Before immersing ourselves in the electoral swamp we should assess the damage that new elections are going to do to the image and capacity of action of Spain abroad.

The crisis forced Spain to follow a foreign policy focused on survival. It was about, on the one hand, getting rid of the risk premium yoke and a possible Troika intervention . And, on the other, to support the exit abroad of our companies to be able to generate exports with which to generate economic growth. Also, to prevent Catalan independence from gaining adherents among potentially related governments.

Understood and concluded the need for a foreign policy of mandatory defensive cut, our European partners have been demanding a more active and more involved Spain, especially at a time marked by the departure of the United Kingdom, the populist turn of Salvini Italy and the weakness of the German coalition government. Sanchez's government, in this you have to applaud his management, accepted the challenge and with Borrell in command he applied himself to the task of, as has been said, returning to Europe.

If that task has not been entirely successful, it has been due more to external than internal factors. As it has been shown in the migration issue, the Europe we wanted to return to was not the friendly Europe we knew but a Europe wounded by deep North-South, East-West divisions and with some countries with a foot in iliberalism. However, this context made the Spanish effort even more meritorious, recognized with the appointment of Josep Borrell as high representative for European foreign policy and vice-president of the Commission.

However, the dominant perception outside our borders today is that we have a dysfunctional political system, incapable of producing stable governments, neither of one color nor of another, just when economic curves and geopolitical curves come. And nothing weakens you more when you sit in a European Council in front of your fellow heads of state or government than your weakness at home. The call for the 28-A elections was aimed at forming a stable and broad-based government; hence the European partners will not be restless. But if you dissolve the Cortes on March 4 of a year and you don't have a government again, at best, until January of the following year, it is logical that your partners put you in the freezer. And in the meantime, Italy has already returned (although it could leave again).

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