Pedro Sánchez’s mandate is experiencing a new script turn that places the security crisis facing Europe and alters the order of priorities of a government marked by the instability of the parliamentary support in which it is based. The turn occurs just when exactly five years have passed since the day all plans jumped through the air. The first legislature of the coalition government between the PSOE and Unidas we can barely started when on March 14, 2020 the Executive decreed an alarm state to confine the population by the world-world pandemic of the COVID-19.
The health emergency then threw any objective that did not go through deaths, look for vaccines and alleviate the economic disaster. Now all plans can change for Donald Trump’s decisions in the US and the situation in Ukraine. “What we are playing in Ukraine is not something that has to do with a regional conflict. It has to do with the multilateral order, with compliance with the rules. We are playing that international law prevails or not, ”said the president of the Government solemn during his appearance this week in Moncloa, after meetings with parliamentary spokesmen.
Sánchez explained during his speech that the trip undertaken by the Trump administration at the head of the United States implies the rupture of the consensus established in the West after World War II and has still unpredictable consequences, but which places Europe in the face of the challenge of its strategic, political, economic and also defensive autonomy. A path not without efforts and threats to Spain.
President Enarbola in that context The “contrasted balance in the crisis management” of his executive to try to launch a general message of certainty in the middle of the new storm. And also to reduce the misgivings of their parliamentary allies, some of which expressly turn their backs in the exponential increase plans of defense spending. “Not a single euro will be trimmed with social policies for security and defense commitments,” he committed.
In the Government they admit the influence of this new crisis in the Legislature: from the budget impact of transiting to 2% of the GDP in defense spending until the formation of majorities in Congress. Although the bet, Sánchez assures himself, is to reach the square of the circle. “Spain leads growth in the EU and does so while the budget in defense increases by more than 10,000 million euros, in 120,000 million the policies linked to social services and in more than 20,000 to the ecological transition. It is possible and it is feasible to do all these policies at the same time. ”
What are the government’s plans?
The first step that Spain has adopted has more to do with a political commitment than with concrete actions. Pedro Sánchez has closed ranks with the 27 in the will to move towards a joint response from Europe to displacements, threats and challenges raised by the United States and Russia. And also a call to the solidarity of the EU with the countries of the north and the east. “We do it for solidarity with those countries that already claim that we ask for when we hit us with special severity the Covid crisis. Then we receive the solidarity of the Nordic countries and today they are claiming us that solidarity to deter the imperialist threat of the Russia of Putin. ”
In that line, the Government has committed to its European partners to accelerate investment plans in defense and not reach 2% of GDP in 2029, as planned, but before. When and how much money this commitment implies are details that, so far, are unknown. In the Moncloa they explain that the action plan must be previously agreed with the rest of the European partners based on the specific needs that are stipulated and also to the effort that is computed to each State, a negotiation that Spain already prepares with the objective of softening the demands that are demanded today.
“We have just faced a first phase of analysis of the threat and the problems we face and the consensus there is widespread. Next week we will address the capabilities we need to endowed for the future. And the financing of these capabilities will be just the subsequent step, ”explain sources from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs consulted by eldiario.es.
The idea that the government works is that at the next NATO summit in the Hague of July, the degree of commitment of each partner is updated and that there are “data and criteria” to work on. And the president defends that the fulfillment of Spain is greater than the last figures published and referenced in 2023. And there are other commitments: invest in new capacities of the Armed Forces, where we are above most countries, and the participation of troops in different NATO missions. And we are in all except in Kosovo. So we overcome and with note what was achieved in other countries, ”says Sánchez.
What do government partners say?
The big question is how the government intends to face a challenge of such magnitude in a political context so unstable that it does not even allow it to carry out some general state budgets. The absence of a solid majority and the answer to a good part of the leftist partners to the defense plans led the president to organize in the Moncloa a round of meetings with the parliamentary spokesmen for what is to come. And although in the Executive worries that the voice of Spain does not arrive dissonant to the outside with respect to the great global political issue of the moment, it is assumed that the possibility of having parliamentary support in such a fractional congress is almost a chimera.
“All those things that have to go through Parliament will go through Parliament, how can it be otherwise. And other things that have more to do with the management of the Government of Spain, because they will have to be accelerated and managed by the Government of Spain, ”the president third to the press question whether or not to Congress the committed budget items committed. Until now, budgetary modifications worth more than 2,000 million euros destined to help Ukraine have been promoted only from the Council of Ministers with readjustments, credits or via contingency fund.
Although from a purely tactical approach most left forces reject any plan that implies the increase in defense expenditure, Pedro Sánchez has managed to temper the position of some strategic allies. After the public positioning of formations such as the United Left or Compromís, the leader of Semar and Second Vice President Yolanda Díaz, avoided the clash with the president of the Government regarding such a delicate issue. Something that expressly thanked him the chief of the Executive. “I want to thank you for two things: that you respect the commitments with Europe and remain firm in the commitment of this government to social policies,” said Sánchez.
Nor did the Government obtain an ERC portar, one of the most important partners in Congress. Although his spokesman, Gabriel Rufián, also unmarked a policy of rearming that his party rejects, he invited the government to do pedagogy about real investment needs and about the critical moment that Europe is going through. “We are clear that the war is here, the world is not how we like it and that implies that we are responsible and go beyond the banner,” said the republican spokesman.
With the express support of the PNV and with less concrete positions such as those of Junts or Canarian coalition, the government also has the ‘no’ of EH Bildu, Podemos and BNG and with a ‘yes’ of the PP with many nuances. “Europe has to rearm. Spain must do it too, ”said Alberto Núñez Feijóo at the beginning of the appearance after his meeting with the president. Those words, according to the government sources consulted, came to generate in the Moncloa the expectation of a turn in the popular speech. It was a mirage. Minutes later, Feijóo came to accuse Sánchez of directing Spain towards a “autocracy” for not having planned to sign the expense in defense in Congress. An opposition style with airs, also, from the pandemic.
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