The Spanish election is being framed as a binary choice between a predictable center-left government and a scary right-wing bloc that might include VOX. That framing is lazy, and it misses what actually matters for Ukraine: whether Madrid will treat support for Ukraine as a strategic interest rather than a compliance exercise.
Sanchez and the Compliance Trap
Pedro Sanchez has been a reliable enough partner in the formal sense. Spain votes for aid packages, signs joint declarations, and shows up at summits. But the pattern has been consistent for years: Madrid does the minimum required to stay inside the European consensus, and sometimes not even that.
Spain remains a major buyer of Russian LNG in Europe. A deliberate choice was made: a country funding the Kremlin's war machine while issuing statements about territorial integrity. The Sanchez government has never seriously confronted that contradiction because it wants to avoid the domestic political cost.
The core problem remains. Sanchez is increasingly dependent on regional parties from Catalonia and the Basque Country, and he leans on a left bloc that contains a loud pacifist wing. Every escalation of support for Ukraine becomes a negotiation with coalition partners who see military aid as a problem to be managed, not a necessity to be explained to voters. The result is a policy that sounds supportive in Brussels and looks passive in practice.
The VOX Question
The alternative is not a fantasy of a perfect pro-Ukrainian government. Alberto Nunez Feijoo's People's Party has its own internal contradictions, and VOX is a radical right party with positions on migration and culture that I have no interest in defending. But on the specific question of Ukraine, VOX has been more consistent than many of its European counterparts.
VOX condemns the Kremlin. It criticizes Madrid for buying Russian energy. It supports military assistance. In a European far-right scene where Le Pen and Orban have long laundered Kremlin narratives, VOX has taken a different path. That matters because the far-right ecosystem in Europe watches its own. If VOX enters government and remains firmly pro-Ukrainian, it creates a precedent that other radical right parties cannot easily ignore.
The real question is not whether Madrid stays polite. Madrid must decide whether it will treat support for Ukraine as a strategic interest rather than a compliance exercise.
The Meloni Precedent and Political Realignment
The Meloni comparison is overused and accurate. Italy under Meloni has been a more reliable security partner than many expected. Her government understood that being pro-Ukraine did not cost it credibility with its base. The same dynamic could work in Spain: a right-wing government that includes VOX would have an incentive to prove its Atlanticist credentials, and an easy way to do that is to be more forward-leaning on Ukraine than Sanchez was.
The Overton window argument is realistic. It is how political realignments actually work. The risk is that VOX's radicalism on other issues poisons the coalition and makes Spain unstable, and this concern is legitimate. But the current alternative is a Sanchez government that is stable in form and sluggish in substance.
What Ukraine Actually Needs
Ukraine needs governments that back us in practice, not just in theory. Specifically, we need governments that:
- Treat Russian energy purchases as a security problem
- Push defense industrial cooperation
- Understand the war as a European survival issue, not a distant humanitarian cause
If the right bloc wins and delivers more radical support, we gain. If it wins and delivers the same level as Sanchez, nothing is lost. The only scenario that worries me is the Spanish left's pacifist wing growing strong enough to drag the whole government toward appeasement. The real danger comes from somewhere other than VOX.