The semester of the Spanish presidency of the European Union, which begins on July 1, heats up engines under the intense artillery fire of the electoral stage that Pedro Sánchez set with the advance of the general elections to July 23
The president of the central government presented the priorities for the rotating presidency in an event he starred in yesterday at the Moncloa palace, with an explicit warning against the irruption of “anti-European parties” in institutions throughout Europe, while the Popular Party and the extreme right of Vox are negotiating the new government coalitions in autonomous communities and town councils throughout Spain.
Sánchez highlighted the relevance of the European rotating presidency in the current global geopolitical context, and warned that since the last time Spain assumed the mandate – in 2010, under the government of fellow socialist José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero – , there were a myriad of calamities, such as the financial crisis, Brexit, the coronavirus pandemic or the war in Ukraine, that threatened to “end or weaken” the EU project itself. “And there have also been many anti-European parties that have gained political weight or even presence in our institutions”, warned the head of the Central Executive.
Without expressly wanting to allude to Vox with the warning message, nor to any question of domestic politics in the middle of the electoral process, in order not to give rise to possible complaints before the Central Electoral Board for institutional interventions, Sánchez insisted that “the greater representation of anti-European forces is bad news for the European Union as a whole”.
Among other issues, he emphasized, because “if we have learned something from the pandemic and now from the war, it is that what we must do to be stronger is to unite”, “the set of member states must to be much more united in terms of the common challenges that each and every one of our societies face”, he emphasized. “And having political movements that question or deny these challenges, such as the climate emergency or the joint response to the real threat we have on the eastern front, with a questioning of borders and European security, is a bad news for the whole of Europe”, insisted Sánchez.
The head of the Executive wanted to cover the act in which he revealed the logo of the Spanish presidency of the EU with a solemnity unrelated to the partisan and electoral fight and outlined the priorities for the European semester, in front of the vice-presidents Yolanda Díaz and Teresa Ribera, ministers José Manuel Albares, Félix Bolaños and Isabel Rodríguez, and a large representation of European diplomacy accredited in Madrid.
The four major priorities of the Spanish mandate, as he explained, are European reindustrialization to guarantee open strategic autonomy, in the face of the struggle between the United States and China, the ecological transition and the climate emergency, promoting social and economic justice greater and strengthen European unity, among other open projects, with the new pact on migration and asylum.
Faced with the last difficult issue, which is fracturing the community club, Sánchez defended that “Europe cannot be divided with this debate, because in the end we are all victims of irregular migration and we must strengthen the external dimension of the migratory phenomenon and cooperation with the countries of transit and origin”.
The president also prioritized tax justice to support the welfare state “and eliminate forever all the ways of tax evasion of the great fortunes and global corporations”. Thus, Sánchez demanded to promote “the establishment of minimum standards of business taxation in all member states, in particular in the digital field, and to combat the ways of tax avoidance and the use of ghost companies”.
