The political and diplomatic friendship between Spain and France could suffer a serious deterioration in the coming weeks. What happens when a country’s Parliament rejects the validation of a new friendship treaty with its main neighboring country twice? That is what could happen in the coming weeks between France and Spain. There is a possibility that the Congress of Deputies will reject for the second time the official ratification of the new treaty of friendship and cooperation with France signed on January 19, 2023, in Montjuïc, under the title Treaty of Barcelona.
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The renewal of the old friendship pact between the two countries was the result of laborious diplomatic work in which both parties dedicated several months to refining, reviewing, greasing, and finding new cooperation mechanisms in the most diverse areas. There is no need to insist on the objective importance of diplomatic, political, economic, social, and cultural relations between Spain and France. Nor is it necessary to insist on the friction, susceptibilities, and divergent interests that exist between both countries, especially in the area of energy and railway connections. In the relationship between France and Spain, geography plays in France’s favor: to reach the heart of Europe, electricity produced in the Iberian Peninsula (here Portugal must be included) must cross the barrier of the Pyrenees. The same applies to gas. The same applies to trains.
The Treaty of Barcelona was signed in January 2023 and ratified by the French Parliament (National Assembly and Senate) between February and March 2025. There were reservations from the National Rally (RN) regarding the most striking novelty introduced by the text: periodically, French ministers will participate in meetings of the Council of Ministers of the Government of Spain, and vice versa.
France has also introduced this clause in the renewal of friendship treaties signed in recent years with Germany, Italy, and Poland. It is a symbolic innovation, with a political message. We are talking about the ‘hard core’ of the European Union, we are talking about those two speeds that are so often invoked; we are talking about giving way to the ‘Union within the Union’, that is, the formation of a core of countries that would proceed to greater integration to act as the EU’s locomotive. The Treaty of Barcelona was conceived to reinforce existing cooperation mechanisms and to champion this project of greater integration. A French minister every three months at the meeting of the Spanish Council of Ministers. A Spanish minister every three months at the meeting of the French Government headed by the President of the Republic.
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With Germany, Italy, and Poland there were no problems. In Spain, there is a blockage. Political reticence has mixed with the rough domestic struggle and has ended up creating a blockage that today seems difficult to resolve. Vox opposes the presence of French ministers in Spanish government meetings, considering it contrary to the Constitution. In their opinion, this would be an unacceptable cession of national sovereignty. The Popular Party also expressed its reservations but abstained in the committee phase, “in the interest of the general good.” After a few weeks, on May 14, 2025, that abstention turned into a negative vote. For what reason? The PP saw a parliamentary defeat for the Government coming and believed it should not prevent it. Down for the count! The abstention of Junts per Catalunya and Podemos left the Government in a minority if the PP and Vox voted together against it in the plenary session of Congress. And so it happened.
The Spanish right voted against it, appealing to “national sovereignty.” Junts also appealed to that concept, with a different subject: Catalan national sovereignty. Carles Puigdemont had felt offended by the Treaty of Barcelona. The summit between the two countries that sealed this agreement took place in Barcelona by express decision of the Spanish Prime Minister, to emphasize the ‘normalization’ of Catalan political life after the so-called ‘procés’. “Le ‘procés’ s’est terminé…” Pedro Sánchez seemed to tell Emmanuel Macron in Montjuïc. Puigdemont took note. Podemos’s abstention was in line with France Insoumise, its counterpart party across the Pyrenees: they view with reluctance the strengthening of military cooperation between both countries within the framework of NATO. The reservations have not disappeared. This June, the treaty could be blocked for the second time in parliament.
We could be facing an unforeseen neighborhood crisis
There is concern in French political circles, according to La Vanguardia. “It would be a slap in the face to France and Emmanuel Macron would be forced to speak out,” explain sources familiar with the French mood. “If the ratification of the treaty is blocked for a second time, President Macron will not remain silent,” the same sources insist. There is tension. Since the signing of the Treaty of Barcelona in January 2023, no bilateral summit has taken place between the two countries. A second Spanish No could provoke a diplomatic incident, at a time of great political uncertainty in the Spanish national, French, and European spheres. There is tension for another additional reason: the French believe they should have been consulted by the Spanish Government on the ongoing regularization of immigrants. In France, they believe this issue also concerns them. In France, the issue of immigration occupies a central place in public debate and the country is in a pre-election period. Presidential elections are scheduled to be held in France in March 2027, and in Spain, it is unknown what will happen, given the current political and judicial situation. General elections within a few months or within a year.
If the candidate of the National Rally wins the French presidential elections, the treaty pending ratification by Spain could lapse and a phase of evident estrangement between both countries could begin. Coldness and distrust. If France does not disavow the treaty and trusts that the Spanish Parliament will vote on it for a third time, it will have to wait for the result of the next general elections. If the Popular Party then leads a new parliamentary majority together with Vox deputies, it does not seem that Santiago Abascal‘s party will retract. What would Vox vote then? If Vox continued to say no, what would the PP do? Would it ask the PSOE for help to re-establish a ‘national consensus’ and not lose face with the French? Would the PSOE, in opposition, give the support that its main adversary now denies it?
A fundamental question in this story. What stable parliamentary majority does Spain have today, and what majority will it have in a year? Is there, in the current circumstances, a minimum margin for cross-party majorities?
On June 10, the Treaty of Barcelona will be voted on again in the Congress’s Foreign Affairs Committee. It should go to the plenary session on June 17. Meanwhile, the Government has introduced a small addition to the text specifying that French ministers would meet with Spanish officials in a specific session, outside the ordinary meeting of the Council of Ministers. The French Chamber of Commerce in Barcelona, founded in 1883, the oldest business organization in Spain, which currently groups more than four hundred companies, yesterday called on Spanish deputies to ratify the treaty, considering the smooth functioning of Spain-France relations and the strengthening of the European Union. We could be facing an unforeseen neighborhood crisis.
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