For part of Italian public opinion, especially on the progressive side, Spain has become an image of what Italy might have been: a country with a growing economy, a better quality of life and a government capable of confronting crises without abandoning its principles. We tend to receive a handful of encouraging Spanish headlines, and the comparisons practically write themselves. But how much of that picture holds up? Spain offers lessons worth taking seriously, alongside weaknesses that Italy does not share to the same degree.
Start with growth. According to Professor Pomini of the University of Padua, Spain’s economy is forecast to expand by 2% in 2026, against 0.5% for Italy. That is four times the Italian rate, after years of divergence: cumulative growth since 2022 stands at 16% in Spain and 6.6% in Italy. Several factors help explain the difference, including more efficient use of recovery-plan funding, a longer-term energy strategy, investment in innovation and changes to the labour market.
Spain has also drawn on immigration to expand its workforce, including in jobs that do not require advanced qualifications. Its labour reforms have strengthened collective bargaining and made permanent employment the standard, restricting the circumstances in which temporary contracts can be used. The intention is to reduce insecurity and exploitation. Italy has followed a different philosophy over the past decade, from the Jobs Act and changes to dismissal protections to the liberalisation of fixed-term contracts: more flexibility for employers, with fewer protections than before.
Yet both countries have experienced an employment boom, and the results resist a simple ideological reading. Italy has around 24.5 million people in work; Spain almost 23 million. A study by the Fondazione Studi Consulenti del Lavoro covering 2023–26 identifies important differences. Italy added 1.2 million workers, with growth driven by permanent contracts, manufacturing and construction, and significant contributions from women and the south. The share of temporary contracts fell from 16% to 14.7%, while unemployment reached a historic low of 5.1%.
Spain added about 1.5 million workers, but much of the expansion came in more seasonal services, alongside the spread of fijos discontinuos: permanent contracts with intermittent periods of work. A seasonal employee remains formally employed between seasons, and the employer must call that person back when activity resumes or face the consequences of an unjustified dismissal. During inactive periods, eligible workers can claim unemployment benefits. These are meaningful protections for vulnerable workers, often young people or immigrants.
The weakness is that better protection does not, by itself, turn seasonal tourism into a high-value engine of growth. Around 700,000 people are covered by these arrangements. Tourism accounts for 12.5% of Spanish GDP, compared with 5% in Italy. Italy’s problem is often that industry and manufacturing need workers with skills they cannot find; Spain’s growing demand remains more concentrated in hospitality and tourism. Of those two problems, Italy’s is the better one to have.
Still, Spain is changing. As ISPI notes, skilled employment has risen by roughly 20% since 2019, and the economy is progressively moving towards higher-value activities. Its performance in productivity per hour worked is the strongest among the European Union’s four largest economies. Sánchez’s government is therefore pursuing two objectives at once: catching up on competitiveness while improving protection for those with the least bargaining power.
The minimum wage belongs to that second effort. In 2026, Spain raised it to more than €1,200 gross a month, over 3% above its 2025 level and 66% higher than in 2018. Italy has historically relied instead on negotiations between unions and employers, which cover pay alongside hours, benefits and other conditions. This is not simply a distinction between a left-wing country and a right-wing one. It reflects different histories and economic structures, even if political choices plainly matter.
Italy’s results are uneven. Research presented by La Voce shows that stronger sectors, including metalworking and banking, renewed their agreements and fully recovered the purchasing power lost to inflation since 2019, benefiting around two million workers. In weaker sectors, renewals came late and often fell short. Real wages were down 10% in tourism and retail, 6% in logistics and 4.5% in areas such as cleaning. Take-home pay has held up better, but partly because the Meloni government cut the tax wedge—not because employers paid more. The longer view is harsher still: between 1990 and 2024, real wages rose by almost 13% in Spain and fell by 1.6% in Italy.
The differences become especially tangible when work meets family life. Spain guarantees around four months of leave to each parent at full pay. Italy provides mothers with five months at 80% pay, while mandatory leave for fathers lasts just ten days. The Italian arrangement reflects the assumption that the man is the main breadwinner, but it also reinforces that assumption. As Collettiva points out, reduced compensation and short mandatory paternal leave make taking time off less attractive for many fathers. Care remains largely the mother’s responsibility, with consequences for employment, wages and careers.
Spain’s approach is more balanced, and the results are visible. Its female employment rate exceeds 60%, substantially above Italy’s. More accessible nursery provision also helps: coverage is around 55% in Spain, against 35% in Italy. Sánchez’s government is developing additional support for families with children that could reach €2,400 a year. It would be expensive, and there is no guarantee it will happen. But it shows where the government wants to place its priorities.
Energy offers another revealing comparison, though not quite the easy morality tale it sometimes becomes. Spain has invested heavily in solar and wind, while nuclear contributes about 18% of its mix. Together, low-emission sources account for roughly three-quarters of its supply. Italy remains much more dependent on gas, without nuclear generation and without a sufficiently serious political discussion about energy sovereignty.
This is not simply a story of Spanish geniuses and Italian fools. Italy is Europe’s second-largest manufacturing economy, producing complex goods for global markets. Its goods exports are almost twice Spain’s, and its industrial structure requires much more energy. Covering the needs of a less industrialised economy with renewables is an easier task. Spain also has geographical advantages: windier areas and lower population density make installing energy infrastructure less difficult.
None of that excuses Italy’s choices. Avoiding nuclear power while remaining dependent on gas has left the country heavily exposed to international shocks, with damaging consequences for industry as well as household bills. Spain has pursued energy sovereignty more consistently, partly because its connections with the rest of Europe are limited. Italy could have done much more on renewables, and much earlier.
Bills also conceal differences in how costs are paid. In Italy, renewable-energy incentives are charged directly to consumers through their bills; in Spain, they fall on general taxation. Italian grid-management costs are about 45% lower. Spain’s network is expensive to run, and the 2025 blackouts were a grid-management problem, not a consequence of renewables themselves. Lower bills therefore do not necessarily mean that every underlying cost is lower. Spain’s achievements are real, but the comparison needs to account for industrial demand, geography and public financing.
Nor does Spain outperform Italy on every measure of household pressure. The inflation figures put Italy at 3%, against 4.5% in Spain. Spain also faces a severe housing shortage, with rising demand and very limited supply reviving painful memories of 2008. Housing has become one of the issues most damaging to Sánchez’s support. This is not a country where everything is going well. Which country is?
Foreign policy is a different argument. Europe’s leadership has been overwhelmed by a pandemic, wars and upheaval in the Middle East, including destabilisation involving the very allies presented as its protectors. Italy is particularly exposed: its economy depends on importing energy and raw materials, turning them into valuable products and selling them around the world. Disrupted trade routes and rising input costs strike directly at that model.
A national-conservative government that repeatedly promised to put Italy first has struggled to provide an effective answer. Meloni’s perceived closeness to Trump has not protected Italy from the destabilisation associated with him, the threats to commercial routes or the risk of stagflation. But it is also fair to ask what any European leader could realistically have done. Even a much more forceful Italian posture in the wider Mediterranean would risk confrontation with essential allies, notably the United States and Israel.
Those relationships are not abstract. Defence equipment, cybersecurity, technological cooperation and contracts worth billions tie Italy’s national security to its partners. Breaking or even reducing those commitments would require restructuring exceptionally sensitive arrangements, quite apart from the commercial consequences. The gravity of the situation has prompted some movement, but Italy remains deeply bound to those relationships.
Spain, with different geopolitical priorities and less extensive business ties in these areas, has taken another course. Sánchez has raised questions that many European citizens were asking while their leaders hesitated. If Russia faces sanctions and exclusion from international sport for invading a country and killing civilians, why should Israel escape comparable consequences? If international law, democracy, freedom and the protection of the vulnerable are foundational European principles, why retreat from them when applying them becomes uncomfortable?
The distinction lies in the willingness to act on those principles, whether or not one agrees with every decision. Sánchez has sought to do so by distancing Spain from partners, cancelling agreements and rejecting Trump’s demands for higher NATO military spending. Spain has nevertheless increased defence spending in recent years, participates in overseas missions and maintains multilateral relationships. It is not an isolated country. It is one of the few European countries of its size willing to expose the contradictions weakening the continent’s political and moral authority.
That may be the most dangerous long-term consequence of the present moment: discovering that the universal values Europe celebrated for decades were only comforting stories told in times of peace—our peace. When defending them becomes awkward, they disappear. Despite its different circumstances and room for manoeuvre, Sánchez’s Spain has preserved at least a fragment of the dignity of Europe’s leadership and backed its position with concrete decisions. That is more than most have managed.
The overall comparison remains mixed. Spain began from a lower level of development and is closing important gaps. Italy still has a more complex industrial economy and a stronger presence in global markets. Madrid has placed greater emphasis on welfare and innovation; Italy continues to rely heavily on collective bargaining and labour-market flexibility. Their energy systems, diplomatic relationships and ideas about their place in the world are different. Spain is neither a perfect alternative nor a model Italy can simply copy.
What is missing is an alliance between them. Italy and Spain are Mediterranean neighbours with converging interests, from migration to energy sovereignty. Both also know what it means to be disparaged by northern Europe. Together, they could do much more with their position at Europe’s southern edge, where goods, resources, energy, capital and strategic interests meet. Yet Madrid is governed by the left and Rome by the right, and political colours seem enough to stop the conversation. A Mediterranean axis—with Portugal and Greece too—would be worth pursuing. Surely neighbouring governments should still be able to talk.