Alberto Núñez Feijóo tries to expand his international projection given the possibility of reaching the presidency of the Government, and thus be able to compete with the good image that the president of the Government has outside of Spain, especially in Europe. To do this, the PP leader takes advantage of his relations in the European People’s Party (EPP), of which his foreign affairs officer, Esteban González Pons, is vice president, to attract the favor of European leaders belonging to the popular family.
In addition to Brussels, where Feijóo has forged a close relationship with the president of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, this year at the head of the PP the popular leader has traveled to Latin America, specifically to Uruguay and Argentina, although he has not met with the presidents of these countries, but with those of the opposition, from the same political family of the PP. In Europe, the president of the PP has also traveled to Portugal, where he has not met with his prime minister, the socialist António Costa, either, but with the president of the Republic, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, and the mayor of Lisbon, Carlos Moedas, also the PPE.
On this occasion, Feijóo traveled to Sweden for 48 hours to meet on Tuesday with the Prime Minister, Ulf Kristersson, a member of the EPP, and yesterday with the Minister for the European Union, Jessika Roswall, and the General Secretary of the Moderate Party, made up of in the European People’s Party.
The importance of the trip is that Sweden exercises the rotating presidency of the European Union before Spain does, as of July 1. Feijóo thus wants to make visible the difference between the information that Sweden has offered him from the presidency, and the absence of a relationship with Sánchez to address the Spanish presidency. “In five hours we have more information from the Swedish presidency of the EU than from our government about the Spanish one,” Feijóo stressed in Stockholm.
For this reason, he asks Sánchez, to whom he promises loyalty during the Spanish semester, to inform the PP and the entire Parliament of his intentions for the European presidency and that the agenda and objectives be agreed with the opposition.
The PP is very upset with the way in which Sánchez is preparing for the presidency. Just yesterday, González Pons denounced that Sánchez did not inform the PP of the European agenda and made announcements about the program in “PSOE rallies”, as did the Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, who assured that Valencia will be the headquarters of “al least†two meetings of European leaders during the Spanish presidency of the EU. Pons assures that the Spanish is the only Executive that does not inform the opposition of the acts of the European presidency.
