Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez has had a rough year. A series of scandals have beset his vulnerable minority government, including corruption allegations against top figures from his Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party, or PSOE, and even his wife. Sanchez has not been able to pass a new budget since the start of his term in 2023, forcing him to rely on EU funds and extensions of the 2022 budget.
But Sanchez has found an unlikely strategy for countering his domestic troubles: turning the country’s attention to foreign policy.
The Spanish premier is not the first leader to look abroad when the going gets tough at home, though he is doing it in a unique way. Rather than occupying himself with complex matters of statesmanship that are of little interest to the domestic public, Sanchez is taking a populist approach, irritating other countries in a way that is consistent with what pollsters say are the views of Spanish voters. It is a foreign policy for domestic consumption.