The unconditional alliance with the U.S. president, Donald Trump, and the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, is generating increasing tensions within Vox. If last Monday the party’s secretary general, Ignacio Garriga, avoided defending Pope Leo XIV against Trump’s criticisms —“I will not make any assessment of the statements a president may make about the Holy Father or the UN secretary general,” he said—, Vox’s spokesperson in Congress, Pepa Millán, could not avoid on Wednesday the attacks against the Italian Giorgia Meloni. She called the words of the U.S. leader “incomprehensible,” who disqualified the Italian prime minister for not giving him enough support in his war against Iran. “I thought she was brave, but I was wrong,” said the White House occupant on Tuesday about one of his best allies in Europe. “Meloni, who is our ally and friend, is one of the bravest politicians in the world and she has proven it,” Millán responded. “Nations,” she added, “have the right to defend their sovereignty, it is the duty of all presidents of any self-respecting Western government.” Although she was not as forceful in defending the Pope, she added that his mission and that of the Church “is not to submit to any politician and politicians do not have to control them either.”
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For now, Vox leader Santiago Abascal remains silent, but sources within Vox do not hide their discomfort, since although he left the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group led by Meloni in 2024, he has tried to safeguard his friendship with the Italian prime minister, of which he boasts. On January 3, Vox’s leader received Meloni at his family home, who came to Madrid on a private visit.
The confrontation between Trump and Meloni also occurs at the worst moment for Vox, which has just seen its main international ally, Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán, lose power in last Sunday’s elections after 16 years in office. With Orbán, Abascal has also lost an important mentor who provided financial support to face the latest electoral appointments.
Meloni’s refusal to support the U.S. and Israel’s campaign against Iran, similarly to how Pedro Sánchez’s government denied the use of the Rota and Morón bases, has also exposed Vox’s alignment with the Washington-Tel Aviv axis in a war overwhelmingly rejected by Spanish public opinion. The unconditional support for Netanyahu is causing discomfort among Vox’s base and has been denounced by some of its former leaders, such as former deputy and Madrid councilor Carla Toscano or former vice president of Castilla y León Juan García-Gallardo, who have suggested there may be economic interests behind this stance. The silence regarding Netanyahu’s threats to Spain or the Israeli Army’s attacks on Spanish blue helmets in southern Lebanon, including the illegal detention of one of the soldiers, has pushed the contradictions of a party that defines itself as patriotic, exalts the Armed Forces, and has filled its lists with retired generals to the limit.
For Vox, it is essential to maintain a good relationship with Meloni, not only because she is the most powerful far-right politician in Europe but also because of the need to neutralize any attempt to create a new party in Spain that occupies the space represented by Brothers of Italy in her country: between Forza Italia (PP’s partner) and the League (Vox’s partner).
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The ECR group, led by Meloni, has welcomed the two MEPs from Se Acabó la Fiesta (SALF) who broke with Alvise Pérez, but it has no partner in Spain for the 2029 European elections. The internal purge in Vox has politically orphaned a handful of former party leaders ―from Iván Espinosa de los Monteros to Javier Ortega Smith, among many others― who could seek shelter under Meloni’s umbrella and represent in Spain an ultra-conservative political offer morally and ultra-liberal economically, but Atlanticist and pro-European, two principles that Vox, in their view, has abandoned.
This Thursday it was precisely revealed that the National Executive Committee of Vox (CEN) has rejected the appeals filed by Ortega Smith himself and his colleagues in the Madrid City Council, Carla Toscano and Ignacio Ansaldo ―who holds membership card number 1 of the ultra party, which he registered in 2013 in the Ministry of the Interior’s registry― against their expulsion from the party.
Once the disciplinary process is completed, the only option left for the dissenters is to appeal to the courts, something Ortega Smith has already announced he intends to do. Meanwhile, according to sources consulted, the three councilors will become non-affiliated and Vox will be left with only two councilors in the capital’s City Council. Ortega, who also has a seat in Congress, could join the Mixed Group, although he has not yet clarified his future.
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