The PSOE’s secretary general, Pedro Sánchez./ Photo: CPD/La Razón.
Eduardo González. Madrid.
The international debut of the newly appointed secretary general of the PSOE, Pedro Sánchez, will include a series of meetings with European leaders in the first two weeks of September, standing out among them the interview with the president of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz, just like it had already been announced by socialist sources to The Diplomat in Spain at the end of last month.
According to information provided by the PSOE in a statement, Sánchez will start next Sunday 7 September a series of visits and contacts with European socialist and social democrat leaders. The international debut of the new leader of the PSOE will take place that same day in Bologna, where he will participate as a speaker in Festa de L´Unità del Partido Democrático italiano (PD) along with the prime minister of that country, Matteo Renzi, and the secretary general of the Party of the European Socialists (PES), the German Achim Post.
Besides, Pedro Sánchez has planned to go to Strasbourg in the first two weeks of September, where he will visit the European Parliament and will hold several meetings, including the interviews with Martin Schulz and with the president of the European Group of Socialists and Democrats, Gianni Pittella. The secretary General of the PSOE will continue with his international agenda throughout autumn and he will visit the main European capitals, according to the same sources.
The socialist leader tries to repair his relations after supporting the veto to Juncker
The first big decision made by Pedro Sánchez after his arrival to the general secretary’s office of the PSOE as regards international affairs was ordering the 14 Spanish socialist members of the European Parliament to vote against the appointment of the German Jean-Claude Juncker as the future president of the European Commission. This decision went against the pact reached by the European conservatives and socialists, by which the first ones would support Martin Schulz for the presidency of the European Parliament in exchange of the second ones doing the same with Juncker for the presidency of the Commission.
Subsequently, Schulz himself decided not to attend the extraordinary congress of the PSOE, but socialist sources assured to The Diplomat in Spain that this decision had no relation to the veto to Juncker and that the only reason of his absence was that he was “on holiday”. Besides, the same sources announced that the German leader had sent an invitation to Pedro Sánchez to meet him in September.
Last 23 August, Pedro Sánchez wanted to make clear, in Santiago de Compostela (a day before the president of the Government, Mariano Rajoy, and the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, met in this same city), the differences between the European conservatives and social democrats and he stated that “the crisis of leadership and growth in Europe cannot be built against the citizens’ interests”.
Sánchez also assured that Germany has been able to establish a minimum salary thanks to the Social Democratic Party and he announced his intention of making the austerity measures adopted by the Government of the socialist Manuel Valls in France “to be discussed by the European socialists”.
