The End of the Spanish Exception?

On Tuesday, Spain’s acting prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, announced that his center-left Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE) would seek to form a minority government in cooperation with the far-left party Unidas Podemos. Six weeks after elections in late April left no party with a clear majority, the country is edging closer to a new left-wing government.

In the international press, the national election made headlines for two reasons, each offering a different picture of the state of Spanish—and, by extension, European—politics. The shocking entry into the lower house of parliament of the far-right nationalist party Vox