Such, unfortunately, are the inevitable wages of being 'responsible.' The Spanish centrist parties - both the left-centrist Socialists and right-centrist Popular Party - in promising the European Commission to maintain fiscal discipline, have taken the side of the bankers in Germany against their own middle and working classes.



These classes, faced with massive unemployment, staggering debt loads, and declining wages, have not surprisingly been receptive to the appeals of the right wing. Like Trump voters, it makes no difference to them that the appeals may make little or no economic or societal sense. What they appreciate is that the right wing is 'on their side.' Fundamentally, this is why the share of the vote gained by the right-wing Vox party has risen, and that of the centrist parties has shriveled.



Expect, therefore, the further fragmentation of the Spanish polity as long as Spain's elites avoid recognizing very explicitly that much Spanish debt can only be repaid in the form of a massive and unacceptable transfer of wealth from Spanish workers to German banks.