President Pedro Sánchez returned to the great podium of world diplomacy of the United Nations Organization (UN) and did so with a speech loaded with diplomacy on a matter as sensitive as the one that affects relations between Madrid and its neighbors to the north of Africa.
"We cannot drag conflicts from the last century," he proclaimed. "Therefore, with regard to Western Sahara, Spain supports a mutually acceptable political solution, within the framework of the Charter of the United Nations and the resolutions of the Security Council", he pointed out. “In this sense, the work of the personal envoy of the Secretary General of the United Nations is fundamental and has the full support of Spain, which will also continue to support the Saharawi population in the camps, as it has always done, being the main international donor of humanitarian aid in this context”.
This is what he said and, many times, as ambassadors well know, diplomacy is found in what is not silent. Sánchez did not make any reference to what was described as a historic change in the Spanish position on the Sahara, which he himself explained in Congress last June, two months after his executive made it public. That turn, after 47 years of foreign policy, meant that Spain openly took sides in favor of Rabat.
In the hemicycle, the president considered that the Moroccan proposal for autonomy was "the most serious, realistic and credible basis for the resolution of the dispute" in the former Spanish colony.
There was not a word of that twist, which so angered Algeria, in his speech before the General Assembly, which he delivered late on Friday morning in Spain. It was his farewell to four days of hustle and bustle, of political, economic and emotional meetings, such as the one he shared with the president of Chile, Gabriel Boric, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the legendary speech that Salvador Allende delivered from that same UN podium, the martyred president of the South American country.
If he warned about the Sahel, "a region, a region affected by growing instability," he said. “We must pay attention to risks that are very present in the area, such as irregular migration flows or the threat of terrorism. Threats that can be increased by the conjunction of the food and energy crisis, climate change and demographic trends”, she clarified.
Sánchez found a source for a good part of these threats. His speech began with the focus on the conflict that marks the great annual meeting of the United Nations: the war unleashed by Russia. "Rarely have the foundations of this institution shaken as strongly as in the early hours of February 24, when cities across Ukraine felt the terror of Russian bombing," he stressed.
“Putin continued his rush forward with totally unacceptable statements. From this rostrum and what it represents, I want to condemn in the strongest terms the announcement of the holding of annexation referendums in the occupied Donesk, Lugansk and Kherson territories”, he stated. “These false referendums would constitute a new violation of international legality by Putin. And I will be clear, its result will never be recognized. We will continue to support the independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine,” he insisted.
So, right now is when “we most need to act together in defense of the principles enshrined in the Charter of the United Nations and in support of Ukraine. This war deprives the sovereign people of Ukraine of their legitimate right to exist in peace and freedom. And it condemns the entire world to enter an era of uncertainty, precisely the doors of a well-deserved era of optimism.
Despite this absolute faith in the UN, Sánchez recognized hours before, at a press conference, that the institution "obviously needs reform." He continued that "it would be good if step by step, with concrete measures, it becomes more effective and does not fall into frustration", he pointed out. But the frustration exists because the organization, in evidence on many other occasions, has been left bare in its inability to take action against the war unleashed by Putin. Its evil comes from its birth, when five countries (United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia and China) received the right of veto.
Sánchez stressed that this aggression occurred just after humanity managed to launch the largest large-scale scientific and humanitarian cooperation experience in its history to fight against covid. “In this age of uncertainty, the economic and social consequences of war threaten global prosperity. Added to the budding food crisis is the energy crisis caused by an autocrat willing to do anything to perpetuate himself in power”, he stressed.
"The impact on prices, already affected by the crisis in the supply chains, threatens to further impoverish those who have the least," he added.
But he also wanted to send a "clear message of hope and confidence" to the UN to face the challenges that do not understand borders and that he specified around five great challenges: commitment to global health, food crisis, ecological transition, digital transition and gender equality, a field in which he lamented that "claiming the obvious is still revolutionary" .
In the field of digital transition, he winked at the Catalan capital, when he said that the United Nations technology center for the digitization of education (GIGA) will be established in the "beautiful city of Barcelona". The adjective does not appear in the original text.
He did not forget the mandatory annual appointment of each president or the head of state: Gibraltar. This time he recalled that December 31, 2020, Spain and the United Kingdom
reached a bilateral understanding regarding the rock in the framework of the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union.
Without forgetting Asia, the president stressed Spain's commitment to Latin America and Carbie, a field in which he promised to work to bring that area closer to the European Union, taking advantage of the fact that Spain will chair the European Council in the second half of next year.
