Yesterday no minister of United We Can attended the commemorative act of the 40th anniversary of Spain’s entry into NATO, which was held at the Royal Theater in Madrid. The Second Vice President and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, did not participate because she had “a medical appointment,” sources from her team explained to ABC. The Podemos ministers, on the other hand, justified her absence in their rejection of the Atlantic Alliance, because they consider that she only contributes to the escalation of violence. But the truth is that they were not invited.
Sources from La Moncloa explained to this newspaper that only ministers who are part of the National Security Council (CSN) had been invited to the meeting. Taking into account this criterion, only the second vice president had the possibility to present herself.
Díaz spoke out in March against increasing military spending – yesterday it was announced again – although she has always escaped the conflicts and cracks caused by Podemos due to the decisions of PSOE and La Moncloa in foreign policy.
The members of the Council of Ministers that form part of the CSN are the President of the Government, the Vice Presidents, the Ministers of Defence, of the Interior, of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation, of Economy and Finance. However, in its press conference, Podemos boasted that it was not going because it was against the military organization, and confronted the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, and the PSOE for supporting the expansion of NATO and bringing the summit to the capital.
“No space minister has attended this event today because we are precisely in defense of peace and in a conception of security, which is not only security by military means, but one that is comprehensive and also includes providing the citizenship of social rights with more spending, ”said the spokesman for the purple party Javier Sánchez Serna, accompanied by his counterpart Isa Serra.
In a few words, Podemos considers that NATO contributes to the escalation of the war more than to the resolution through diplomatic channels. And they insist that the spending approved by the Council of Ministers for the June summit is a waste, the 37 million euros, is “an unnecessary expense.” At the same time that they defend that there are “other priorities”; such as the need for more “social spending” to improve the quality of public education and health.
Yesterday’s event was the prelude to the June summit and was chaired by Sánchez and King Felipe VI. The secretary general of the Atlantic Alliance, Jeans Stoltenberg, and more authorities of the military organization were also there. Podemos not only boasted of not being at an event that they could not attend, but in order to continue highlighting a differentiating profile against the foreign policy of the Socialists, they advanced that they will not participate in the summit scheduled in Madrid for June 29 and 30 .
The opposition leader did not hesitate to criticize this new division of the Executive. The general coordinator of the PP, Elías Bendodo, lamented the absence of Podemos and warned of a “government in clear decomposition.” “Half of the government has been absent,” he pointed out, unaware —or perhaps not— of the criteria used. And he defended the presence of the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo: “The main support that the government has had has been the opposition.”
The PP stressed the importance of NATO; “It is and has been a key institution in foreign and defense policy,” Bendodo said. On the other hand, the coordinator of the popular ones lamented the continuous contempt of the purple flank of the coalition and of Sánchez’s investiture partners to the treaty because “it erodes the image of our country” in the face of the rest of NATO allies.
