The Diplomat
Unidas Podemos yesterday insisted on stressing that it does not consider Spain to be a normalized democracy and for this purpose it used the conflict in Yemen, calling on the Government to stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, countries that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha Gonzalez Laya, has just visited.
The State Secretary for the 2030 Agenda, Ione Belarra, one of the leaders of the purple formation, replied to the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, who had criticized the words of the second vice-president, Pablo Iglesias, who affirmed that in Spain there is no full democracy.
Robles had taken advantage of the inauguration of the new Admiral Chief of Staff of the Navy to claim that all Spaniards have the “right” to feel “very proud” of their country and their democracy, with a Constitution that has guaranteed those rights for the last 40 years.
Belarra replied via Twitter: “A full democracy would have stopped selling weapons to Saudi Arabia to be used in the war in Yemen”.
The cross of manifestations coincided with the announcement made by the parliamentary group of Unidas Podemos-En Comú Podem-Galicia en Común, that they will present a Proposición no de Ley in which they urge the Executive to suspend the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia and Arab Emirates to end the Yemeni conflict.
The Galician spokesman for Podemos, Antón Gómez Reino, who is vice-president of the Foreign Affairs Commission of the Congress of Deputies, informed that in their initiative they will demand that Spain follow the steps of Germany, Italy or Denmark, as well as the one taken by the new US administration presided by Joe Biden to freeze the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. They indicate in particular, that Biden’s decision will affect contracts valued at “billions” and signed by the previous US president Donald Trump.
“A democracy that wants to be normalized cannot sell arms to regimes that violate human rights,” said Gómez Reino. Therefore, suspending the sale of arms to these countries “would dignify and enhance the role of the Spanish State as an international actor that promotes dialogue, multilateralism and democracy,” he said.
The proposal also urges to promote, within the European Union, the implementation of a binding mechanism to strengthen the Common Position on Arms Sales and the establishment of an independent and thorough investigation into the diversion of European arms to the Yemen conflict since its inception in 2015.
It also calls for compliance with the non-legislative proposal approved by Congress in 2020 and which urged the Government to allocate, immediately, an extraordinary allocation for the exceptional humanitarian crisis in Yemen and to increase diplomatic efforts to promote an end to the war in the country.
This proposal was approved last December in the Defense Committee with the support of the PSOE and its government partners and with the abstention of Cs and the votes against of PP and Vox.
