Pedro Sánchez has made the decision to recognize the Palestinian State, and the only thing left to determine is when it will become official. But it is expected to be imminent since the President of the Government himself showed his determination to take this step in the first half of the year, that is, before next July. In this process, however, there are still a large number of unknowns to clear up, beyond the fact that it will be a decision that will be approved by the Council of Ministers and of which Sánchez will then inform the parliamentary groups, either in an appearance in Congress or either by summoning their spokespersons to the Moncloa palace. The Lower House, in any case, already urged by an overwhelming majority the Government to recognize the State of Palestine in 2014, almost ten years ago, during the mandate of Mariano Rajoy.
Although there has not yet been any decision made in this regard, government sources contemplate that the recognition of the Palestinian State, when so agreed by the Council of Ministers, could lead to the appointment of a Spanish ambassador in Palestine. Although it would not be a simple procedure either.
“Spain will take the step,” Sánchez promised, who also does not want to reveal before the recognition of the Palestinian State occurs whether the Spanish diplomatic delegation would be established in East Jerusalem, the alleged capital of an independent Palestine, or in Ramallah, the administrative capital. in the West Bank where, as a result of the 1993 Oslo agreements, the Government and the president of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), Mahmoud Abbas, have their provisional headquarters, whom the Spanish president visited last November on his first tour in the Middle East after the conflict between Israel and Hamas broke out in the Gaza Strip.
Government sources contemplate that an ambassador may be appointed to Palestine, when Spain recognizes it as a State. Although they remember that Spain already has a consulate general in Jerusalem – which covers the demarcations of Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip – which is accredited to the State of Israel. The Foreign Minister himself, José Manuel Albares, has pointed out that this consulate general already acts ex officio as an embassy when exercising Spanish diplomatic representation before the Palestinian Authority.
Despite the fact that Sánchez opened the door last November to a unilateral recognition of the Palestinian State if the European Union and the international community did not move in this direction – and he announced it precisely from the Rafah crossing, the southern gate of Gaza from Egypt -, The Spanish president is determined to add European allies to this decision. Those who recognize the existence of the States are the States, they argue in the Moncloa, and Sánchez wields the “sovereignty” of Spain to adopt this decision. But he believes that it will be more effective and beneficial to take the step with other European countries, which in turn is convinced that it will draw other Western capitals to join the initiative. This is the reason for the round of contacts and tours in which Sánchez has been immersed in recent weeks, in parallel to the open process for Palestine to become a full member state in the United Nations, despite the planned veto of the United States in the Security Council.
The Government highlights that there are different modalities to now express the recognition of the State of Palestine by Spain, which are being analyzed in detail, beyond being clear that it is a decision that will be the responsibility of the Council of Ministers to adopt. The precedent, as Minister Albares recalled, is that of South Sudan, which was the last State that Spain recognized, although “implicitly and tacitly” in 2011.
In October of that year, under the mandate of José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Council of Ministers approved an agreement on the exchange of letters for the establishment of diplomatic relations with the republic of South Sudan, which just three months before proclaimed its independence and It joined the UN as the culmination of a long peace process after two decades of civil war. With independence, achieved after massive support in a self-determination referendum, Spain proceeded to the “implicit recognition” of the new State, by presenting a note signed by the Spanish ambassador in Khartoum to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the new republic of Sudan from the south. “The act of recognition was not explicit in the note and the Spanish ambassador limited himself to congratulating the Government and the South Sudanese people, and to proposing the establishment of diplomatic relations and cooperation. It is a tacit recognition, in accordance with the traditional uses of Spanish diplomacy,” the Executive explained at that time.
