“Spain is prepared to recognize the Palestinian State,” Pedro Sánchez announced this Wednesday in Congress, before starting tomorrow a new European tour through Poland, Norway and Ireland to continue adding allies to his purpose of promoting the recognition of Palestine as a State. before this coming summer. “I will do it because it is fair,” justified the President of the Government, who is supported, in this initiative, by “a social majority” in Spain. “The international community will not be able to help the Palestinian State if it does not first recognize its existence,” he defended.
Sánchez has proclaimed his role in this crisis in the Middle East. “It was we who, from the first stages of the conflict in Gaza, demanded in Brussels that a ceasefire be called in the strip. Those of us who demand the immediate opening of humanitarian corridors and the maintenance of support for UNRWA”, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees. “Those of us who proposed the holding of an international peace conference. And those of us who defended the two-state solution as the only way for Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace and security,” she said.
The Chief Executive has highlighted that he took charge of this effort almost alone. “Very few accompanied us, and some leaders, Spanish and European, still stand in profile today,” he noted. “But, fortunately, the majority of Member States have opened their eyes and joined our position, as was evident in the conclusions of the last European Council,” he highlighted.
“Our just call for the recognition of the Palestinian State is also making its way,” Sánchez stressed, before confirming that in the coming weeks he will continue this effort with a round of visits and calls to other international leaders.
Sánchez has drawn a very complex and threatening geopolitical panorama: “Our neighborhood is increasingly unstable and conflictive,” he assured. Vladimir Putin's Russia "has embarked on an imperialist drift that has already claimed thousands of lives" in Ukraine. And in Gaza, after the “absolutely disproportionate response of the Israeli government to the Hamas terrorist attack”, on October 7, 2023, “one of the most deplorable humanitarian disasters of this century is taking place”, already with more than 33,000 Palestinian dead. And in the southern neighborhood, he added, “the situation is equally worrying,” with the Sahel region plunged into “a stage of unprecedented instability.”
The president has described a very worrying scenario, “not to cause alarmism,” he said, but to set the challenges and priorities of his foreign policy. But he has defended that, with his initiatives in the face of the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, "Spain's international profile is being raised" and "reinforcing our European and multilateral profile." Specifically, and in the face of the crisis in the Middle East, Sánchez has assured that "the world is aware of our leadership", after his constant trips to the region to promote "possible solutions to the conflict." “Today's Spain is not satisfied with being a mere international observer. “She is a first-rate actor,” he said.
Sánchez has also defended the need to increase deterrence capabilities to preserve peace scenarios. “In this very delicate international context, to guarantee our security, to deter those who do not share our project of peace and democracy, we Europeans will also have to strengthen our security and defense industry,” he argued. “Although Putin has not won the war, he has not lost it either. And there are strong reasons to believe that, if we do not increase our support for Zelensky's government, the Ukrainian front could retreat positions this spring,” he warned.
But he has rejected a “verbal escalation” and “counterproductive” war rhetoric. “No third world wars, no war economy, no soldiers on the ground,” he assured, in the face of the war in Ukraine. “We need to strengthen our deterrence capacity. Not to be feared, nor to drag the world into any arms race. But to be respected and to be able to protect that great project of peace, democracy and freedoms that is Europe,” she stressed.
The head of the Executive has also defended his economic policy, and has described the economic growth and job creation figures as a “country success”. “Spain is moving in the right direction,” he assured. “No matter how much it hurts some, no matter how much they insist on manipulating data, blocking institutions and making catastrophic forecasts,” he criticized the Popular Party. “Some want to hide that reality under the mud, they want to hide the good results of the Government and its absence of a political project under the noise, slander and tension,” he denounced. And he has defended his project against “the waterfall of mud” that he has attributed to the right.
“I would like Spain to have a less toxic and more constructive opposition that would contribute some proposal to raise public debate or improve the well-being of our citizens. It is not like that, and it is a shame,” she lamented. “But let no one be fooled: none of these difficulties are going to stop us. We have more than three years of the legislature ahead of us and we are going to take advantage of them. “We are going to continue transforming Spain”, he has promised.
Not a single argument presented by Sánchez has been shared by the PP, whose national leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has accused the President of the Government of undertaking an international policy of "floundering" and "dependent on those who should not."
The Galician has focused on the change in Spain's position with the Sahara and has warned of the weakness of those who change their policy with Morocco "due to the personal matters they have on their mobile phones", in reference to the espionage suffered through the use of the Pegasus program.
Fully involved in the Middle East debate, the popular leader has defended the consensus reached in Congress in 2014 that advocated for two states as a solution to the conflict between Israel and Palestine, but has accused Sánchez of abusing “broad brush” by proposing unilateral recognition of Palestine. “Abandon the arrogance of believing that it is a single person who can resolve an 80-year-old conflict in one month,” he warned him.
Feijóo has completed his reply by accusing Sánchez of using foreign policy as a “firewall for his internal problems” for which, he has warned him, the PP is not going to ignore the amnesty, corruption, “blackmail” of its partners, the referendum or the impoverishment of the Spanish.
Íñigo Errejón's intervention has confirmed the undisguisable distance between Sumar and PSOE. The spokesperson for the plurinational group has asked Sánchez for uniformity of criteria in his international vision, assuring him that “what is valid for Ukraine must be valid for Palestine. And what is valid for Palestine is valid for the Sahara, although we do not agree on this.”
And in the midst of an electoral context - with successive elections in Euskadi, Catalonia and Europe - he has boasted of Sumar's role in "opening the way for the Government to the social transformations with which it is combating inequality."
Returning this week from his paternity leave, the ERC spokesperson in Congress, Gabriel Rufián, does not seem to have lost his political nerve and has accused the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, of not being “very brave” with Israel and has asked to go “much further”, ceasing the arms trade with this country and taking Benjamin Netanyahu before a human rights court for a “genocide” that he has summarized in one sentence: “Gaza is Israel's private hunting ground.” in front of the eyes of the world.”
When Junts' turn came, its spokesperson, Miriam Nogueras, assured that she shared “many measures” adopted by the European Council on the rule of law. And combining European and national politics, he has defended that, with regard to what is happening in Russia, the European Union would have to go “much further in condemning and taking measures against those who use” the rule of law “. and the courts to persecute dissent” and present them as “criminals.” “Doesn't this sound familiar to you? It is inevitable to look here, towards Spain”, she asked herself, chiselling the parallelism with domestic politics.
Oskar Matute has been the EH Bildu speaker who has denounced the “great hypocrisy” of Spain and the EU criticizing and imposing sanctions against the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and not against the Israeli leader, Benjamin Netanyahu.
The PNV spokesperson in Congress, Aitor Esteban, has wondered what the recognition of the State of Palestine, which he does not oppose, will be worth if Israel "has reduced" the Gaza Strip "to nothing." While the leader of Podemos, Ione Belarra, has delved into the contradictions that, in her opinion, Sánchez incurs in defending a pacifist international policy while spending on “tanks and weapons” is increasing.
