Relations between the two Iberian neighbours were one of the main subjects of Portugal's recent elections won by outgoing socialist prime minister José Sócrates. Seen from Barcelona, the result is proof of a desire for greater integration in the peninsula, writes analyst Enric Juliana.
Pan-Iberism has won the Portuguese elections. Not the Iberian federalism envisioned by such diverse personalities as Fernando Pessoa and Agustí Calvet Gaziel, Henriques Moreira and Francesc Pi i Margall, Oliveira Martins and Francesc Macià, but modern economic Iberism, the close intertwining of Spanish and Portuguese interests since they joined the European Economic Community simultaneously in 1986.
The business sector has put its money on José Sócrates ensuring the irreversible economic integration of the peninsula. And those Portuguese tired of the Socialist leader's school of Zapatero style of spin were unable to put forward a persuasive centre-left alternative via their own champion Manuela Ferreira Leite, operated by remote-control by the Portuguese president, Aníbal Cavaco Silva.
Anti-Spanish sentiment doesn't work
Ms Ferreira Leite sought to win the elections with three slightly Salazarist-tinged messages: a return to fiscal austerity, no to the high-speed train between Lisbon and Madrid, and reactivation of anti-Spanish prejudices – and all that packaged in a media unfriendly campaign. Ferreira Leite, aged 68, with hardly any make-up on in election posters and consistently keeping her distance from the television cameras and microphones, somehow called to mind the legendary figure of María Jesús Caetano, the dictator Salazar’s eternal governess and a singular de facto power in a formerly autarchic and introspective Portugal. This was too much dejection for a country that is beginning to emerge from the recession.
The anti-Hispanicism was a serious mistake. The Portuguese do not wish to cold-shoulder Spain (even though they do not desire to throw themselves unconditionally into its arms either). To the young, Spain-baiting is a bona fide anachronism. Portugal's young want opportunities: be it in Lisbon, Porto, Madrid, Barcelona, Río de Janeiro and Luanda.
Sócrates won because there was no alternative and because he knew how to keep to the centre. Zapateristas take note: the Portuguese Socialists prevailed with two parties on their left flank (the Left Bloc and the old Communist Party) that won nearly 18% of the vote between them.