Pablo Iglesias

Pablo Iglesias was the Second Deputy Prime Minister of Spain from 2020 until 2021. For the first time, my guest and I take a look at a figure from Europe’s modern left: Iglesias was the leader and co-founder of anti-austerity party Podemos- “we can” in Spanish.

Although Podemos and Iglesias did not topple the Socialist Party and sweep to power as Syriza did in Greece, they have entered government alongside them, and to some extent have been successful in shifting Spain’s economic policy leftward. Iglesias, whose rather petty infighting and sniping quickly alienated many Spaniards from him, has now left politics.

However, Podemos remains crucial to understanding how Europe’s politics has changed since 2008. The melding together of unbridled economic and social liberalism, which seemed hyper-dominant in 90s and 2000s, has been replaced with a politics both more left-wing and more right-wing than what preceded it.

My guest for today is Michael Reid. Michael is a senior editor at the Economist, where he writes on matters mostly related to Latin America but also to Spain. He is also the author of a new book Spain: The Trials & Triumphs of a Modern European Country.