If today is Thursday, this is Vienna: Sánchez begins his express tours to prepare for the European semester

If today is Thursday, this is Vienna.

Thomas Osborne
Thomas Osborne
16 February 2023 Thursday 01:25
10 Reads
If today is Thursday, this is Vienna: Sánchez begins his express tours to prepare for the European semester

If today is Thursday, this is Vienna. Pedro Sánchez begins at noon this Thursday in the Austrian capital the first of the express tours with which he wants to prepare the ground to be able to successfully seal the Spanish rotating presidency of the European Union, which will take place during the second semester of this 2023 and with which his current term in Spain will culminate. Top priority, therefore, because this European platform could also work in favor of his re-election as Prime Minister after the general elections scheduled for next December.

On his first visit to Vienna, the Chief Executive will be received by the Austrian Federal Chancellor, Karl Nehammer, with whom he will share a bilateral meeting, an institutional declaration and a working lunch. Austria, aligned with the so-called "frugal" countries during the tough European battle that ended up giving rise to recovery funds to overcome the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic, or the mutualization of debt, can be a very tough nut to crack in the face of Pedro Sánchez's purpose of advancing, during the Spanish semester, in the European pact on migration and asylum – already quite complicated to seal – or in the commercial relationship with Latin America and Mercosur. Nehammer is also the current president of the Austrian People's Party (ÖVP).

Sánchez will travel, already in the middle of the afternoon this Thursday, to his second stop on this tour: Zagreb, the capital of Croatia, where he will be received by his prime minister, Andrej Plenkovic, president of the conservative HDZ who also belongs to the European PP family. . On the agenda, a bilateral meeting in the prime minister's office, a meeting between the two delegations, a joint institutional declaration and a working dinner.

The Spanish president will close this first mini-tour tomorrow, Friday, in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, where he will lead an official visit to which he was invited some time ago by his prime minister, Robert Golob, president of the Movimiento Libertad green party. Both will meet at the Brdo castle, where in addition to holding a bilateral meeting, a meeting between the two delegations, an appearance before the press and a brief walk outside the premises, they will hold a working lunch. Then back home.

Sánchez's action plan prior to the European semester contemplates another four or five similar express tours, which include up to three countries in just two busy days. The next one already planned will be to Ireland, Denmark and Finland. The intention is to fit the trips, and balance all the agendas, during March, April and already in June, with a parenthesis in May. And it is that all this occurs while, as leader of the PSOE, he will maintain an intense electoral campaign agenda until the appointment with the municipal and regional polls on 28-M. Without going any further, Sánchez plans to star in a rally in Zaragoza this Saturday, another of the squares that he has put on his electoral target. At Moncloa they assume that there will not be material time to visit the 26 capitals of the community club before the European semester starts, but some 15 countries will.

The NATO summit held in Madrid in June 2022 and the Spanish rotating presidency of the European Union, scheduled for the second half of 2023, are the major milestones highlighted in red on Pedro Sánchez's international agenda in this mandate. In both, against the serious backdrop of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The meeting of the Atlantic Alliance in Madrid, which culminated with a dinner for world leaders at the Prado Museum, was sealed with notable success, in the opinion of Moncloa, for the projection of the international policy of Spain and the president of the Government. And Sánchez now has as a great objective to reinforce his role as a global actor, and the international position of Spain, during the semester of the European presidency that begins on July 1.