ERC, BNG, EH Bildu and CUP request the appearance of Robles to explain why he has not debated this decision “of enormous importance”
New tensions between the Government of Pedro Sánchez and his investiture partners. ERC, BNG, EH Bildu and CUP want Defense Minister Margarita Robles to appear in Congress to explain the decision to send six Leopard tanks to Ukraine. The pro-independence parties complain that this measure has not been debated or voted on in parliament despite being a strategy “of enormous importance” due to the implications it may have “in the escalation of the conflict.”
It is not the first time that the partners of the Executive question the role of Spain in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Ione Belarra, leader of Unidas Podemos, a formation with which the PSOE governs in coalition, has criticized on several occasions the shipment of military material. Last week, without going any further, Belarra asked Robles, one of the most critical socialist ministers of United We Can, to reconsider her position and admit that it had been “a mistake to contribute to the escalation of the war.”
But Robles does not hide his differences with Belarra and this Wednesday, during a speech in Congress, he confirmed that Spain will send six Leopard 2A4 tanks that are currently being repaired due to their poor condition. The Defense Minister also left the door open to deliver more tanks in the future “if they were necessary and our allies requested it.”
diplomatic way
Belarra had demanded from the socialist wing of the Government that Spain “be part of the solution and stop being part of the problem”, words that found an immediate response from Pedro Sánchez, who asked his Executive colleague to abandon “equidistance” and recalled that “there is an aggressor and a victim, and we are with the victim”.
But the request now from ERC, BNG, EH Bildu and CUP raises the tension over Sánchez’s strategy in Ukraine just one year after the start of the invasion. In declarations in the corridors of Congress, the Esquerra spokesman, Gabriel Rufián, has affirmed that his formation has been betting on diplomacy and that, although he admits that “we must go beyond the banner”, he considers that ways of dialogue and not just assume the “uncritical Atlanticist discourse of sending more weapons and nothing else”.
Aware that the diplomatic route is the main argument of his critics, Robles defended this week that it is an exhausted possibility: “Some speak of diplomatic channels, but they were tried to the end and despite this, Putin has continued in this war massacring children, women, vulnerable people and shelling the civilian population.”
Regardless of what happens with this request from the pro-independence parties regarding Robles, the board of spokespersons agreed on Tuesday that Sánchez must appear before the plenary session of Congress to report on the commitments made by the Government in relation to the war in Ukraine, including the shipment of military material, and the agreements in Morocco, especially in relation to the Sahara.
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