At the same time that the extreme right of Vox mobilized thousands of citizens in Madrid’s Plaza de Colón to demand his resignation, Pedro Sánchez closed the congress of the Socialist International (IS) this Sunday, after assuming the presidency of this organization. And the President of the Government has taken advantage of his final speech to celebrate that this week, in Spain, the Congress of Deputies has given the definitive push both to the general State budgets for next year, with the largest investment in social policies in history, such as new taxes on financial institutions, energy corporations and large fortunes. “Social justice and fiscal justice”, Sánchez has wielded, despite the opposition of the Popular Party of Alberto Núñez Feijóo and the fierce confrontational strategy unleashed by the formation of Santiago Abascal.
“Obviously, the right and the ultra-right were opposed,” lamented the leader of the PSOE, before the approval of the budgets that will guarantee the culmination of his mandate and the legislature, and of the new taxes to face the energy and inflationary crisis. “But in the face of their noise, their insults and their blockades, Spain is advancing,” Sánchez assured, in direct reply to both the PP and Vox, just six months after municipal and regional elections in May that will be decisive for the general elections. scheduled for December 2023.
“Spain advances because we protect the people. Spain advances because, thanks to European funds, we protect economic growth. Spain advances because we ask big companies for a greater effort, while we alleviate it to the social majority of Spaniards. Spain is advancing because we give stability to our country and its people at a time when they most need stability and progress”, the President of the Government underlined.
Sánchez’s speech before the plenary of the Socialist International has been very ideological, to highlight the values ??of social democracy against “neoliberalism and reactionary nationalism.” Thus, he has defended “progressive internationalism”, wielding the legacy of Olof Palme, Willy Brandt or Salvador Allende, together with fraternity, humanity, cooperation, the defense of multilateralism, pacifism, just ecological transition, economic justice and prosecutor, or the “feminist revolution”. “Advances and social conquests are not irreversible, democracy is defended day by day,” she warned.
At the closing of this congress of the Socialist International (IS) held in Madrid, in which Sánchez has been proclaimed as the new president of the organization that brings together 132 socialist, social democratic and labor parties from all over the world, the former President of the Government José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. And the event was attended by up to fifteen socialist ministers -from the vice presidents Nadia Calviño and Teresa Ribera to Félix Bolaños, Margarita Robles and Fernando Grande-Marlaska, Isabel Rodríguez or Miquel Iceta-, the federal executive of the PSOE -headed by its deputy general secretary, the Minister María Jesús Montero- and eleven socialist territorial leaders, including regional presidents such as Guillermo Fernández Vara from Extremadura, María Chivite from Navarre, Adrián Barbón from Asturias and Concha Andreu from La Rioja. The Aragonese Javier Lambán, who did not attend, nevertheless conveyed his “pride” because Sánchez has been elected president of the SI.
