The political field
In Andalusia, as in the rest of Spain, the 1978 constitution set the rules for the political arena. Since then, Spain has been a constitutional monarchy, with Felipe VI as Head of State, succeeding his father Juan Carlos I after his abdication in 2014. The same constitution transferred a significant share of decision-making power to the regions, and since February1, 1982, Andalusia has had autonomous status, like the other 16 Spanish regions. On the executive side, local government is represented by the Junta de Andalucía, the government of Andalusia, headed by a president, and on the legislative side by a parliament (109 members elected for 4 years and based in Seville).
Stunned and shaken
Long a traditional stronghold of the PSOE, Spain's Socialist Party, Andalusia experienced a political "earthquake" in the December 2018 regional elections, when the latter was forced to relinquish management of the Junta after nearly 37 years in power. As in the rest of Spain, the emergence of two new parties, Podemos(far left) and Ciudadanos(center right), disrupted Spain's traditional two-party system and complicated the game of alliances in recent years. It was only 81 days after the 2015 elections that Susana Díaz, PSOE, was elected president of the Junta, thanks to the support of Ciudadanos. It was the breach of this government pact with Ciudadanos that led her to call the 2018 regional elections. While the PSOE remained the leading party in terms of votes, it was ultimately a three-way coalition: PP (right-wing), Ciudadanos and Vox (far-right), which led to the installation of a new Junta leadership team, with Juan Manuel Moreno, PP, as president. The result of "subtle" negotiations, this "Andalusian-style" alliance saw a coalition pact between PP and Ciudadanos, and a 37-point investiture pact between PP and Vox, a new political party that emerged during the elections and won 12 seats. In June 2022, the regional elections will mark a new stage in the recomposition of Andalusia's political spectrum. With an absolute majority for the PP, a slight rise for Vox (2 more deputies), a historic decline for the left, both PSOE and extreme left, and the disappearance of Ciudadanos.
Unemployment rate higher than the Spanish average
Andalusia's main economic features today are its strong agricultural base, its late industrialization, which still plays a minor role, and its hyper-development of services. Agriculture and fishing are the region's main resources. This is due to the fact that over 45% of the territory is occupied by crops: cereals and sunflowers in the Guadalquivir valley and the "altiplanos" of the provinces of Granada and Almería, and cotton and rice along the Guadalquivir and Genil rivers. But two products are in their own way emblematic of the region: olives in the provinces of Jaén and Cordoba, which produce the bulk of Spanish oil. And the greenhouses of Almería, which supply fruit and vegetables to all European markets. Livestock farming now accounts for just 15% of the agricultural sector (compared with 30% in Spain), and is dominated by products derived from the Iberian pig. Andalusia has Spain's second-largest fishing fleet, after Galicia, and the largest number of fishing ports. A whole sector undergoing profound restructuring to adapt to new standards and avoid overproduction. Finally, despite their low profitability and the general crisis in this sector, mines are still being exploited in Andalusia, contributing 50% to Spanish metal extraction (50% in the province of Huelva). While the region is home to companies such as Cruzcampo, Domecq and Renault Andalusia, industry plays only a minor role in its economy, specializing in the processing of agricultural and mineral raw materials in small-scale units. The exception is the aeronautics sector, in which the region ranks second after Madrid. And while the service sector accounts for 62% of the region's economic activity, it has often generated low-productivity, highly precarious jobs. This is why Andalusia's recurring economic problem remains an unemployment rate that is still too high (18.7% in 2022 versus 12.92% in Spain), even though it has been steadily falling in recent years: 19.43% in 2021, 21.3% in 2018, 24.4 in 2017 and 34.2% in 2014. At the same time, it is faced with significant illegal immigration. While the crisis reduced arrivals, 2018 saw the figures explode. According to data from ACNUR (the UN refugee agency), by the end of May 2018, almost 240,000 immigrants had reached Spanish soil, arriving mainly in the Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla, the Valencian Community, but also and above all in Andalusia. In 2022, Spain recorded the arrival of 472,000 immigrants (source Europapress), making it the fourth OECD country in terms of the number of new migrants, after the USA, Germany and the UK.
Many tourists, but precarious jobs
In 2019, Andalusia received over 32 million tourists, managing to recover despite less than optimistic forecasts. And the sector generated over 460,000 jobs. This figure followed good results since 2015, when it recorded higher figures than before the economic crisis that hit the region hard from 2007 to 2012. While the leading tourists remain Spanish (over 59%), the Junta de Andalucia was also keen to focus on winning new markets, with Japan, China, the United States and Canada its priority targets. And by 2018, it had drawn up an action and promotion plan worth 4.4 million euros, 70% of which was funded by the Andalusian government. The main points of the plan are to reach out more to the 35-50 age group, spread tourist flows more evenly throughout the year, give priority to cultural tourism and provide special support to less-visited regions such as Huelva and Almeria. On the downside, this sector very often generates highly precarious, seasonal employment. Marked by Covid 19, the year 2020 naturally took a heavy toll on Andalusia's tourism sector, with the region only receiving 13.4 million tourists, mostly from Spain. To remedy this, the Junta has set in motion the 2021 action plan, which focuses on recovering not only its Spanish market, but also its main European markets. This recovery seems to be well underway, with 30.8 million tourists visiting the region in 2022.
