The event that brought President Pedro Sánchez to Barcelona this Saturday is both a celebration of the socialist victory in the Catalan elections a week ago and a starting signal for the European race that begins on Thursday. The leader of the PSOE has played in his intervention with the idea that in both contests the duel of “coexistence over division” marks the game. That is why he believes that the same reasons that led to Salvador Illa’s success on 12-M will help Minister Teresa Ribera, headliner for 9-J. In Europe, Sánchez has assured, this division is the objective of an extreme right that seeks to dynamite the bases of democracy. “We represent everything they hate and we will beat them,” he added.
“Do you know why the far-right National Party, which compares justice with aberration, has chosen Madrid to meet this Sunday?” asked the president, in reference to the arrival this weekend of leaders such as the Frenchwoman Marine Le Pen or the Argentine president Javier Milei to support Vox at a rally in Vistalegre. “Because we present as a society, not as a Government, everything that they detest and hate,” he responded later, to the applause of some 1,500 people, according to the organization, who filled the Palau de Congresos de Barcelona and where the first swords were. of the party and the Government. “I tell you that we won the general elections, we won the regional elections in Catalonia and we will win the European elections,” he concluded.
Milei participated last Friday in an event in Madrid and did not hesitate to explain his neoliberal policies. “Social justice is aberrant,” said the Argentine leader, who also boasted of his friendship with Abascal. He also believes that “capital control is immoral” or “taxes are theft.” Ribera, in his turn to speak, has taken advantage of these statements to warn that these are not isolated approaches and that he sees them also having reflections in Spanish politics. “There are those who come from the other side of the Atlantic to say it, but there are those here who do not dare to say it but think and will do the same. Be very careful,” he asked.
Faced with the catastrophism of the right and extreme right of Alberto Núñez Feijóo and Abascal, Sánchez has offered Spain as a progressive model to export to the EU. He has defended it by remembering all the figures on employment and economic growth. But also delving into the complaint about the use of hoaxes and that fear is used to fuel confrontation. “When we hear a leader of the traditional right equate migration with insecurity; saying that climate change is dogmatism; To say that gender violence is a hard divorce, as Feijóo said [en una entrevista a Cadena SER]; or equating democracy with dictatorship and the victims of Francoism with their aggressors, that does break democracies and societies and that is the great risk that Europe and Spain have,” he denounced.
The recognition of the Palestinian State, Sánchez confirmed, will arrive this Wednesday. Faced with a contest that he poses with a great ideological charge, it is not surprising that all the speeches have touched all the keys of the story designed by the PSOE to increase the 21 MEPs it now has, taking advantage of the weakness of Podemos and Sumar. And try to erode a PP that, with 13 seats, sees itself dragged by the extreme right to increasingly radical positions. “While Catalonia after 12-M looks to the future with hope, they look to the past, they look to the processes independentist with longing. When you go to coexistence, you are left without speech,” Sánchez reproached PP and Vox.
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![The leader of the PSC and the party's candidate for the Presidency of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, speaks during a PSC event, this Saturday in Barcelona.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/HIPVCGYHVBC25DPE27DS242W4Q.jpg?auth=0f3a97e541cbdfea8a312183f8fce215aa050e55d6764a32c4dc89a9b871fd9d&width=414)
Sunday’s success in Catalonia has allowed both the PSOE and the PSC to enjoy the joys of victory after a turbulent period. For those of Sánchez, 12-M is a balm after saving the furniture in the Basque elections and suffering the collapse in Galicia. For the Catalan socialists, their long journey in the desert after losing the Generalitat in 2010. Illa has been grateful for the support during years when things were not going so well for the party. “To all those who did not leave us, supporting us and defending us when we led difficult decisions that could not be understood, such as the amnesty, you were there, defending our convictions,” he elaborated.
Catalonia is an important breeding ground for socialism votes and hence plays a central role in the 9-J campaign. Sánchez will return on Thursday to the annual meeting of the Círculo de Economía, the main Catalan business lobby. Almost 760,000 votes were contributed by the Catalans in the last European elections, in 2019, and that is where the pampering of the party comes from, hoping to follow in the footsteps of Illa, who obtained more than 870,000 ballots. The mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, in charge of presenting the Eurocandidate, recalled the “tic-tac-toe” of the socialists, in reference to holding the town hall of the Catalan capital, La Moncloa and now being able to caress the Palau de la Generalitat. Ribera didn’t take a second to miss his, because he doesn’t want to be left out of the party. “Four in a row, Jaume, four in a row for a Spain that is playing for the quarterfinals in a Europe that allows us not to hide the difficulties but rather to overcome them together,” he stressed.
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