For the first time, the Spanish right-wing populists from the Vox party will provide three ministers and the speaker of the parliament.

Although it is only the regional government of Castilla-Leon, it represents a political turning point for Spain, because the conservative People's Party (PP) has so far strictly refused to enter into a coalition with Vox.

The reactions from the conservative side were correspondingly clear.

Hans Christian Roessler

Political correspondent for the Iberian Peninsula and the Maghreb based in Madrid.

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"I hope this is just an accident and not a trend in Spanish politics," said European People's Party (EPP) leader Donald Tusk.

The deputy general secretary of the socialist PSOE party, Adriana Lastra, spoke of a "pact of shame" that brought the extreme right back to power for the first time since the end of the Franco dictatorship.

On Friday, the Spanish press repeatedly referred to the German CDU as a role model, which recently did everything in Thuringia to prevent a similar alliance with the AfD.

Left-wing parties in Spain blamed the designated PP leader Alberto Núñez Feijóo for the change of course.

But the Galician regional president considers the coalition to be “completely legitimate”: it prevented a repeat of the regional elections in February, in which the PP failed to gain an absolute majority.

Compromises in return?

Many had expected Feijóo, who had made a name for himself as a moderate pragmatist, to position the party more in the political center and pursue a less confrontational course than his predecessor Pablo Casado.

Now commentators accuse him of becoming the political stirrup holder for the right-wing populists and helping to make them socially acceptable in national politics.

On the day the alliance with Vox was announced, Feijóo had submitted more than 55,000 supporter signatures.

He is the only candidate for the post of PP leader after the party pressured Pablo Casado to step down.

At the beginning of April, a special party congress will elect Feijóo.

Pablo Casado had ruled out closer cooperation with the Vox party, which has become the third strongest party in Castilla y León with 13 seats.

With 51 MPs, Vox is already the third strongest party in the Spanish parliament and is steadily increasing in polls.

In Castile-Leon, the party did not want to bring the PP back to power, as was the case in Madrid, Andalusia and Murcia, but to participate in government.

Vox chairman Santiago Abascal, who led the coalition negotiations himself, had set this course of action.

Vox has long had its sights set on next year's Spanish general election.

Only together with the right-wing populists can the PP hope for a majority for a right-wing government, to which Vox wants to belong.

Until now, Vox has been a protest party that has benefited from the dissatisfaction of the rural population in Castile-Leon, who feel forgotten by the PP and the socialists.

The political catalyst for the rise was the Catalonia conflict, not migration like elsewhere in Europe.

Now the right-wing populists want to show that they can also assume government responsibility.

In return, they were willing to make initial compromises in Valladolid in exchange for entering government.