Voters in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Poland among those heading to polling booths on Sunday
Spain’s socialist prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, has cast his vote and called for a huge turnout.
“Let’s all decide between us what kind of future we want for Europe,” he told reporters on Sunday morning.
“It’s worth remembering that the response to the [2008] financial crisis, the social response to the pandemic, the responses to the different economic crises triggered by the war in Ukraine and the war in the Middle East all came from the same capital – which is Brussels.”
He continued: “And that’s why our votes will decide whether the kind of future we have in Europe and in Spain is a future that advances or a future that goes backwards. Do we want a Europe that continues to come together in solidarity to face the challenges ahead, or do we choose a reactionary Europe of cuts and of regression and reaction?”
Sánchez’s opponents, however, have sought to make the vote a referendum on the prime minister’s administration and his style of government. They accuse him of cynicism, hypocrisy and of weakness for offering Catalan separatists a deeply divisive amnesty law in return for helping him back to power after last year’s inconclusive general election.
In recent weeks, the conservative People’s party (PP) and the far-right Vox party have also seized on the fact that Sánchez’s wife, Begoña Gómez, is being investigated by a judge over allegations of influence-peddling and corruption to suggest that he is unfit for office.
On Wednesday Sánchez again accused his political opponents of trying to undermine his government and influence the outcome of these elections after a judge investigating the corruption allegations against his wife summoned her to testify five days before polls opened.
The complaint against Gómez was filed by the pressure group Manos Limpias (Clean Hands), a self-styled trade union with far-right links that has a long history of using the courts to pursue political targets.
Although prosecutors in Madrid have asked the court to throw out the case for lack of evidence – and a report by the Guardia Civil police force found no indication of criminal activity by Gómez – the investigation is proceeding.
“There is nothing behind this accusation, just an ugly fit-up driven by the far-right groups behind the complaint,” the prime minister said on Wednesday.
Sánchez, who has always maintained his wife’s innocence, added that his political opponents were “trying to use illegitimate methods to achieve what they didn’t manage to do at the polls”.
Speaking after he voted at 11am, the PP leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, also urged “massive participation” in the elections.
“I urge all Spaniards to go to the ballot boxes optimistically, ambitiously and responsibly to respond to the situation in our country and to [decide] what they want Europe and this great country to be … We’ll keep on working to defend democracy in our country. Today … each of us has the chance to respond to the political situation that Spain’s experiencing, and to [decide] what we want the future of Europe to be.”
Vox’s candidate, Jorge Buxadé, joined other politicians in urging people to get out and vote. He also accused Sánchez of attempting to incite “political violence against what he calls the far right”.
“Spain needs a change of direction and Europe needs a change of direction,” he said. “In short, those who think things in Europe are going perfectly should carry on voting for the parties they always have. Those who think Europe needs a change of direction and that there’s a different way of doing much better in Brussels have only one option – which is Vox.”
