The Spanish Government cannot understand why a Government that it claims to be a friend of, like the Mexican one, also with progressive ideas, as explained in New York by the president, Pedro Sánchez, has led it to an “unacceptable” situation that has led to a very serious diplomatic crisis in which no member of the Executive will attend the inauguration of Claudia Sheinbaum, an unprecedented situation, “in protest against the exclusion” of King Felipe VI from this protocolary act of maximum importance for relations between countries.
Sánchez, very upset, has openly explained that he believes that there are internal political motives behind this move by the Mexican government, that is, that Sheinbaum and especially the current president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, have decided for reasons of internal politics to seek a confrontation with Spain. Sánchez has been especially hurt because this crisis is occurring with Mexico, “a sister country,” and with a progressive government. “Behind all this there is enormous sadness because two sister peoples, due to the political interest of some, cannot have the best relations between peoples and between two progressive governments that share values and probably policies.”
Regarding the underlying issue, that is, whether Spain should ask for forgiveness or make a historical review of the American conquest, as Mexico demands in order to invite the King, Sánchez did not want to go into it too much and he dodged it by claiming how well Mexico behaved with the Spanish exile after the Civil War. “Spain has already established a position of empathy with Mexican society, the head of state has done so. I have always expressed to Mexico our enormous gratitude because President Lázaro Cárdenas not only welcomed hundreds of thousands of Spaniards fleeing the war and Francoist repression, but he even put ships to bring them. With the immigration debate we are having now, imagine today, it was a revolutionary gesture. I feel closer to those principles and values. I claim that Mexico,” he said. “It is a shame that they are trying to use the figure of Felipe VI in a controversy that does not obey the feelings of Spanish society. Our purpose is to defend the institutions and not accept the exclusion” of the King, he insisted.
The Spanish president has avoided the tone of diplomatic clash and has spoken at all times with great respect for Mexico and from a position of mourning in the face of a crisis that Madrid did not want and which places La Moncloa in a very difficult position, since it already has an open confrontation for different reasons with the Argentine ultra-right Javier Milei, it has very strong tensions with Nicolás Maduro, who even accuses the Spanish Executive of trying to kill him, and now it faces a deep crisis with Mexico that is difficult to resolve because the Government is obliged to defend the head of State.
“Spain considers Mexico to be a sister country. We find it unacceptable that a head of state who has participated in all inaugurations, once as a prince and now as a king, should be excluded from the event. We cannot accept this exclusion. That is why we have decided to exclude any government representative as a sign of protest against an unacceptable and inexplicable exclusion given the degree of relationship that Mexico has with Spain. We feel enormous frustration, we are also a progressive government, but it seems that we cannot normalize our relations with Mexico,” the president lamented.
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, who is accompanying Sánchez during his stay in New York, has asked this Wednesday to appear before Congress “to report on the decisions taken regarding the representation of Spain at the inauguration of the new President of Mexico,” according to the document sent to the lower house.
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It was the first time that Sánchez spoke publicly about the strategic decision to withdraw the deficit path in order to open negotiations with Junts and try to agree on the Budgets. Sánchez has made clear something that the Government had already been pointing out in recent weeks, that is, the Executive assumes that it will have to delay the Budgets while waiting for the resolution of the congresses of Junts, in October, and of ERC, at the end of November. This would delay the accounts until next year, and therefore a new extension would have to be made, even if it were brief, but the Government assumes that this is not a relevant political problem as long as it has Budgets for 2025, because it was not able to have them in 2024 and had to extend those for 2023. What does not seem to be able to be delayed so much is the vote on the deficit path, which is now being negotiated with Junts, because the communities need it to be approved or definitively rejected (in that case the previous path, more restrictive for the autonomous communities, would be legally valid) in order to be able to make their Budgets.
Sánchez has been very clear when asked about the Junts congress. “We do not do politics in a vacuum, we will have to wait not for the congress but for the congresses of the parliamentary partners we have,” he said, extending this delay not only to Carles Puigdemont’s group, which will be resolved in October, but also to ERC’s, which will arrive in November. Sánchez has changed his tone now that a new negotiation with Junts has begun. Until recently, the president almost assumed the possibility that the Accounts would be rejected and insisted, as a warning to sailors, that he was going to move forward with or without Budgets because he has a lot of political work to do and three years of investiture to do it. This is what he said in his last press conference, on a trip to China, when he qualified the words of the Federal Committee in which he had said that he would move forward “with or without the participation of the legislative power.” But now the president has made a U-turn, has withdrawn the deficit path and is multiplying the gestures with Junts to seek that agreement, so the clear message that the Government is sending is that it believes that it is very important to get these Budgets out in order to move forward.
“The Government is not going to give up on the task of presenting a Budget. It is important to have a path that is accepted by the majority. We have withdrawn the proposal to give an opportunity to the agreement. The Spanish Government’s plan A is to approve the Budget. And that is what we are going to try to do with all the groups. Step by step, we are first going to the path of stability,” he explained. Sánchez has taken the opportunity to put pressure on the PP, which intends to reject the path of stability that is beneficial for its communities. According to the Government’s calculations, the autonomous communities would lose 12 billion euros if this deficit path is not abandoned and the previous one, more restrictive for them, is applied. “The government puts 12 billion more for the communities and those governed by the PP look the other way when their party says it is going to vote against. What is 12 billion? It is the housing expenditure of all the autonomous communities in six years. The annual expenditure on pharmaceutical products. “A year’s salary for all preschool and primary school teachers. This means the care of 5.2 million more people in primary care. It would mean doubling the investment in child poverty. They are asking for more funding and are not demanding that the PP approve the path. This is enormous hypocrisy,” he claimed.
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