4 ways Pedro Sánchez is copying the Trudeau playbook

If you want to figure out new Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, go west — and look at Justin Trudeau’s record in Canada.

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The two men — both leaders of their countries’ oldest political parties — share the same age (46), boast boyish good looks and achieved power unexpectedly. They also appear to share a political vision.

Sánchez, elected prime minister earlier this month after ousting conservative premier Mariano Rajoy in an unprecedented parliamentary no-confidence motion, looks to be drawing inspiration from the progressive moves that Trudeau has used since coming to power in 2015.

That means a focus on women’s and immigrants’ rights, seeking to address historical divisions while embracing smart PR and savvy use of social media.

If the Trudeau template works for Sánchez and his Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), it will be a boost to dispirited Social Democrats across Europe — a sign that center-left politics in a fresh wrapper can work on the Continent and they don’t have to create a new movement like Emmanuel Macron in France or take a sharp left turn like Jeremy Corbyn in Britain.

Sánchez hasn’t yet hit Trudeau’s level of social media savvy.

Here are four ways Sánchez is drawing on Trudeau’s playbook:

1. Promoting women
Sánchez swiftly put feminism and gender equality at the center of his premiership, appointing 11 women and 6 men to his Cabinet.

That’s a 65 percent female share — unprecedented not just by Spain’s standards, but for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), a club that includes most of the world’s wealthy democracies. Deputy Prime Minister Carmen Calvo has been placed in charge of gender equality, putting it front and center across all government departments.

Gender equality is a key issue, too, for Trudeau’s leadership of Canada’s Liberal Party. A proud and outspoken feminist, Trudeau incorporated gender equality principles into the fabric of his government. Women were appointed to 15 out of 30 Cabinet positions available when he took office. Asked at a press conference about the decision, he replied: “Because it’s 2015.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks after announcing changes to his cabinet in Ottawa, Ontario on August 28, 2017. Like Trudeau, Sanchez has made representation of women a hallmark of his Cabinet | Lars Hagberg/AFP via Getty Images

Trudeau repeatedly calls himself a feminist on the world stage, and wrote an opinion piece in 2017 on why he’s raising his sons as feminists. Canada’s 2018 budget includes the word “gender” 359 times in 367 pages.

After Sánchez unveiled his Cabinet, Trudeau took to Twitter to say: “One day this won’t make headlines… until then we celebrate each positive step forward. Congratulations PM.”

2. Immigration
Sánchez’s biggest gesture since taking office has been to take in the Aquarius, a rescue ship that was stranded in the Mediterranean with 629 migrants on board after both Italy and Malta refused to let it dock at their ports. Sánchez said his move aimed to avoid a “humanitarian catastrophe.” The ship arrived in Valencia on Sunday.

Spain’s foreign minister, Josep Borrell, said that welcoming the Aquarius in Spain had been a very personal, symbolic decision by Sánchez, aiming to raise awareness and push European partners to find a way to tackle the migration problem together.

The move won praise from the U.N. refugee agency and the European Commission. It stands in marked contrast to the strong anti-migrant stance from Italy’s new populist government and other politicians across Europe.

The Spanish government has also pledged to remove anti-immigrant razor wire at the frontier of Ceuta and Melilla, Spanish enclaves in North Africa that border Morocco. “The same level of security can be guaranteed with less cruel means,” Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska said in a radio interview. The new government has also announced that it will provide free health care to unregistered immigrants in the country.

Four of Trudeau’s Cabinet ministers are immigrants.

Under Trudeau, Canada has become more open to immigration. Government officials can no longer refuse migrants with disabilities on the grounds that their care would be a burden to taxpayers.

More than 53,000 Syrian refugees have been resettled in Canada, as of April 2018, through government and private sponsorship programs. Trudeau welcomed the first arrivals in December 2015. Canada will welcome 18,000 Syrians in 2018, and has left its border open to migrants as U.S. President Donald Trump cracks down on illegal immigration.

Four of Trudeau’s Cabinet ministers are immigrants. One, Ahmed Hussen, the minister of immigration, refugees and citizenship, was born in Somalia and came to Canada as a refugee after living in a camp in Kenya.

3. Addressing the past
Spain still has much to do to confront its fascist past under the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco, who ruled from 1939 to 1975.

Sánchez said on Monday that he will remove Franco’s tomb from the “Valley of the Fallen” — a mausoleum built by the dictator on the outskirts of Madrid — and transform it into a monument for reconciliation. “Spain, as a consolidated European democracy, can’t allow itself to maintain symbols that divide the Spanish people,” he said.

El País reported that Sánchez’s government has also initiated proceedings to cancel a medal of merit awarded to Antonio “Billy the Kid” González, a member of Franco’s political police whom many prisoners have accused of torture.

In Canada, Trudeau has championed reconciliation between the government and indigenous people. One of his 2015 leadership campaign promises included “a renewed nation-to-nation process” that would negotiate with indigenous groups as equals.

He has publicly apologized for the residential school system, which removed thousands of indigenous children from their families and forced them into religious boarding schools. A report from the government-funded Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada in 2015 found that the scheme amounted to genocide.

4. Communication style
Trudeau and Sánchez are not quite political twins. While Trudeau descends from Canadian political royalty — he’s the son of Pierre Trudeau, who was prime minister for 15 years – Sánchez has a solidly middle-class Madrid background.

Trudeau is also way ahead of Sánchez when it comes to cultivating a public image. He has become something of a poster boy among Western liberals, with his debonair looks and engaging smile. On a visit to the European Parliament in Strasbourg in February 2017, EU lawmakers lined up to take photos of him, several Parliament officials told POLITICO at the time.

Canadian PM Justin Trudeau has had a long time to cultivate a positive public image among Western liberals | Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images

His communications team has built on this by embracing social media, with Trudeau on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat. His image is carefully curated both online and offline. In Canada, he has a reputation for apparently candid shots, such as photobombing a beach wedding shirtless, which have also been criticized as PR stunts. His attire on official visits abroad has also raised eyebrows, such as on a trip to India in 2018.

Sánchez hasn’t yet hit this level of social media savvy, but he is now more often on Twitter and has an Instagram account. He has also appointed a political consultant as chief of staff and released news of his Cabinet picks in doses to maximize the impact of the announcements.

On Monday, the PM’s office distributed videos and photos of Sánchez jogging at La Moncloa, the government’s residential complex in Madrid, and petting his dog.