans. For three long years Spain’s war foreshadowed the horrors of the Second World War.

In modern times no Western European country has known such a merciless, bloody purge as that of Franco in the aftermath of the war. A calculation of the number of death sentences carried out until the early 1940s varies from 28,000 to 150,000. This frightening number reflects a desire to annihilate an enemy rather than any eagerness for revenge; more a continuation of the war than the pursuance of any political peace. The dominance of a military element over a political civilian one corresponded to Franco’s mentality. The regime was a carbon copy of Fascist regimes: finger printing people1, the same ceremonies and the same institutional characteristics, a single party and a cooperative system.

Political feelings still run deep in Spain. Some Spaniards who fought in the civil war are still alive today. Many Spaniards lived out their lives in other countries rather than remain under Franco. Others stayed in Spain but suffered the brutal consequences of having been on the wrong side. As time passes, the combatants die off and a whole new generation exists who were was born after 1939. The Civil War

and the Franco era is the subject of many written memoirs but the entire episode sits uncomfortably in the minds of today’s Spaniards, who rarely discuss it and who continue to be acutely aware that their democracy is still relatively young.

The years of hunger

During the Second World War Spain had remained neutral while actively favouring its old supporters, the Axis. At the end of the war Spain was in a strange position, not entitled to the rewards of victory nor at risk from the encroaching power of the Soviet Union. There was no incentive to give Spain aid and a very good reason for denying it. In fact the world powers punished Spain for supporting the Axis. In December 1946 the newly-created United Nations passed a resolution recommending a trade boycott. Coming on top of the deprivations brought about by the civil war, which had cut real income per capita to nineteenth-century levels, the boycott was a disaster for the country. While the rest of Europe benefited from the Marshall Plan, Spain did not. The Franco government was diplomatically isolated.

All of Europe suffered deprivation in the post-war era, but Spain2, where the late 1940s are known as the years of hunger, suffered more than most. In the cities cats and dogs disappeared from the streets, having either starved to death or been eaten. In the countryside the poorer peasants lived off boiled grass and weeds. But for the loans granted by General Peron, the Argentine dictator, to purchase beef and cereals, it is possible there would have been a full-scale famine.

Spain was a dictatorship, but not a Communist one. Recognising the new enemy was Communism, Spain and the United States signed a mutual defence and aid treaty in 1953. Under this treaty four US bases were established in various parts of Spain, with about 12,000 military personnel. The issue was tied in with Spain’s membership of NATO but, more importantly, it also legitimised Franco in the eyes of the world.

Although the UN blockade was lifted, inward looking policies continued to be pursued. In spite of promoting rural economy as the way forward, agricultural output fell to a level lower than at the end of the civil war. Industry, insulated from the outside world by tariffs and quotas, was unable to buy the foreign technology it needed to modernise and could only grow at a painfully slow pace. National income

did not regain its pre-civil war level until 1951 and it was not until 1954 that the average income returned to the point it had reached in 1936.

To the villagers in Andalusia, which had been the scene of desperate poverty even before the civil war, the deprivations of the post-war era were the final straw. Individuals, families and in some cases entire villages packed up their belongings and headed for the industrial centres of the north. Once they reached the cities, migrants settled on the outskirts. With nowhere else to live, they built shacks out of whatever they could scavenge. The shacks were suffocating in summer and bitterly cold in the winter. None had running water.

Franco’s regime was bankrupt in thought and deed. The foreign exchange account was in the red, inflation was heading into double figures and there were serious signs of unrest for the first time since the war. It took a long time to persuade Franco that a radical change was required. Enter a new breed in Spanish politics – the technocrat, who came from a well-to-do background, had had a distinguished career in academic or professional life and belonged to, or sympathised with, the secretive Catholic fellowship, Opus Dei.

Economic revival

It was not until two years after their appointment that the new team of technocrats began their assault on the economy. Their short-term aim was to tackle inflation and redress the balance of payments. Public spending was cut, credit was curbed, wages were frozen, overtime was restricted and the peseta devalued. The economic revival was underway. Prices levelled out and the deficit in the balance of payments was transformed into a surplus by the end of the following year.

However the cost in human misery was considerable as real earnings were again slashed. As a result, many Spaniards set off to find work abroad. During the late 1950s and into the 1960s well over a million Spaniards emigrated to Germany, France, Britain and other European countries. A rising standard of living in those countries created jobs which their own nationals were unwilling to fill, but were attractive to people from the poor farming and fishing villages of Spain.

Spain was opened up to foreign investment, much of the red tape binding industry was cut, restrictions were lifted on imports and incentives were offered for exports. Years of development followed. Economic performance improved dramatically. Between 1961 and 1973 the economy grew at seven per cent a year. Income per head quadrupled, removing Spain from the ranks of the developing nations. By the time Spain’s economic miracle had ended, she was the world’s ninth industrial power. The wealth generated by her progress led to a substantial improvement in standards of living. Spaniards had a better diet, their physical growth no longer stunted. The number of homes with a washing-machine and a refrigerator leapt. Car ownership increased. Telephones ceased to be the prerogative of offices. The number of university students tripled.

The 1960s

Tourism had been growing steadily throughout the 1950s but it was not until 1959, when the government abolished visas for holidaymakers from Western Europe, that tourism really took off. In the 1960s sunny Spain, where the weather was good and prices were low, became a prime vacation spot for Northern Europeans. The £20 long holiday weekend was born. The material benefits of the tourist boom were considerable – not only for property developers, but also for shopkeepers and the ordinary people of the villages near the coast who became waiters and chambermaids in tourist hotels. This development took place in an environment which had not changed very much since the eighteenth century – a world of thrift and deprivation which had its own strict moral code. Overnight Spaniards, accustomed to watching almonds grow, were confronted with a new way of life in which it seemed visiting men had more money than they could spend and women walked around virtually naked. A new way of life was born.

The economic miracle changed but did not stop internal migration. Poverty stricken villagers from Andalusia continued to move into the cities. They were joined by increasing numbers from Galicia and the interior regions. The typical migrant of the 1950s – a labourer forced to move by hunger – was joined by a farmer who was unable to make a living from the soil, a craftsman and a shopkeeper whose standards of living had dropped because of the falling population in the countryside.

Come the 1960s, the original migrants were beginning to move out of their shanty towns and into cheap high-rise accommodation. Since shack-building was by then practically impossible, the new arrivals either had to buy a shack from a family which was moving on to better things or pay for accommodation in the apartment of a family which had already done so. From the point of view of the first wave of migrants, selling a shack became a way of getting the down payment on a flat.

While cities were rapidly becoming overcrowded, the countryside was becoming depopulated. Today it is possible to come upon evidence of deserted hamlets or abandoned towns which harkens back to another age like nowhere else in Europe. Perhaps the most forlorn are those that are almost, but not quite, abandoned – where the inhabitants are too old to leave3. The population was polarised. At one end there was Barcelona, as crowded as any industrial centre of North Western Europe, and at the other there were provinces with fewer inhabitants per square kilometer than an African country.

The 1970s

The miracle ended with the same dramatic suddenness with which it had begun. The European boom had started to run out of steam towards the end of the 1960s and the first people to feel the effects were the emigrants. As the expansion of other Western European economies began to slow down, the number of jobs available declined and the need for foreign labour diminished. After 1970 the number of Spaniards leaving the country to work abroad dropped off. Those who were already working abroad began to find that they were no longer required. Even so, Spain’s invisible earnings would have been enough to cover her trade deficit had it not been for the increase in oil prices following the war in the Middle East. The OPEC price rises doubled the size of Spain’s trade gap and unleashed the inflationary pressures that had been simmering away below the surface of the economy throughout the boom years.

Then, on 20 November 1975, General Franco died and the Spanish nation was left with the task of restoring democracy in the depths of a worldwide recession. For 38 years all the important decisions had been taken by one man. Until his dying day, Franco had restricted power to those who had refused to countenance change, or accepted the need for change but were only prepared to introduce it slowly and conditionally. If Spain were to change it was clear that much would depend on the role played by the young man who had succeeded Franco.

The return of the King

Two days after Franco’s death in 1975, his heir and protégé was crowned – Juan Carlos I, El Rey de España. His first duty was to attend Franco’s state funeral at the Valley of the Fallen, the vast mausoleum hacked from rock which commemorates the dead of the Spanish Civil War, and where many are interred. Juan Carlos was not someone in whom Spaniards had much faith. Ever since the age of ten the young Prince had been projected by the media as a loyal son of the regime, completing his education with distinction and going on to attend all three military academies. He had rarely been seen except in Franco’s shadow, standing behind the old dictator on platforms and podiums at official ceremonies. The overall impression was of a nice enough chap but with not enough intelligence or imagination to question the conventions of his background. Few people can have been as misjudged as Juan Carlos, for his rather gauche manner belied a penetrating and receptive mind.

Under the constitutional system devised by Franco, the monarch could only choose his Prime Minister from a list of three names drawn up by the Council of the Realm, a 17-man advisory body consisting almost entirely of Franco diehards. Knowing that he stood no chance of getting a suitable candidate from the Council, the King reluctantly reconfirmed Carlos Arias Navarro as Prime Minister. An uncharismatic lawyer, Arias was aware that the nation was clamouring for democracy but he was temperamentally and ideologically committed to a dictatorship. Arias was incapable of moving either forwards or backwards. He outlined a programme of limited reforms but made things worse with a broadcast to the nation in which he seemed to be living in the past. A bill for the legalisation of political parties was passed by parliament but hours later the same assembly threw out the legislation needed to put it into effect. The incident showed that Arias could not even carry with him his old friends and colleagues from the Franco establishment. The King called him to the palace and told him the situation was unacceptable. Arias had never really enjoyed being Prime Minister and seized the opportunity to tender his resignation which the King accepted at once.

The birth of a nation

When the King’s new choice eventually became known, the reaction was stunned disbelief. The man he had chosen to succeed Arias was Adolfo Suarez, who at 43 was the youngest member of the outgoing government. Everything about Suarez except his youth seemed to be at variance with the spirit of the times. He had spent his entire working life serving the dictator in a variety of posts. Not surprisingly, he filled his first government with men of his own age whom he had met on his way up through the state system. ‘What a mistake! What an immense mistake!’ declared one of Spain’s leading newspapers of the day.

The King’s choice of Suarez was the culmination of months of conspiracy. During the last months of Franco’s life, Juan Carlos had asked a number of politicians and officials for their opinions on how the country could best be transformed. One of the most detailed and realistic appraisals came from Suarez who seemed to fulfil the requirements of a Prime Minister whose job it would be to change Spain from a dictatorship into a democracy. He had an intimate knowledge of the workings of the administration, accepted that reform could not be partial or gradual and had enough charisma to survive once democracy had been restored. From a middle class background he was affable and thoroughly versed in the use of the media.

Suarez moved fast. Three months after the swearing-in of his government, he had laid before the Cortes (Spanish parliament) a political reform bill which introduced universal suffrage and a two-chamber parliament, consisting of a lower house, or Congress, and an upper house to be called the Senate. To ease its passage it was made clear to members of the Cortes that the way they voted would affect such matters as who would sit on which committee and whether a blind eye would be turned to certain untaxed accounts. The entire proceedings were broadcast on radio and television and all the deputies were called upon by name to stand up and say either yes or no to reform. One by one the members of the Cortes, generals and admirals, ex-ministers, bankers and local bigwigs stood up and endorsed a measure that would put an end to everything they had spent their lives supporting. Spaniards realised that the long nightmare of Franco had really come to an end.

Reform and revolt

Further reform measures came thick and fast. The cabinet endorsed a procedure for the legalisation of political parties. The Socialists were legalised first, and then the Communists, the right to strike was recognised and trade unions were legalised. Then the government and opposition parties agreed on how the elections should be conducted and votes counted. A new constitution was agreed4. A new, democratic country was born.

A few years later, after a distinguished term in office, Adolfo Suarez resigned. Only days later Spain faced its greatest challenge, and Juan Carlos his finest hour. In the late afternoon of 23 February 1981, Leopoldo Calvo Sotelo was about to be installed as Spain’s new Prime Minister when suddenly the doors to the Cortes were flung open to admit Lieutenant Colonel Antonio Tejero and a large force of armed Guardia Civil. The entire Cortes was placed in custody. In Valencia, General Milans de Bosch declared a state of emergency and ordered tanks onto the streets. Spain was again within a hair’s breadth of a military coup d’état.

With all the elected members of Parliament held in the Cortes, only one man stood between Spain and a return to military rule. Had Juan Carlos panicked and fled the capital, it would have been all over for Spain’s democracy. But El Rey was made of sterner stuff. Summoning a television crew to La Zarzuela, his private home, Juan Carlos donned full uniform as Commander-in-Chief of the Spanish forces, and broadcast direct to the nation, ordering all units of the armed forces to take whatever steps were necessary to restore democracy. Spain breathed a great sigh of relief, and within hours the attempted coup was over. This, to some an embarrassingly comic interlude, consigned the generals to oblivion.

The 1980s

One of the first acts the new Gonzales government was the ill-advised Worker’s Statute in 1984 which laid down long holidays and highly restrictive labour policies that virtually guaranteed lifetime job security to employees5. This acted as a disincentive to employers who feared rocketing labour costs. As a result, many companies stopped hiring and unemployment climbed to 20 per cent, far and away Europe’s highest. Twenty-five per cent were officially working in the black economy while collecting government benefits.

Yet by 1986 it was clear that things were generally working. The economy was showing good signs as inflation fell, productivity rose and the huge budget deficit became a surplus. Under the Socialists democracy was firmly consolidated, the

military modernised and partly removed from the shadows. The Socialist government launched major development programmes in agriculture and tourism and rebuilt the infrastructure, especially the nation’s crumbling road system. With the economy improving steadily, money began pouring into government coffers. It seemed a new golden age had arrived.

Yet the movement from countryside to cities continued to give Spain the highest percentage of apartment dwellers in Europe. Conversely, rural areas became markedly underpopulated. The numbers employed in agriculture fell dramatically. Those who lived in rural areas were still poor and illiterate.

However the new urbanised Spaniard was delighted by the temptations of modern consumer society, from cell phones to Seat cars, as if trying to quickly acquire those things denied them under the old regime. By the late 1980s Spaniards had some of the world’s highest disposable incomes and enjoyed longer life expectancies than Americans and Britons. Times had changed.

Socially the sexual revolution of the 1980s was described by Spaniards themselves as ‘a binge’. Kerb side vending machines sold condoms, and prostitutes named their offering and price in the classified ad sections of the press. Gays and lesbians surfaced openly for the first time. Abortion rates rocketed – one for every two live births, the highest in the western world. The Catholic nation that once led Europe in high birthrates now had just 1.5 children per family. London of the swinging 60s happened in Madrid around 19856.

Scandal

The first civilian head of the Guardia Civil was caught stealing from secret funds used to pay informants and the widows of slain policemen. The director of the Bank of Spain was locked up for financial irregularities. Suspicious links were shown between the interior ministry and a group of off-duty policemen thought responsible for numerous deaths of suspected ETA (Euzkadi Ta Azkatasuna) terrorists resulting in the interior minister going to jail. Yet few offenders from the power elite were ever punished for corruption. Spaniards became increasingly cynical. Respect for the law was at an all time low7. Delay in law seemed normal but it was now avoidance that

hit a new standard. In a nation with such a large underground economy, tax evasion and fraud became a national sport.

Entry into the EU

Approval was gained for a phased entry to the EU in 1986 with full membership by 1992. No other nation seemed so enthusiastic over the idea of a united Europe as Spain. The nation’s acceptance of foreign leadership reflected a mistrust of Madrid and Spanish politicians. This romance with Europeanism was a complex affair revealing deeply ingrained national traits – a desire to belong to something other than traditional Spain.

Entry into the EU helped create boom days as foreign money poured into the Spanish economy which again enjoyed the fastest growth rate in Europe. The end of trade barriers and government control was like a breath of fresh air, and for several years Madrid’s stock market was the most active and profitable in the world.

There was a down side. Imports flooded into the country and exports dropped, a textbook example of what happens to a protected economy when it enters a free market. By the end of the decade, international interests owned all six of Spain’s car manufacturers; foreigners soon controlled eight of the top ten chemical companies; and multinationals moved in on a grand scale.

Spain’s producers, faced with foreign competition for the first time, suffered. In particular the Basque region was burdened with outdated traditional industry – coal, steel, shipbuilding – that had fallen on hard times. Factories were in dire need of modernisation if they hoped to remain competitive, yet foreign investors were wary of the Basque region and its political problems.

Conversely Barcelona, well placed to serve the huge European market, was reaping great benefits from EU membership. Some Catalans began speaking of a Europe of regions rather than nations and had their own lobby in Brussels. Indeed, all Spain was delighted with the huge amounts of cash available for roads, airports and other public projects.

Internationally Spain’s role in world affairs continued to change. No longer would it sit on its hands and watch. The government allowed former US bases to be used as critical staging areas for the Gulf War of 1990. Spain re-emerged as an important diplomatic force in the Americas through its peacekeeping efforts in Nicaragua, El Salvador and Guatemala. It also played a role in the Balkan conflict. Now a stable Spain could lend a hand as Yugoslavia disintegrated into civil war not unlike its own nightmare decades earlier.

1992

Spain’s prestige abroad was at its highest as 1992 began. The nation was obsessed with showing its best face. Large-scale public works transformed highways and airports, and a new bullet-train between Seville and Madrid was launched. To commemorate the discovery of America five centuries previously, the city of Seville played host to a colossal international exposition called Expo-92. In the same year Barcelona was home to a highly successful Olympic Games and used the occasion for extensive urban renewal. Not to be outdone, Madrid presented a non-stop series of events as Cultural Capital of Europe.

1992 also marked a decade in power for Gonzalez and the Socialists, far longer than any previous elected government in Spain. There was good reason to celebrate. During the Socialists’ tenure Spain shook off decades of isolation from the rest of Europe. The bloody past of Spanish history had been laid to rest. Clerics and generals were gone from the stage. Regionalism gave way to rational autonomy. ETA was on the wane.

However at the end of 1992 the world economic crisis was having serious effects on the Spanish economy. There were signs that the long national fiesta was over. The Madrid stock market declined 30 per cent in a year. Economists warned that the nation was living beyond its means and could no longer consume far more than it produced.

1992 and on

Regional autonomy had greatly swollen the ranks of Spanish bureaucracy. In the ten years to 1992, the number of civil servants working in the 17 regional governments increased dramatically. Catalonia was a virtual state within a state with tens of thousands of public employees. Part of the endemic labour problem stemmed from society’s attitudes to work itself. It seemed too many Spaniards dreamed of having a safe, paper-shuffling job in a government office. This affinity for secure, cushy office jobs reflected the deep-seated attitudes of Spaniards8.

Spain needed desperately to create wealth, yet unemployment remained high with huge segments of the population standing idle. Instead of the free soup of 40 years ago, many were now receiving regular welfare cheques. The government itself was going broke with a vast cradle-to-grave social system modelled on its wealthier neighbours. In 1994, when public spending peaked at close to 50 per cent of the GDP, about 12 million persons were employed and 9.3 million received social benefits.

Facing the problem head on, the government focused on a key competitive weakness: the high cost of labour. Over the years Franco, Socialist governments and the unions had priced Spain out of the labour market. The Socialists decided to dismantle their own creation (the Workers Statute of 1984) before it was too late9.

Yet Spain needed a more fundamental change. Tinkering at the edges was playing with the problem. The leader of the opposition party was Jose Maria Aznar. Small of stature and mild mannered, he had played no role in the post-Franco transition. He was the first national figure to come of age in the new Spain. Slowly gaining supporters, his popularity soared after he survived an ETA car bomb attack. Aznar was sworn in as the fourth premier of Spain. Twenty years after Franco’s death, conservatives and not Socialists were finally accepted as a legitimate political force.

The new Prime Minister promised an austere programme of spending cuts and financial reforms, two years of sacrifice to meet strict EC guidelines for joining the monetary union. Aznar’s agenda included major reductions in the civil service and mass privatisation of state-run companies. The nation was ready for Aznar’s honest, business-like style. It was time for a pause and fortunately Spain’s economy bounced back and remained vibrant throughout the decade. With these strides Spain formed part of the core group to launch the Euro in 1999.

MODERN SPAIN

We move into the new millennium. Up to 2004 three Prime Ministers held power since the restoration of democracy – Suarez, Gonzalez and Aznar. Looking back we can see that Suarez managed the transition of the country during the formative years of democracy. Gonzalez steered the country to obtain membership of the EU in 1986, thus ensuring Spain’s economic growth which has benefitted greatly from the EU programme of special economic aid to poorer countries. Aznar tackled the budget deficit, provoking some discontent with resultant strikes but maintaining the country’s strong economic ties with Europe.

Then the Madrid train bombings occurred in 2004, rocking the country. Eleven bombs wrecked four trains, killing 191 people and injuring hundreds. Spain was back to centre stage in Europe yet again. Grief and shock returned a Socialist government ill prepared for office. Terrorism suddenly hit Spain as its European neighbours looked on. Zapatero, the newly elected Prime Minister, dealt with the aftermath of the train bombings – coming to terms with the pacifist, no-war culture of Spain’s people, created by their lingering memories of Franco.

Although the Madrid attacks were identified beyond all doubt as the work of fundamentalist terrorists, it spurred on the authorities to deal with ETA. ‘ETA – how much longer?’ was the cry. In late 2004 senior members of ETA were arrested in the Basque region of France, their hiding ground since 1975. Have the problems of ETA been put to rest?

Spain today

In 30 years Spain has achieved what has taken some countries centuries, transforming her political and social structure into that of a conventional Western democracy. A plethora of elections – general, regional, municipal as well as regional referenda – has gone some way to placating the aspirations of the Catalans, if not so much those of the Basques. Her democracy is established and although there may be some rough edges, her economy is at least no worse than many other western nations, and better than some. Prominent Spaniards have made the step into EU politics, and Spaniards are active at all levels of the EU administration. Greater visibility and prestige have also accrued from Spain’s presidency of the EU and from international peace conferences held in Madrid. These developments, particularly on the political and economic front, are a source of pride for Spaniards. Spain is now a developed European country rather than just a backward ‘sun and cheap wine’ vacation spot.

Spain’s relations with other countries are friendly, with no outstanding bones of contention, except perhaps Gibraltar. Spain may have her differences with her old adversary over The Rock, but they are polite, diplomatic differences. Spain’s economy is sound, her society stable. She has, for the first time in her turbulent history, many friends amongst the international community. Her people remain as vibrant, as loyal and as individual as they ever were. Her national character remains unchanged, moulded by her turbulent history. Spain’s democracy is still young, but it is strong, fixed and under good leadership.

FURTHER READING

Jimmy Burns, When Beckham Went to Spain. London: Penguin. Cleverly, through the story of Real Madrid and David Beckham, the reader learns about changes in Spain.

Justin Wintle, The Rough Guide History of Spain. London: Rough Guides, 2003.