Spain Votes to Remain in NATO : 2-Million Majority a Personal Victory for Prime Minister

By a majority of more than 2 million ballots, Spain voted decisively in a national referendum Wednesday to remain in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which it joined under a conservative government four years ago.

The outcome is a major personal victory for Socialist Prime Minister Felipe Gonzalez, who is credited with having almost single-handedly turned around what seemed likely to be an anti-NATO vote right up to the time that the polls closed.

With counting virtually completed, the pro-NATO vote was 8.7 million against 6.6 million anti-NATO votes. However, 40% of those eligible failed to vote, and 7% of the ballots that were cast were either blank or mutilated.

Poll Forecasts Wrong

The pro-NATO vote of 53% was nevertheless far higher than any public opinion poll had forecast. Most of them in fact had indicated that the vote was likely to go the other way.

The prime minister’s political task in fighting for this cause was doubly difficult because he himself had been against Spain’s joining NATO when he was in opposition. He then won a general election, coming to power just months later in part on a campaign promise that he would submit the question of NATO membership to a vote of the Spanish people.

Although Gonzalez subsequently came to favor Spain’s membership in the Atlantic Alliance, he felt that he was honor-bound to go through with his referendum promise. Most of his Cabinet ministers urged him not to go to the people on the issue. The right-wing conservatives now in opposition under the leadership of Manuel Fraga are pro-NATO, but they nevertheless tried to exploit the situation, urging their followers to abstain in the voting.

Leadership on the Line

Against all these odds and obstacles, Gonzalez in effect put his own leadership on the line. He campaigned vigorously in the last 10 days in an effort to persuade his own Socialist followers to join him in the pro-NATO switch.

Still, when the results were in Wednesday night, his televised victory statement was flat and notably unemotional.

“The result is a success for the whole Spanish people,” Gonzalez said. “Aside from the outcome, I consider that every time we have a vote with full normality and a high turnout it gives a strength to our system of free and peaceful coexistence. Spain’s policy of peace and security has emerged strengthened and confirmed by a majority of our people.

“The result will enable us to continue to take part in European and Western security and make an active contribution to maintaining peace and the support of peaceful solutions on conflicts in the world.

“I am firmly convinced that this result strengthens and consolidates the path of peace, coexistence, democracy and progress which Spain set out on 10 years ago.”

Spain this year marked the 10th anniversary of the death of dictator Francisco Franco.

U.S. Relieved at Vote

Spain’s NATO allies, the United States in particular, greeted the favorable outcome of the referendum with relief and satisfaction.

In Washington, the State Department issued a statement saying: “We are pleased that the Spanish people have chosen to continue their nation’s association with its 15 partners in the collective defense of our common heritage. In strengthening the security of its democratic values, Spain has also strengthened that of its friends and allies. . . . We welcome this result.”

Although NATO existed for 33 years without Spain, the defection of a major European state from alliance membership would have given the Soviet Union cause for glee. More importantly, it would have plunged Spain itself into a major political crisis.

Instead, Gonzalez now emerges with his political ascendancy in the country greatly strengthened, and the conservative opposition, with its policy of abstention, is weakened.

Fraga and the right wing had hoped that by standing aside from what they regarded as an unnecessary referendum, they would force a government crisis on Gonzalez before a general election that must take place by October or November at the end of the current Parliament’s four-year term.

As it is, with this referendum victory, the temptation for the prime minister is to call an early election in June and capitalize on the political momentum that he has gained.

3 Conditions Attached

To push the referendum through, Gonzalez attached three conditions to the ballot: Voters were asked to approve continued membership in the Atlantic Alliance on condition that Spain would remain outside NATO’s integrated military structure, a position similar to that taken by France; that it would not permit any nuclear weapons to be stockpiled on Spanish territory, just as NATO members Norway and Denmark bar nuclear stockpiles from theirs, and that it would take “gradual steps” to reduce the U.S. military presence in Spain.

The United States has three large bases in Spain near Madrid, at Saragossa and at the southern port city of Rota, under arrangements going back to the Franco years. In fact, one of Wednesday’s highest votes for remaining in NATO was cast in the province where the Rota base is situated.

U.S. forces in Spain now total about 10,000, with another 11,000 dependents. The Spanish and U.S. governments have already agreed to negotiate new base arrangements, but there is no timetable and the talks are unlikely to start until after the next general election.