Governments of Felipe González

The first reason being the high turnout, the highest ever recorded up to that time (79.97%), which reaffirmed the citizens' commitment to the democratic system and demonstrated that the "return to the past" advocated by the "involutionist" sectors did not have the support of the people.

It proposed consolidating democracy and tackling the economic crisis - its flagship promise was the creation of 800,000 jobs - as well as adapting productive structures to a more efficient and competitive economy, helping small and medium-sized businesses and reconverting large public industrial companies, also achieving a fairer and more egalitarian society with the universalization of health care, education and pensions.

[10] On September 30, based on information obtained by the secret services, four chiefs and officers - who had planned for a large number of civilian and military commandos to take control of strategic points in Madrid and then declare a "state of war" - were arrested.

The plan consisted of setting off an explosive charge under the presidential tribune of the Armed Forces Day parade - to be held on the first Sunday of June in La Coruña - and blaming ETA.

[19] The most controversial was the Abortion law, approved in spring 1985, which allowed the voluntary termination of pregnancy in three cases: rape, malformation of the fetus, and serious physical or psychological risk to the mother.

[25] According to historian David Ruiz, the GAL was a "group initially made up of members of the State security forces and later swelled by some Spanish and foreign mercenaries linked to the former Political-Social Brigade of Francoism that, making use of the reserved funds of the Ministry of the Interior, decided to take justice into their own hands and respond with weapons to ETA terrorism, hoping to provoke the political collaboration of the French Government in the anti-terrorist struggle".

[26] Shortly after the signing of the Ajuria Enea Pact, two policemen, José Amedo and Michel Domínguez, were arrested, charged with involvement in the kidnapping of Segundo Marey, among other crimes committed by the GAL, aggravated by their use of reserved funds from the Ministry of the Interior to carry out the attacks.

[28] When the Socialists assumed the government, the negotiations for the accession to the European Economic Community were still blocked due to the "pause" in the enlargement imposed by the French President Giscard d'Estaing.

To speed up the process, the government of Felipe González tried to soften the relations with France (whose presidency was now held by the socialist François Mitterrand) allowing a rapid progress of the negotiations.

[30] According to Santos Juliá, the main factors influencing the change of attitude of the PSOE government were:[31] Added to this was a view that it was unwise to leave NATO when tensions of the Second Cold War were heightening.

[34] The referendum result, "the toughest challenge of his long term in office",[35] strengthened Felipe González's leadership, both in his party and in the country as a whole, as was evidenced in the general elections of that year where the PSOE once again won an absolute majority, although with 18 fewer deputies than in 1982.

[42] This was possible because the socialist governments increased the tax burden, amounting to 33.2% of GDP in 1993 as compared to 22.7% in the previous 20 years,[19] taking advantage of the favorable economic situation in 1985–1992, when the Spanish economy overcame the crisis and grew above the European average.

[44] Likewise, the first socialist government reformed the Workers Statute in 1984 in order to make the labor market more "flexible", resulting in a precariousness of employment by considerably increasing the number of temporary contracts as opposed to permanent ones.

[19] Simultaneously, it also dealt with the modernization of the productive structures by means of an ambitious program of industrial reconversion that the UCD governments had not dared to apply due to the electoral cost it would have.

[45] This program was coupled with heavy investments in infrastructure - also due to the influx of European funds after joining the EEC - which allowed Spain to build a network of highways and freeways and to start the construction of the Madrid–Seville high-speed rail line, which came into operation in 1992.

[50] The definitive split between UGT and the Socialist government was staged before the television cameras on 19 February 1987, during the live debate between Nicolás Redondo and the then Minister of Economy and Finance Carlos Solchaga, who had opposed the 2% wage increase to compensate for the workers' sacrifice during the crisis.

This sparked the beginning of a dull struggle, intensified by the emergence of a new corruption scandal in May 1991, revealed by the newspaper El Mundo, the Filesa case, which this time involved the whole party.

The governor of the Bank of Spain, Mariano Rubio, was accused and imprisoned for keeping an account with black money in Ibercorp, the financial entity of his friend Manuel de la Concha, former trustee of the Madrid Stock Exchange, also prosecuted.

[71] The two major events of 1992 concealed the fact that a strong economic recession had begun, which resulted in a brutal increase in unemployment that would reach an unprecedented figure of 3.5 million people, or 24% of the active population.

[75] According to Santos Julià, the key to the PSOE's unexpected triumph "was largely due to the leadership of Felipe González, who assured his voters that he had understood the 'message' and had himself supported, as number two in the Madrid candidacy, by Baltasar Garzón, the judge who was most important for his investigations into the dirty war against ETA and the black money of drug trafficking".

[76] However, the Socialists did not repeat the absolute majority they had held since 1982 - with 17 fewer deputies - therefore, to govern, Felipe González had to reach a parliamentary agreement with the Catalan and Basque nationalists - ruling out a pact with United Left, as some members of the "guerrista" sector had insinuated.

Another "shark" of finances, Javier de la Rosa, was also arrested for swindling and embezzlement in the Gran Tibidabo company, and as Spanish representative of the Kuwaiti investment group KIO.

In November 1993 Luis Roldán, the first non-military director of the Civil Guard in its history, was arrested, accused of having amassed a fortune thanks to the collection of illegal commissions from work contractors of the Benemérita and the appropriation of the reserved funds of the Ministry of the Interior.

[82] Another case of careerism within the PSOE was that of Gabriel Urralburu, a former priest who became president of the Autonomous Community of Navarre, and who was sentenced to 11 years in prison for collecting commissions from construction companies that obtained public contracts.

[82] Such scandals opened a new breach of trust in the Socialist government that resulted in demands for the resignation of the President by José María Aznar, leader of the People's Party, and Julio Anguita, general coordinator of United Left.

He then reopened the GAL case and granted provisional release to policemen José Amedo and Michel Domínguez who had been convicted in 1988 for their participation in several attacks attributed to the Antiterrorist Liberation Group, and who were willing to tell everything they knew once the Government did not approve their pardon, as they had been promised.

[86][87] Amedo and Domínguez's statements led to the arrest of several high-ranking officials of the Socialist administration for their alleged participation in the kidnapping and frustrated murder of the French citizen Segundo Marey, mistaken for a member of ETA by a GAL commando.

Since the former Minister of the Interior José Barrionuevo, a Socialist deputy, was also implicated, Garzón had to transfer the Marey case to the Supreme Court, which immediately presented the request to the Cortes to prosecute him, which was granted by 159 votes in favor and 122 against.

Finally, Barrionuevo and his successor in the Ministry of the Interior, José Luis Corcuera, were acquitted in January 2002 on charges of having appropriated reserved funds, while Vera and Sancristóbal were sentenced to between 6 and 7 years in prison.

The Civil Guard general Enrique Rodríguez Galindo was arrested by order of the National Court judge Javier Gómez de Liaño for his alleged involvement in the "Lasa and Zabala case", the kidnapping and subsequent murder of José Antonio Lasa and José Ignacio Zabala, alleged members of ETA captured in France by the GAL in 1983 and whose bodies, buried in quicklime, were found in Busot (Alicante) two years later.