“We must think seriously about doing it this semester”, Pedro Sánchez has acknowledged, about his determination for Spain to recognize the Palestinian State, in an informal conversation with the journalists accompanying him on the tour of the Middle East that he has undertaken this very Monday.
Sánchez’s claim, therefore, is that this recognition takes place before the summer, around June, the month in which the elections to the European Parliament are also scheduled to be held.
Yesterday Pedro Sánchez embarked on another express tour that in just three days will take him to visit three key players in the conflict between Hamas and Israel in order to advance in a de-escalation process in which the Spanish president is very involved.
Sanchez landed last night in Amman, the capital of Jordan; today he plans to travel to Yeda, in Saudi Arabia, and will finish his trip tomorrow in Doha, the capital of Qatar.
The head of the Spanish Executive pointed out to the journalists accompanying him that, in his opinion, recognition is the only way to guarantee peace and security in this turbulent region in view of the open war between Israel and Hamas. It will be a decision adopted by the Council of Ministers, of which the Congress of Deputies will subsequently be informed.
It should not be forgotten that already in 2014, under the mandate of Mariano Rajoy, the Lower House approved a non-law proposal in which the Spanish Government was urged to recognize the Palestinian State. The initiative, according to Sánchez’s claim, is getting closer to being a reality.
The head of the Spanish Executive has linked this decision to the evolution of the international context. And he warned that in the coming weeks there will be progress on this issue within the United Nations that will tend to recognize Palestine as a full member of the multilateral organization based in New York.
Time is running out, because the president of the Spanish Government is well aware that the next European elections can draw a new map of the community club with even more right-wing preeminence. Sánchez has defended the “pacifist foreign policy” of his coalition Executive, despite the complexity of the scenario with the wars in Gaza and Ukraine, and has warned about the possibility of the European Council being in the hands of an “ultraconservative” majority , which prevents us from facing global challenges from a progressive perspective.
The fundamental focus of this tour of Sánchez is thus placed on the impetus to the solution of the conflict between Israel and Palestine, but Sánchez’s tour will also address bilateral issues with these three countries, and will also have an economic nature at the stops in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. These two countries have two of the most important sovereign wealth funds in the world, and with important ongoing investment programs, before which Sánchez wants to promote the options of Spanish companies. Téléfonica d’Arabia, STC, has bought a significant stake in Telefónica, before which the Executive has announced that it will increase its position to 10% of a company it considers strategic. This issue, however, is not among Sánchez’s priorities in his meetings with the Saudi authorities, according to Spanish Government sources.
