Before heading to Kyiv, where today he will meet again with the Ukrainian Volodímir Zelenski on the first day of the Spanish presidency of the EU, Pedro Sánchez refuted yesterday from Brussels the approaches that Alberto Núñez Feijóo defended the day before, also in the capital of the community club, to revive an economy that, in contrast to the speech of the President of the Government, equated with “a motorcycle that does not work”.
The data on the economic evolution of Spain, in the opinion of Sánchez, “logically invites a very positive recognition.” “The figures are extraordinarily positive, we are the main European economy in terms of economic growth, job creation and inflation reduction”, highlighted the Chief Executive. “It’s something we all have to be happy about,” he reproached Feijóo. “Without falling into the slightest complacency,” he warned nonetheless.
Sánchez contradicted the leader of the Popular Party before the economic alarms that the previous day expressed in Brussels due to the increase in the deficit and the debt in Spain. “Before on the contrary. The recognition that is made to me in private by different leaders, both social democrats and conservatives and liberals, is that of the extraordinary performance of the Spanish economy”, replied the socialist leader.
And he insisted on the positive evolution of economic growth, job creation and the reduction of inflation. “Spain is the first of the main economies to have inflation below 2%”, she highlighted. “We are growing, we are creating jobs and controlling inflation better than other trading partners, and, consequently, we are not losing competitiveness”, stressed the president.
Sánchez, in any case, assured that he does not fall into complacency and knows very well the challenges that must be faced. “We are aware of the difficulties that Spanish society has,” he claimed. And he thus justified the recent extension of many of the measures in his anti-crisis package. “But we must also recognize what the Spanish economy is achieving,” he defended.
The head of the Executive thus warned again against Feijóo’s repealing promises if he arrives at Moncloa. “What works is not repealed,” he demanded. In this way, he assured that a labor reform that promotes stability in employment and the record of almost 21 million members of Social Security cannot be repealed, with social peace and an agreement to increase wages, which ensured that it is “very well recognized” by all the member states.
Sánchez, however, allowed himself “sarcasm” at Feijóo’s change of position due to a labor reform that he recognized the day before as “substantially good”, despite the fact that the PP tried to overthrow it in Congress, although paradoxically he was the one who saved it by the wrong vote of one of its deputies. “It is curious that they have gone from wanting to repeal sanchismo to recognizing that the sanchista labor reform is good for Spain,” he ironized.
Nor can a pension reform agreed with the European Commission be repealed, he insisted. “You cannot repeal what works,” he reiterated. “And the Spanish economy is doing better than many other economies. If what works is repealed, we run the risk of slowing down an economy that is creating a lot of jobs in circumstances as complex as the ones we are experiencing,” said Sánchez.
The head of the Executive, on the other hand, verified in this European Council the difficulty of reaching an agreement on migration and asylum, which is one of his priorities for the Spanish semester of the EU presidency that begins today. The intense discussion that arose, and the irremovable discrepancies of countries such as Poland or Hungary, prevented the matter from being reflected in the final conclusions of the summit. Sánchez nevertheless explained his determination to continue advancing in a debate that he recognized as “highly sensitive” and with very conflicting positions with the countries of entry of irregular migration, such as Spain or Italy.
During his European mandate, Sánchez will try to reconcile border security with solidarity and cooperation with the countries of origin and transit of this migration, in search of said unanimous pact. However, the President of the Government criticized “the blindness of some” by denying the need to strengthen cooperation with the countries of origin and transit, as Spain has agreed with Morocco, Mauritania or Senegal.
“The war in Ukraine will be one of the great priorities of our presidency,” Pedro Sánchez assured yesterday in Brussels, before embarking on his third trip to Kyiv since the Russian invasion began, in February 2022. Today the Spanish president will celebrate the first day of the rotating presidency of the EU together with Volodímir Zelenski, and will also speak before the Ukrainian Parliament, to stage again the support of the community club against Russian aggression. Another of the milestones of the Spanish semester promoted by Sánchez is the summit between the European Union and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (Celac), which will take place on July 17 and 18 in Brussels. Zelenski himself revealed yesterday that Sánchez invited him to participate in this summit, but that some Latin American countries “blocked” his presence.
