The increase in the Spanish military presence on the NATO Eastern Front, with the announcement of the deployment of missile batteries in Estonia in April, has not pleased the government's minority partner. Unidas Podemos insisted yesterday that this new increase in the Spanish military presence is headed in the wrong direction, means repeating the "war escalation" and moves away from the scene of peace talks.
The parliamentary spokesman for the confederal group of United We Can, Pablo Echenique, said on TVE that he did not know if the matter had been addressed in the Council of Ministers, but reiterated that "we are against the escalation of war" because "we do not know where this can end ”. The Defense Minister, Margarita Robles, had a press conference scheduled yesterday that was finally cancelled, which reveals a low-profile position of the Spanish government in the face of this new increase in the Spanish military presence in areas bordering the war in Ukraine. The United States reported these days that its arsenals are at zero and has asked countries inside and outside of NATO –among them Colombia, whose president Gustavo Petro responded with a resounding negative– to increase their military contribution to the Ukrainian resistance.
In any case, Unidas Podemos, rather than confronting the majority partner of the Government, intends to open a channel for debate around peace negotiations and the diplomatic solution within the European framework. For this reason, tomorrow it brings together in Madrid some twenty political formations from the European left –Die Linke (Germany), Parti du Travail de Belgique (Belgium), Syriza (Greece), Bloco de Esquerda (Portugal), La France Insoumise ( France), Sinistra Italiana (Italy), Potere al Popolo (Italy), HDP (Peoples' Democratic Party, Kurdish People), Left Alliance (Finland), Left Party (Sweden), European Left Party or Group of the Left (Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe)– at the III European Conference for Peace, in which, from the investiture bloc, in addition to Podemos, for whom the Minister of Social Rights, Ione Belarra, and the secretary of State for the 2030 Agenda, lilith Verstrynge, with the participation of representatives of the IU, Alianza Verde, Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya, EH-Bildu and the BNG.
The purpose is to try to raise a European voice in favor of a peace process for Ukraine that stops the military escalation, in line with the position of the main Latin American countries, such as Mexico, Brazil and Colombia, which have already launched their proposals. , even within the framework of the United Nations for a cessation of hostilities.
The diagnosis, explains the general secretary of the PCE and deputy of Unidas Podemos Enrique Santiago, is that the war "is bogged down", and that while the fronts are hardly moving, "there is an evident escalation" with the deployment of even tactical weapons in the Baltic or the Black Sea, which poses a risk of the conflict escalating. Santiago understands that Europe has adopted an uncritical position of alignment with NATO and that it is essential that all progressive European forces bet on a negotiated solution to the conflict as an autonomous geostrategic policy path for the European Union.
