The Diplomat
The leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, yesterday announced his intention to offer Pedro Sánchez’s government a proposal for an agreement on NATO and state security, with less than two months to go before the Alliance’s summit in Madrid, scheduled for 29 and 30 June.
Feijóo’s initiative has been interpreted in political circles as a desire to highlight the manifest lack of support for NATO that the communist sector of the Executive, formed by Unidas Podemos, does not hide.
At an event organised by the PP in Madrid’s Berlin Park, to commemorate Europe Day and the LXXII anniversary of the Schuman Declaration, Feijóo justified his offer to the Government in the need to show the allies “a clear, serious and open position of the country”, just a few weeks before they attend the NATO Summit, which will coincide with the 40th anniversary of Spain’s entry into the organisation.
Accompanied by the Deputy Secretary for Institutional Affairs and MEP, Esteban González Pons, and the PP spokesperson in the European Parliament, Dolors Montserrat, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, pointed out that the threats to the European way of life “exist and are real”, which is why the Union must take measures “to defend its integrity” and do so “autonomously and jointly”.
In this vein, he advocated highlighting the relevance of the Atlantic link and the relationship between Europe and North America for security and for guaranteeing the European way of life. He went on to stress that in Spain there are “partisan interests” that lead some to disassociate themselves from support for NATO, in a clear reference to Unidas Podemos, despite the fact that this party governs in coalition with the PSOE.
“In the face of those who discredit NATO, we defend its essential role in our defence and security”, the PP leader emphasised, who also reminded the Government that it can count on his party “for the defence and security of the State”.
“I can already tell you that we will submit to the Government a proposal for an agreement on NATO and our State security in order to once again strengthen our positions and express a clear, serious and open position as a country before our partners”, he announced.
After assuring that a NATO that is “more capable and better prepared is the best defence that the EU and the Spanish nation can have”, Feijóo stressed that Europe “should not be the cause of division between parties” but that, on the contrary, European policy is and should be “a state policy”.
According to the leader of the Popular Party, the parties of State must stand by the citizens and “defend this European Union and this Atlanticism that have given us such good results for decades and that are the guarantors of our security, our freedoms and our democratic system in the face of populists and nationalists who deny the common European project, and who tell us that the citizens want less Europe when reality shows us that there is an increasingly strong Europeanism”.
