We are going to do everything in our power.” United We Can no longer hide its absolute refusal to increase defense spending promised by Pedro Sánchez before NATO. The minority member of the government coalition calls for increased pressure on the PSOE and thus “push” his partner to, as he did in previous years, “print” the purple “spirit” in the next General State Budgets.
This negotiation threatens to be the most difficult so far in the coalition and the litmus test in the final stretch of the legislature, since the PSOE frontally ignores its partner, rules out the existence of a “plan B” and, for now, shields their goal through other means.
In fact, waiting to see what happens in the public accounts, the Government will approve today through the Council of Ministers a credit of 1,000 million for the Ministry of Defense with which to boost Sánchez’s commitment. A measure that United We Can, as they denounced, was not informed of, despite the fact that La Moncloa asserts that all government departments were aware of the issue and none opposed it.
The decision to increase military spending this year without waiting for 2023 is made and coordinated by the Presidency, and comes in full division between the Government partners due to the increase in the Defense budget.
In this regard, La Moncloa sources state 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. This is the body in which what is raised to the Council of Ministers is decided and debated, it is the preparatory meeting and, in addition, it acts as a filter.
“The proposal was studied and validated without any type of intervention against it,” these same sources point out. Faced with criticism for increasing military spending, Pedro Sánchez’s team maintains that the Government “is going to fulfill its responsibility and solidarity to strengthen European security and deterrence capacity in the face of the real threat posed by Putin.”
The challenge of Podemos is to prevent the entry of this increase in the Budgets. Get Sánchez to swerve in favor of public policies to prevent the “military escalation” and the “extremely high inflation” from ending up “ruining the snare of the coalition government’s action.” With these words yesterday Ione Belarra defined before the purple space the keys to what is to come. “In Spain there is no war,” he said.
As EL MUNDO advanced on Saturday, United We Can is organizing a hot summer for Pedro Sánchez with the aim of desisting from his commitment to ensure that in 2029 the GDP in Defense reaches 2%, with the consequent rise that this implies in the bills. The Minister of Social Rights yesterday began the pressure: “It is worrying that more and more people have the feeling that it is Podemos alone who raises the flags that should be the hallmark of a progressive government.”
Yesterday, the leader of the confederal space, Yolanda Díaz, accused the PSOE of “not” having agreed on the credit of 1,000 million within the coalition and of having adopted the decision unilaterally, which lacks “democratic respect” both the allies and the Cortes. However, she was aware of the small print of the measure: 1,000 million earmarked for ordinary spending and 650 for arming the troops and PPE protection services.
In the socialist ranks, neither Belarra nor Díaz’s accusations are worrying because they directly deny that, as the leader of Podemos accuses, Sánchez has lost “the course.” Despite everything, the PSOE stresses the president’s strong commitment to “advance” and increase the defensive capacity of Spain and the European Union.
But within the government coalition it is also noted that the “urgencies” of one and the other are very “different”. In Podemos they stir up the fear that the PSOE’s militaristic turn will end up fracturing the alliance with the investiture bloc and they recognize the serious difficulties that Sánchez’s fundamental partners – including themselves – would have today to approve the next public accounts.
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