The hours prior to the Council of Ministers on Tuesday anticipate a more than likely train wreck between the members of the PSOE and those of United We Can after Moncloa has confirmed the “approval of a credit of 1,000 million euros in Defense”.
The measure, according to Moncloa sources, is part of the commitment to “responsibility and solidarity to strengthen European security and deterrence capacity in the face of the real threat posed by Putin.” And it is a new step forward to reach the military spending target of 2% of GDP in 2029.”
The determination with which Moncloa has reported the credit -processed as a contingency fund so it does not have to go through Congress- collides with the tidal posture in the Podemos headquarters where, after 8:00 p.m., they still did not have the official confirmation of your coalition partner’s move.
As the rumor took shape, to end up being confirmed, the movements in United We Can have followed one another. First, it has been the general secretary of the purple party, and Minister of Social Rights, Ione Belarra, who has reproached the PSOE for neglecting the “flags” of a progressive Executive intending to spend public money on weapons “at the request of a foreign power “.
“Our country does not need to buy bombs and combat planes,” Belarra warned in a speech this Monday before the State Coordination Council of Podemos, in which he stressed that Spain “is not at war.”
Later, it was the turn of the second vice president, Yolanda Díaz, denouncing that there was no consensus with United We Can that extraordinary credit of 1,000 million euros that the Council of Ministers will study tomorrow.
“The forms in politics are very important and in matters of such sensitivity, they must be taken appropriately, with respect for the allies and democratic respect for the Cortes Generales,” he warned.
Reproaches that the Defense Minister, Margarita Robles, has answered, who has recalled that the Government’s position on security and defense is marked by the president, Pedro Sánchez, and has warned that in Podemos “they will know if it is compatible or not” be in the coalition government.
Ironically, Robles has urged his cabinet colleague Ione Belarra to ask the second vice president of the Government, Yolanda Díaz, what she thinks that in Ferrol (A Coruña) they stop building Navy frigates.
From Moncloa they insist that “all the ministerial departments were informed of the proposal at the meeting of the General Commission of Secretaries of State and Undersecretaries that was held last week”, the government commission in which the two souls of the Executive and that sets the agenda of matters that are approved in the Council of Ministers. Moncloa also recalls that said proposal “was studied and validated without any type of intervention against it”.
And they clarify that the economic item will be processed as a contingency fund so it does not have to go through the Congress of Deputies. However, the discomfort in the purple formation, which goes beyond the words of Belarra and Díaz, shows that, at least, the proposal was not “studied” and “validated” exhaustively. No, at least, for each and every one of the parties involved.
In this sense, in addition, the Minister of Finance and Public Function, María Jesús Montero, has wondered this afternoon when the Government has not presented “brave” budgets, after the also general secretary of Podemos has been opposed to increasing the defense budget and has asked for more social spending.
Montero has defended that all the budget projects that the current Government has prepared have been “thinking about people” and “in strengthening the economy”. And it has guaranteed that the accounts will have “the hallmark” of the “progressive” government so that citizens can go through a “complicated” economic perspective and “without leaving anyone behind and so that the productive fabric can take advantage of those help”, is finished.
