The Diplomat
The Foreign Affairs Committee of the Congress yesterday approved a non-legislative motion agreed by the PP and the PSOE in support of NATO’s work and the role of Spain within the Alliance, with the votes against of Podemos, ERC and EH Bildu and the abstention of Vox.
The motion, presented by the PP and approved with 23 votes in favor, six against and five abstentions, urges the Government to “recognize the fundamental contribution that NATO has made since its creation in 1949 in defense of democratic values and the values of the West”, to “celebrate the 40th anniversary of Spain’s entry into NATO and the 25th anniversary of the Madrid Summit” and to “recognize the role of Spain in all these decades since its incorporation and to pay due tribute to all the Spanish victims who died in the line of duty in the different NATO missions in which our nationals have died”.
Likewise, it asks the Government to emphasize “the role of Spain in NATO, particularly its Headquarters of the Alliance command structure, CAOC Torrejón”, and to incorporate “within the new NATO defense concept the active collaboration of the Alliance with other democratic nations, both in our continent and in Latin America and the Pacific basin”.
Apart from this, the motion includes an amendment of the PSOE, agreed with the PP, to emphasize, within the definition of NATO’s area of commitment, “the unrenounceable defense of the principles of democracy, the rule of law and human rights”. Vox tried to include another amendment to explicitly mention Ceuta and Melilla in the NATO Treaty, in order to guarantee the protection of the two Autonomous Cities, but the proposal failed. During the debate, Zaida Cantera, of the PSOE, recalled that the Alliance Treaty does not mention other territories either, such as the French islands or Gibraltar.
Proposal on Ukraine
On the other hand, the Foreign Affairs Committee approved yesterday, with the abstentions of Bildu and ERC, another non-legislative proposal presented by the PSOE in which the Government is urged to “demand that the Russian Federation puts an immediate end to the hostilities, to withdraw its troops to the interior of its internationally recognized borders and to respect the sovereignty of the State of Ukraine” and to “demand the Government of the Russian Federation to revoke the recognition of the independence of the territories that are part of another sovereign nation, Ukraine” (this point, related to the separatist regions of Donetsk and Lugansk, was the reason for the abstention of the two pro-independence groups).
The motion also asks the Executive to demand to Russia “the return to the diplomatic way and the search for an agreement within the absolute respect for international legality” and to promote “the investigation in the International Courts of all alleged violations, war crimes, human rights abuses or violations of international humanitarian law that Russia may have committed in Ukraine, as well as to demand the Russian Federation the immediate and strict compliance with international humanitarian law”.
The proposal also urges the Government to “recognize the role of Spain in the different security and defense missions of which it is part, as well as to promote even more if possible, the European Peace Support Fund” (this point received six votes against because of its mention of the fund, which has been used to finance the sending of offensive weapons to Ukraine by EU States, including Spain) and to “denounce and condemn the repression exercised against the civilian population in Russia in the exercise of their public freedoms that involve a violation of their right to peaceful demonstration, freedom of the press, freedom of expression and an attack on human rights in the Russian Federation”.
Finally, the motion asks the Executive to make “all those diplomatic efforts to urge the immediate release of all those detained as a result of peaceful demonstrations in favor of peace and freedom” and to continue “moving forward in the planning and implementation for the reception of refugees displaced from Ukraine, with comprehensive protection measures, in coordination with Autonomous Communities and Local Entities”.
