The day when Begoña Villacís (Madrid, 1977) He said goodbye to politics, after the 2023 municipal elections he gave a speech that silenced the Cibeles Palace for a few minutes. In front of Almeida, Ortega Smith or Rita Maestre, the then vice-mayor of the capital decided to express his “shames”: “Politics is the only profession in which people talk worse to their faces than behind their backs”he said. Villacís defended that a left-wing representative could admit to colluding with another Vox representative “without anything happening.” This last Sunday in December, as polarization further confuses Spanish politics, the current executive director of Spain DC is visiting. Read the newspaper for 20 minutes.
The lawyer looks back at the news that marked this year 2025, starting with the last elections in Extremadurawhere, for some political scientists, the victory of the PP and the rise of Vox inaugurate a new electoral cycle. “I don’t think anything has changed.. Even if Vox got 70 seats, 20 from a center party is more powerful, because Vox can only agree with the PP and a center party can negotiate with almost all its rivals, to its right or left.
For the Madrid native, the “problem” is that currently “people consume politics as if it were an entertainment program.” “In the street, I don’t hear anyone complaining that the Government has not published the 2025 budgets (extended from 2023), but they are essential: I am a mother, without budgets it would be impossible to face this Christmas. Without budgets, a country cannot undertake reforms, it has no future“, she warns. The guest, in any case, doubts that the people of Feijóo would have obtained the accounts if they had been in Moncloa. “Did Maria Guardiola obtain them with Vox? Azcon in Aragon? What is happening in Valencia? »
The key – he warns in reference to the disappeared Ciudadanos – is in “the party of the center that we destroyed”. “Cristina Cifuentes or Susana Díaz had their budgets”, she comments on the leaders of the PP or PSOE who agreed with the party orange advance laws. “If you can’t read that the country needs you and reaching an agreement is more important than 4 votes, you’re not really a patriot.”
If you want to know if someone is right-wing, ask them if they care about corruption. He will tell you yes. Someone from the left will change the subject…
The former vice-mayor believes that Pedro Sánchez will not call early elections in 2026, as requested by the opposition. “If he does it, it will be at the end, it will depend on the sentence closest to him,” he argues. But “if a country cannot be governed, a solution must be found,” he believes. Furthermore, he believes that “this government is exhausted, they look exhausted”. “It must be very embarrassing for government partners to witness a motion of no confidence to eliminate corruption (in 2018) and now have to deal with the cases of the party you govern with.”
Villacís speaks bluntly: “I maintain it: 90% of Spaniards want corruption… But on the other side. If you want to know if someone is right-wing, ask them if they care about corruption. He will tell you yes. Someone from the left will change the subject. Today, corruption bothers you if it belongs to the other person, because you just want your rival to not do things right. »
The board says the socialists “have no incentive to call elections. If elections are called, many PSOE members will lose their jobs. And I don’t know if everyone has a company to return to.” She She landed in politics in 2015, after 12 years of practicing law. According to him, this should be a condition sine qua non condition that “All politicians come from the streets.” “If you haven’t lived through the 2008 crisis, you don’t know what an ERE or restructuring is. You don’t know that an independent closes because of a deficit of 100 euros or to what extent the Treasury can destroy their life. If you’ve always been under the auspices of the public, they may have told you that, but it’s never the same.”
I did what I could for society in politics; now I want to devote myself to my family
“For the moment, I would not return to politics”he admits. “I emptied myself. I tried with all my strength. I worked for four years as deputy mayor as if there was no tomorrow,” she admits, referring to an electoral result, that of the 2023 elections, which she considers “unfair”. The one who was Cs candidate for mayor of Madrid obtained 38,000 votes, 2%very far from 5% required continue to Cibeles. “We didn’t have any cases of corruption like other parties; we governed well, we had a good image…You remain discouraged. And you think: I did everything I could for society; From now on I will devote myself to my family, to my daughters, to my travels…”.
About future affairs, wars and Xabi Alonso
Since January 2015, Villacís has been responsible for the Spanish Data Center Association. “This is the infrastructure of the 21st century“We belong to a generation that uses the Internet or Artificial Intelligence constantly, but has given up on understanding how they work, that’s normal.” The former politician explains it “easily”: “The Internet is physical: the famous cloud is a data center, It has a zip code. “When we send a WhatsApp, place a Bizum or place an order on Amazon, all this information is stored there.”
I don’t think April’s big blackout will happen again. But it would have been good if the government approved the anti-blackout measures
For “economy of scale” reasons, it is much “more efficient and secure” for our data to be stored in centers. Furthermore, Europe “has decided, I think wisely, that its data is on the continent”. And Spain “is a very interesting country for this industry” because three reasons: data centers are powered by renewable energy, where Spain is the leader; “There is an incredible deployment of fiber optics and because of our geography, all the submarine cables cross the peninsula.”
On April 28, Spain and Portugal were left virtually in the dark. For hours, much of the Iberian Peninsula was disconnected from the European electricity system, in what is considered one of the most serious power outages in recent decades. Villacís sends a reassuring message: “Based on the information we have in the industry, I don’t think this will happen in the future,” although it would have been good if the government had implemented the anti-blackout measures. Again, it is important to reach agreements, regardless of who signs them. »
Regarding the role that Spain must play in the wars ravaging the world, the former politician believes that the government should not “seek national political credit.” “I’ll give you an example that I find hard to believe: I was afraid of Giorgia Meloni (president of Italy) and yet, she seems stupid to me, I really like what she does, building consensus and good relations with other European leaders.”
For this reason, Villacís does not attach any importance to Spain’s decision to abandon Eurovision due to Israel’s participation. “It’s a gesture, okay. It seems to me that there are more important things in Spain; I would spend all this time talking about the salaries of the self-employed, who are more and more stifled, or evaluating whether we should continue to increase income tax every year… “We talk about the fact that champagne foams a lot in front of people who can’t drink water.”.
As a good Real Madrid supporter, in the sports pages, he talks about the difficult situation he is going through. Xabi Alonso as coach of Real Madrid. “No one will agree with me, but I’ll give it another chance. At the Bernabéú, we are sometimes a little tense… You may have a setback. “I liked him as a player, I like his personality and I think we need to be more patient with him as a coach.”
After finishing reading the newspaper, Villacís reveals what news he missed in the newspapers in 2025: “The press should talk more about families, about the difficulty of having children today.” A resolution for 2026: “Be a better mother, a better friend and a better daughter”. And a title I would like to read next year: “Peace in Ukraine. As in many other African countries. It sounds very Miss World, but it’s actually a fundamental pact: “Hey guys, people are dying here.” Well, and the end of polarization… even if we won’t read it, there will be signs. ” He admits that he is “very idealistic”, we will see if his wishes come true.
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