The Rise of Far Right Populism in Spain June 11.2022 The far-right Vox party has been called far-right, anti-immigration and anti-Islam Vox has risen towards becoming Spain’s third strongest party. As a result of its success, the government can no longer accurately toward being immune to the growth of Europe’s nationalist extreme right. On the other hand, did not receive much backing when it was formed in 2013. It received barely 0.2 percent of the vote in the Spanish general elections in 2015 and 2016. Even if it is unknown how much of this movement may be ascribed to VOX’s structural existence or other factors like the epidemic and uncontrolled immigration, there seems to be a minor uptick in unfavorable sentiments related to immigration. Yet, the consequence of VOX’s development as a populist movement can be seen in Spain’s growing cultural division, which obstructs sensible discourse on population and what to handle it. In 2018, Vox’s time in the political spotlight ended abruptly. The party received 11 percent of the vote in Andalucía (Spain’s most populated region) in provincial elections that year. Vox now has 52 representatives of the Spanish Congress, three senators, four European Cabinet ministers, 55 regional parliamentarians, 526 local councilors, and five mayors. Vox has been a significant external backer of various municipal and regional administrations and serves as a “power broker.” Spanish Socialist Workers' Party The Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (Spanish: Partido Socialista Obrero Español [paɾˈtiðo soθjaˈlista oˈβɾeɾo espaˈɲol] ⓘ; abbr. PSOE [peˈsoe] ⓘ) is a social-democratic[2][6] political party in Spain. The PSOE has been in government longer than any other political party in modern democratic Spain: from 1982 to 1996 under Felipe González, 2004 to 2011 under José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, and since 2018 under Pedro Sánchez. The PSOE was founded in 1879, making it the oldest party currently active in Spain. The PSOE played a key role during the Second Spanish Republic, being part of the coalition government from 1931 to 1933 and 1936 to 1939, when the republic was defeated in the Spanish Civil War. The party was then banned under the Francoist dictatorship and its members and leaders were persecuted or exiled; the ban was only lifted in 1977 in the transition to democracy. Historically Marxist, it abandoned the ideology in 1979.[7] [HA, HA, HA...] Like most mainstream Spanish political organizations since the mid–1980s, the PSOE has been considered by experts to have embraced a positive outlook towards European integration.[8][n. 1] The unwavering European: Spain and its place in Europe ECFR’s Coalition Explorer shows Spain to be an outlier in Europe – as it places great weight on foreign policy. But could new political turbulence thwart its ambitions once more? 5 April 2019 Spanish politicians have always been proud of the consistent Europeanism of Spanish citizens. Indeed, until recently, no political party had ever played the Eurosceptic card. New on the scene now is insurgent far-right party Vox, which entered the Andalusian parliament in December and is polling at double digits for the next general election. But even it has avoided the Eurosceptic line of attack. Regardless of their political differences, the Popular Party’s Mariano Rajoy (in government until June 2018) and the Socialist Pedro Sanchez (who became prime minister after winning a no confidence vote against Rajoy) agree that the European Union should be Spain’s main foreign policy
U.S. Tax Reform Has Europe Worried
Suddenly, the world’s biggest economy has lower corporate rates than the Continent’s giants.
The tax reform passed in Washington this week is a gauntlet thrown down to Europe’s big taxers. This column warned of that possibility in March, but the reality has turned out worse for Europeans than seemed likely nine months ago. Once President Trump signs it, the law will open a new battleground for competition with Europe’s highest-taxing governments. It also challenges Europe’s fundamental attitude toward taxation. The reduction in tax rates is only part of it. The bill will cut the top federal corporate tax rate to 21% from 35%, bringing the average effective rate, including state and local taxes and accounting for deductions, down to around 23% from around 39%. That doesn’t sound so bad for Europe. The U.S. will only run roughly even with the European Union’s average effective rate of around 21%. That EU average, however, conceals notable geographic diversity, embodying Europe’s grand tax bargain with itself: The smaller or the poorer a country is, the lower it can cut its tax rate. European leaders gripe about Ireland’s 12.5% corporate rate. But they tolerate it because Ireland’s small size limits its capacity to draw business away from big countries such as France, Germany, Italy and Spain, whose tax rates approach or even exceed 30%. The same holds for the EU’s less-affluent formerly communist member states, whose statutory rates generally max out at 22%.
But being the big dog in Europe is no defense when the world’s largest and most dynamic economy is slashing its tax rates. A 21% federal rate in the U.S. will be impossible to ignore, given the incentives it creates for European companies to invest in America instead of at home. That’s the main conclusion of a report released last week by Germany’s Center for European Economic Research, and lest anyone in Berlin miss the point, the title of the press release was blunt: “Germany Loses Out in U.S. Tax Reform.”
The conceptual problem ..., which the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development describes as combating “base erosion and profit shifting,” is that it’s blind to incentives. Most European tax-setting starts from the premise that the tax base is fixed, and the only thing that matters is that each national government get its “fair” share. The primary purpose of taxation, European officials seem to believe, is funding a heavily redistributive welfare state, never mind the consequences for growth. Washington’s new approach couldn’t be more different. The U.S. reform acknowledges that tax incentives matter for investment, job creation and economic growth. One implication of America’s reform is that if Europe wants to have anything left to redistribute in this newly competitive world, it’s going to have to start paying attention to growth incentives. Fortunately, this column’s other prediction from March also is coming true. Deregulation, improving sentiment and, now, tax reform are reviving the U.S. economy, which is on track to exceed 3% growth in 2018. This is lifting Europe’s long-suffering economies and providing fiscal headroom for tax reform. Europe even has a few leaders, such as French President Emmanuel Macron, who are prepared to push aggressive tax cuts. There will rarely be a better moment for a European tax revolution—a point for voters and politicians alike to remember.
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