Eduardo González
The frequent declarations of the Second Vice President of the Government, Pablo Iglesias, regarding foreign policy and the quality of democracy in Spain hovered yesterday over the appearance of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Arancha González Laya, before the Congressional Foreign Affairs Committee to present the broad outlines of the Government’s Foreign Action Strategy.
González Laya opened her appearance, called at her own request, with a brief twenty-minute presentation on the new Foreign Action Strategy 2021-24, approved on January 26th by the Council of Ministers for its submission to Parliament and which, after its passage through Parliament -where it will not be submitted to a vote-, will return to the Council of Ministers for its approval, following a report by the Foreign Policy Council.
During her speech, the Minister reiterated the idea that foreign action must be based on the “strengths and singularities” and on the defense of the interests of Spain, a country that “aspires to play a more relevant role in the international arena” and to assume a leading role that serves to project abroad “the values and principles” of freedom, peace, equality, solidarity, justice, diversity, democracy and sustainability, “values and principles on which our foreign policy must be based”.
Therefore, in this “changing world” characterized by the “questioning of multilateralism”, the Strategy is based on “four global axes” -the promotion of human rights, the commitment to an integrated and inclusive economy, the defense of a more sustainable planet and “a determined will to contribute to the improvement of global governance mechanisms” – and on “four major guiding principles” – more Europe, better multilateralism, strategic bilateralism and commitment to solidarity – which oblige us to “align the use of our means and instruments to the maximum in accordance with the priorities defined”.
Regarding this last point, she specified that “an essential element included in the Strategy is the articulation of a modern, agile and citizen-oriented foreign service“, including the approval of “a new Regulation of the Diplomatic Career”. Likewise, “the digitalization of consular and diplomatic services” will be promoted to “facilitate the interaction of citizens with the administration and will simplify formalities and procedures” and, in this sense, “an electronic office will be created where citizens will be able to identify themselves digitally and carry out formalities without the need to go to the consulates in person”, she added.
In the first round of replies, the Minister highlighted “the results of foreign policy in 2020, concrete results for Spain and in which Spain played a key role”, such as the Donors’ Conference for Venezuelan refugees, the European Recovery Fund (whose “embryo, as we know it, was a Spanish proposal later taken up by the Spanish government), and the European Union’s “European Recovery Fund”, was a Spanish proposal later taken up by the Franco-German proposal and by the Community proposal”) and the approval at the UN General Assembly of the resolution on women and girls before the COVID-19, “at the request and encouragement of our country”, in addition to the agreement with the United Kingdom on Gibraltar, a product of “the great work of the Spanish Foreign Affairs family”.
The shadow of Pablo Iglesias
During the debate, the PP spokeswoman, María Valentina Martínez Ferro, described as “shameful” that yesterday’s was the first appearance of the minister before this Commission since May 2020, despite the fact that “the groups have requested her more than 40 times to give explanations on different topics”, and regretted that the Strategy is a “good exercise in propaganda rhetoric from the Redondo factory” that is “more based on the 2030 Agenda and the SDGs than a strategy for Spain” at a time when the country’s external image is “hyper-deteriorated”. She also denounced that it is very difficult to develop an adequate foreign policy when “there are partners in the government who question the constitutional order and the international order”.
For his part, Iván Espinosa de los Monteros, of Vox, affirmed that in the foreign action strategies of countries of “our environment”, such as the United Kingdom and France (which he read in English and French), “the top priorities are not feminism, diversity or equality, but defending the interests of these countries in the world and promoting values, which in the case of Spain, are Spanishness, culture and language”. Likewise, he also denounced that “in this Government there are people who wish ill of Spain, with a Vice President of Government who, in collusion with Russia, is dedicated to discredit our democracy”, and recalled that Spanish diplomats have already warned of the “damage” that Iglesias does to the external image of Spain.
The figure of Pablo Iglesias was also mentioned by Marta Martín Llaguno, of Ciudadanos, who stated that the “problem within the Government” is the presence of members who “systematically boycott the foreign policy of this country”. For this reason, she asked the Minister, when she speaks of “unity of action” in foreign policy, to remember that in her Government there is “a colleague who is dedicated to going around the world saying that this is not a democracy and that people are being poisoned”. The minister did not make any allusion to this matter in her replies to the parliamentary groups.
Among the opposition to the left of the PSOE, both ERC and Junts and Bildu and even Unidas Podemos, a partner of the Government, there was agreement in criticizing the “inconsistency” between the commitment of the Foreign Action Strategy with human rights and the recent imprisonment of the rapper Pablo Hasél, sentenced to nine months in prison for glorification of terrorism and insult to the Crown. In this regard, the spokesman for Unidas Podemos, Gerardo Pisarello, stated that this situation could have been avoided if a proposal “to repeal laws incompatible with the exercise of freedom of expression” had been promoted in Congress. In response to these accusations, the Socialist Héctor Gómez affirmed that Spain is a social and democratic state under the rule of law, which respects judicial independence and in which “there are no political prisoners”.
