Parliamentary elections in Spain 2023

The debacle was unexpected for Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez: In the regional and local elections at the end of May, Spain’s left suffered a bitter defeat, with the conservative People’s Party (PP) even gaining ground in bastions of Sánchez’s Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE). One day after the election defeat, the head of government called an early new parliamentary election. And so, on 23 July – just over three weeks after Madrid took over the EU Council presidency – it will be decided whether Spain, after Italy, Sweden and Finland, will be another EU member facing a political shift to the right.