When it comes to opposition, the Popular Party usually chooses to use the greatest firepower: tanks, artillery, planes, whatever they have at hand that does the most damage. Another way is guerrilla warfare. Getting involved in an issue that is not theirs with a different position than the one they had in the past to surprise the Government and give it an unexpected defeat, perhaps minor but a defeat after all. What happened on Tuesday is that it was Sumar who entered the game and facilitated that defeat, while the socialists surprisingly fell asleep.
The PP tried this Tuesday the guerrilla alternative with a bill to reform the National Defense Law of 2005 and give greater power to Parliament in decisions on peace missions abroad with Spanish troops and – here is the trap – in the shipment of weapons abroad. The ultimate objective: create friction within the government majority. Some of the Cabinet partners made it clear that they were not going to sting. Others showed a different attitude, one of calculated ambiguity. Sumar waited until the moment of the vote to take the step that was anticipated during the day, an abstention that allowed the PP initiative to be given free rein.
The proposal to force the Government to seek the approval of the legislature has been defended in the past by left-wing parties when demanding more transparency in the policies of Foreign Affairs and Defense, two of the ministries with the least interest in explaining the issues within their competence. The PSOE and PP governments, when they depended only on themselves, rarely accepted that Congress could jeopardize their foreign policy decisions. The conflict became more evident in 2003, when the PSOE demanded from José María Aznar that the sending of Spanish troops to Iraq, which he opposed, be voted on in Congress.
“Although the Government has tried to minimize it as much as possible before public opinion, saying that it is logistical and humanitarian, (the military deployment) represents participation in the conflict,” denounced the socialist Defense spokesperson. Weeks before, Congress had voted by 183 votes to 164 in favor of the position of the Aznar Government, which was also that of the US and the United Kingdom, on the Iraq crisis – the photo of the Azores helps to understand that vote – and against the opposition, which wanted to give UN inspectors more time in their investigations in Iraq.
On this occasion, the PP raised the need to strengthen Congress when it comes to monitoring the executive branch. “The Government should not have a monopoly on Defense matters,” said Alberto Fabra. Parliament already votes on the peace missions of the Armed Forces abroad, including the one in Lebanon that began in 2006. The innovation of the proposal, in addition to establishing specific deadlines, is that it requires a vote in Congress, let’s say with retroactive effect, the delivery of military aid already made to foreign countries. It is evident that the PP has in mind the weapons delivered to Ukraine to help it in its war against Russia. He hoped that the other left-wing parties would leave the PSOE alone in supporting this measure.
There was a speech that highlighted the unusual nature of that last idea. “It doesn’t make any sense. It would mean problems for the Ukrainian combatants and for the credibility of the foreign policy of the Spanish State,” said Francesc-Marc Álvaro, from Esquerra. What would happen if they voted against? Álvaro asked. One would have to wonder if the Government would be forced to ask Ukraine to return the weapons sent, an unprecedented alternative in relations between allied states in time of war.
What things are. It had to be a Catalan independence deputy who cared about the interests and image of Spain abroad more than a Spanish and very Spanish party as the PP claims to be.
Podemos showed its clear opposition to sending weapons to Ukraine and denounced that twice as much money has been allocated for this purpose than for social housing. In reality, he sees solidarity with kyiv in terms of military aid against the Russian invasion as a mistake. “How many more millions are we going to allocate to NATO’s war against Russia?” said Javier Sánchez Serna.
It was PNV deputy Mikel Legarda who first revealed that the PP was counterprogramming itself. The Senate approved a proposal along the same lines some time ago. It reached Congress and is now in the process of receiving amendments in the Defense Commission. It is true that it can stay there until the end of time, as is the case with other bills that the PP has pushed forward in the Senate thanks to its absolute majority in the Chamber. But presenting the same thing twice allowed him in Congress to force a vote that would cause wear and tear on the Government.
Legarda recalled that the PP has had a very different position in the past, also when the National Defense Law was approved in 2005. At that time, the Popular Party spoke in favor of giving “more flexibility to governments” on foreign policy issues. and Defense.
Sumar made one of those interventions in which the meaning of the vote is not clearly expressed. It seems a little strange, but it happens frequently in Congress. This leaves room to negotiate with other groups for support or abstention if the latter is sufficient. Sumar was seeking the support of the PP to ensure the approval of another bill on mortgages that he was interested in seeing go ahead. It is another parliamentary trick that is easier to sustain when your principled position – in this case, parliamentary control of the sale or delivery of weapons – is favorable to the proposition.
That’s what finally happened. The PP abstained from voting on that proposal, as Sumar wanted. Its objective is to prohibit evictions caused by non-payment on mortgages that include abusive clauses. Junts’ favorable vote made that indirect support from the PP not necessary, but that is something that no one was sure about. As is typical of Junts, they had not made it clear with the intention of making the Government nervous.
Foreign policy is the heritage of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Moncloa. Sumar has decided that this frees him to present or support proposals that the socialists do not accept. On Tuesday afternoon, Sumar requested the immediate termination of the last purchase contracts that Spain maintains with the Israeli military industry. He has done so through a letter sent by the Minister of Social Rights, Pablo Bustinduy, to the Minister of Defense. Accepting that no more contracts have been signed in the last year, as Pedro Sánchez said, those signed previously have continued to be executed and Sumar wants these to be cancelled.
“Hiring even indirectly companies that contribute to the violation of human rights in Palestine and other regions of the world contravenes the foreign policy of the EU and our country,” says Bustinduy’s letter.
Sánchez has maintained a firm stance in denouncing the Gaza genocide at the price of Spain’s diplomatic relations with Israel being frozen. Now his partners are demanding that he go further and cut ties with that country’s military industry. There is little logic in denouncing the conduct of a State and continuing to take advantage of what makes it possible.
The socialists could have responded on Tuesday by supporting the PP proposal, which only means that it begins its parliamentary path and knows what will happen to it in the coming months, and thus avoid defeat. The subsequent negotiation could serve to eliminate that vote on aid to Ukraine with retroactive effect. For reasons that are difficult to discern, he did nothing, he voted against and made it easier for the PP and, for different reasons, for Sumar.
Sumar has decided that it must give a different image as a partner of the coalition government. In the previous legislature, Unidas Podemos was an honest collaborator of the PSOE in the Cabinet, pressing behind closed doors when necessary without causing a scandal in the votes in Congress. The coalition led by Yolanda Díaz is in a situation where it needs to show its teeth from time to time. If the PSOE gets angry, they just have to show it the polls to make it clear that they have no choice.
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