The governments of José María Aznar (1996–2004) comprise the third period of the reign of Juan Carlos I of Spain. For 8 years, the People's Party (PP) held the government of Spain under the presidency of José María Aznar. In his first term (1996–2000), not having obtained an absolute majority, the PP had to rely on the Catalan nationalist CiU to govern, but in his second term (2000–2004) he had no need for agreements since he obtained an absolute majority in the general elections of March 2000.
During this second period of government, the PP faced greater opposition from the PSOE, which after the election of a new leadership team headed by José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero finally overcame a long crisis experienced after successive defeats in the 1996 and 2000 elections. Likewise, between 2000 and 2004, the PP had to face a major social opposition to some of its policies - such as the education policy or the National Water Plan that contemplated the transfer of the Ebro to Valencia, Murcia and Almeria - that reached its peak on June 20, 2002, with the general strike called by the two big unions CCOO and UGT to show their disapproval of the "decretazo" ("big decree" in English) that contemplated cuts in unemployment benefits, and that was finally revoked.
The street protests continued due to the government's management of the Prestige oil tanker spill - that in November 2002 had its hull damaged off the coast of Galicia, causing a part of the fuel oil it was carrying to spill into the sea, contaminating the Galician coast within a few days with tons of chapapote (English: tar, asphalt) - and above all in rejection of the war in Iraq, that was supported by the Aznar government.
The "legislature of tension"
A surprising result of the elections of June 1993 was that the PSOE won again and José María Aznar's People's Party - once confident of their victory - was defeated. However, the Socialists did not repeat the absolute majority they held since 1982 - they were down to 17 seats - so, in order to govern, Felipe González had to reach a parliamentary agreement with the Catalan and Basque nationalists.
Aside from dealing with the economic crisis initiated in the second half of 1992, the socialist government of Felipe González had to face the emergence of new scandals, resulting in a harsh confrontation with the opposition, both the Popular Party and United Left, which is why the fourth socialist mandate would be known as the "legislature of tension".
The most spectacular of the new scandals, and the one with the greatest popular and media impact, was the "Roldán case", named after Luis Roldán, the first non-military director of the Civil Guard in its history, who was arrested on charges of making a fortune by collecting illegal commissions from the Civil Guard's construction contractors and appropriating the reserved funds of the Ministry of the Interior and who, in April 1994, four months after his arrest, went on the run. Such scandals opened a new breach of trust in the Socialist government that resulted in demands for the resignation of the President by José María Aznar, leader of the People's Party, and Julio Anguita, general coordinator of United Left.
The 1994 European Parliament elections of June 1994 were held in this environment, with the Popular Party surpassing the PSOE in the number of votes for the first time - obtaining 40% of the votes versus 30% for the Socialists - leading to a demand for general elections, that Felipe González refused once confirmed that he still had the support of the CiU. From then on, José María Aznar adopted the "machacona invectiva" ("repetitive invective" in English) of "Váyase, señor González" ("Go away, Mr. González" in English) in every parliamentary intervention, cheered by the deputies of the "popular" parliamentary group.
A month before the European elections, Judge Baltasar Garzón - who left his seat as deputy in Congress for the PSOE and the position of Government Delegate for the National Plan on Drugs and returned to court at the National Court - reopened the GAL case and granted provisional freedom to policemen José Amedo and Michel Domínguez, who had been convicted in 1988 for their participation in several attacks attributed to the "Antiterrorist Liberation Groups" and who were willing to disclose everything they knew once the government did not approve their pardon as promised. Amedo and Domínguez's statements led to the arrest of several high-ranking officials of the Socialist administration for their alleged participation in the kidnapping and frustrated assassination of the French citizen Segundo Marey, mistaken for a member of ETA by a GAL commando.
Another major scandal related to the dirty war against ETA was uncovered in March 1995. The Civil Guard general Enrique Rodríguez Galindo was arrested by order of the National Court judge Javier Gómez de Liaño for his alleged involvement in the "Lasa and Zabala case", the kidnapping and subsequent murder of José Antonio Lasa and José Ignacio Zabala, alleged members of ETA captured in France by the GAL in 1983 and whose bodies, buried in quicklime, were found in Busot (Alicante) two years later.
A new GAL related scandal emerged shortly after - known as the "CESID papers" scandal - that would show, according to David Ruiz, the "unusual heights" reached by "the strategy of harassment of Felipe González' government." It was about the theft by the second chief of the secret service, Colonel Juan Alberto Perote, of a series of documents that apparently implicated more socialist politicians in the "GAL case" and that Perote, according to the newspaper El País, had delivered to Mario Conde to blackmail the high authorities of the State to neutralize the legal actions taken against him and Javier de la Rosa. Part of the documents were transcripts of illegal wiretaps, forcing the Vice President Narcís Serra, Minister of Defense at the time of the wiretaps, and his successor in office, Julián García Vargas, to resign.
In May 1995, municipal and autonomic elections were held in an atmosphere influenced by the attack perpetrated by ETA on April 20 - from which the leader of the opposition, José María Aznar, miraculously escaped unharmed - and the arrest and surrender in Laos of the fugitive Luis Roldán. The victory was once again for the People's Party, which was almost five points ahead of the PSOE (it obtained 35.2% of the votes cast compared to 30.8% for the Socialists). Almost all the provincial capitals and the cities with the largest populations were governed by the PP.
Faced with a series of scandals, the leader of CiU and president of the Generalitat of Catalonia, Jordi Pujol, withdrew parliamentary support from CiU deputies to the government, leaving it in a minority in the Cortes. The president of the government, Felipe González, had no choice but to call general elections for March 3, 1996.
The Popular Party won the elections but not by the expected wide margin, as it only surpassed the PSOE by 300,000 votes (9.7 million against 9.4 million) and was far from the absolute majority (it got 156 deputies, 15 more than the PSOE). In any case, the PP succeeded in its goal of ousting the Socialists from power, "after trying hard for more than a decade".
United Left, expecting to come close to the PSOE, and even surpass it, had to settle for 21 deputies.
Socio-economic policy
Economic modernization The immediate goals of the economic program implemented by the People's Party were:
To improve the efficiency and competitiveness of the economy through the liberalization of the markets of certain sectors and the complete privatization of public companies, such as Telefónica or Repsol. To reduce inflation through the control of public spending and the consequent reduction of the budget deficit - until reaching a zero deficit - and "wage control" to be agreed with the trade unions. To make the labor market more "flexible" by promoting "social dialogue" to reduce severance payments and thus encourage permanent hiring.The agreement between the CEOE, UGT and CCOO and the government was actually signed in April 1997.
Euro introduction The ultimate purpose of these policies was to meet the requirements imposed by the European Union - inflation, public deficit, public debt, interest rates- in order to adopt the new common currency, the euro. And in this area, success was complete because the Spanish economy experienced strong growth, unemployment was reduced and inflation dropped to historic lows, so that in May 1998, Spain was able to join the group of eleven European Union countries that adopted the euro - although it was not until January 1, 2002, that euro bills and coins physically started to circulate.
One of the keys to this success was the policy of privatization of large public companies, which provided the State with enormous extraordinary revenues that served to reduce the public debt and the deficit.
The "property bubble" The other side of the strong economic growth of these years was the property bubble it generated, since the main economic engine was housing construction and the demand for housing was due to the fact that many people did not buy them to live in them but as an investment to sell them later at a higher price, thanks to the constant increase in their value. In addition, the acquisition of housing became one of the most pressing problems for many people, especially for young people.
Welfare state preservation The favorable economic situation made it possible to maintain social spending (education, health, pensions) while reducing the public deficit and lowering direct taxes. This dispelled the fears raised in certain sectors by the coming to power of the People's Party about the possible reduction of social benefits.
Regarding pensions, for example, the PP reaffirmed the validity of the Toledo Pact, signed in 1995, which guaranteed the preservation and viability of the public pension system based on the contributions of employers and workers. Moreover, thanks to the spectacular increase in the number of affiliates, the Social Security managed to overcome the deficit it had in 1995. This is what prompted the government to submit to Parliament a bill - which was passed in 1999 - for the automatic revaluation of pensions, which would be equal to the inflation registered each year.
The new immigration phenomenon The Aznar government did not get the same support when it proposed the reform of the 1985 Immigration Law, which had become obsolete to deal with the new phenomenon of immigration, something completely new in Spain's recent history. Thus, in late 1999, a paradox occurred when the law finally approved by the Cortes did not have the support of the PP, since CiU voted with the opposition, but as soon as it obtained an absolute majority in the 2000 elections, the PP changed the law in order to restrict the entry of migrants and limit the rights of those who were not regularized - the so-called "sin papeles" ("no papers" in English), which in 2000 were about 250,000 out of a total of 800,000 migrants.
Additionally, the events occurred in El Ejido (Almeria) in early 2000 - dozens of Moroccans were attacked by a large group of neighbors in response to the murder of a woman attributed to a mentally ill man of Maghrebi origin - starkly highlighted the problem of xenophobia related to emigration.
During the Premiership of José María Aznar, Spain gave residency to more than 500,000 undocumented migrants in different amnesties in 1996, 2000 and 2001.
Change in anti-terrorist policy and the "peripheral" nationalism
Anti-terrorist policy The PP government developed an anti-terrorist policy based on an idea that no democratic government had defended until then: that only police measures could put an end to ETA. Thus, the only possible "dialogue" with ETA was the surrender of weapons.