The Government sees in the appointment of June 29 and 30 an opportunity to gain weight and prestige at a time of internal difficulties
The Government sees the NATO summit to be held in Madrid at the end of June as an opportunity to bolster Pedro Sánchez’s international profile and improve his domestic perception. The appointment, to which Moncloa attaches enormous importance, comes at a delicate moment for the Executive. In public, the socialists boast that despite the precariousness of their majority and the enormous difficulties they have had to face – a pandemic, the eruption of a volcano, the consequences of a war at the gates of Europe… .– continue to win votes in Congress. But the polls speak of a wear that is perceived in the attitude of the president and his party.
The inability to put out the fire generated by the ‘Pegasus case’ and the effect that the replacement of Pablo Casado by Alberto Núñez Feijóo has had on the PP’s electoral expectations have led the PSOE to adopt an attitude more typical of a force in the opposition . It is not just that on Thursday Sánchez dedicated the first twenty minutes of his hour-long speech on espionage to speaking in the lower house about the corruption of the Governments of Mariano Rajoy. Every time the leader of the popular has an appearance, the PSOE makes a call to reply through the mouth of its deputy secretary general, Adriana Lastra, or another spokesperson.
The international meeting, in which NATO must approve its new strategic concept, will take place on June 29 and 30, ten days after the Andalusian elections, to which the main government party is attending at its worst moment. The chances of getting the Board back are slim to none. What remains to be seen is whether the current leader, Juan Espadas, maintains the ground left by Susana Díaz. The Executive believes, however, that the display of organization that an event of this magnitude and nature implies will have a positive impact. Even more so if, as is intended, it is achieved in Madrid where Finland and Sweden sign the protocol of accession to the Atlantic Alliance, in question by the Turkish veto. “We are very enthusiastic,” the minister spokesperson, Isabel Rodríguez, said a month ago.
internal gap
Not all the Government shares, however, that illusion. Podemos has already criticized Spain for hosting a “militaristic summit” and reproached the Interior and Foreign Ministries for dedicating close to 37 million euros awarded “without competition and publicity”, as published by ’20minutes’, to its development. It is the same debate that arose with the shipment of weapons to Ukraine, in which Vice President Yolanda Díaz ended up supporting, however, the chief executive.
The commitment to NATO will be exhibited tomorrow on the 40th anniversary of Spain’s entry into the Alliance
The Government already intends to throw the house out the window tomorrow with the celebration of the 40th anniversary of Spain’s entry into NATO at the Royal Theater. It will be an institutional act presided over by the King and Queen, which will be attended by the former presidents of the Government; the current secretary general of the organization, Jens Stoltenberg and two of his predecessors, the Spanish Javier Solana and Fogh Rasmussen; the ambassadors in Madrid and Brussels of all the allied countries, and, as guests, the director of Foreign Affairs of the Government of kyiv, an adviser to President Volodimir Zelenski.
Sánchez has always cultivated his international profile. It is a scenario in which he moves well, as was recently shown when he managed to get Brussels to accept that Spain and Portugal set limits on the price of gas. All the presidents of the Government end their mandates with greater external projection and in his case the war of the Ukraine has served as an incentive to influence a role that was already pleasing to him. “Probably -admits a leader from the president’s entourage- the presidents find an empathy outside that they do not have inside, especially when they are badly given”. It is a kind of “solidarity between equals”.
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