The Diplomat
Izquierda Unida, the party led by the Minister for Consumer Affairs, Alberto Garzón, has called for a demonstration against the NATO Summit to be held in Madrid three days later, together with other left-wing groups, on the 26th.
The call for the march is another step in the opposition that members of the communist sector of the government have been showing in recent weeks against the Atlantic meeting, which will bring together the heads of state and government of the allied countries, including the US president, Joe Biden, on the 29th and 30th.
The president of the government, Pedro Sánchez, tried days ago to play down the criticism of his government partners in the executive, describing it as “testimonial”, but the truth is that the attitude of opposition to the NATO summit continues to grow in this sector, which is causing surprise and concern in some of the participating countries, according to sources who are closely following the preparations for the meeting.
Just yesterday, the secretary general of the Communist Party of Spain (PCE), Enrique Santiago, who is State Secretary for the 2030 Agenda, clearly stated that they do not want the summit to take place and assured that one of the causes of the war in Ukraine is the “permanent expansion” eastwards of the Atlantic Alliance.
The leader of the PCE affirmed that his organisation’s commitment is for peace, and called for participation in the alternative summit, while expressing his rejection of increasing military budgets that are already “more than sufficient”.
According to Santiago, who believes that “wars must be banned” and that “it is possible to ban them”, alliances such as NATO no longer make sense and multilateralism in favour of peace must be strengthened, calling for more support for entities such as the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
The federal leadership of IU and its various organisations, Anticapitalistas and various social collectives have called for participation in the march on the 26th, in the framework of the alternative summit organised by various entities, grouped in a state platform for peace, the weekend before the NATO meeting in the capital, and with which they express their rejection of increased military spending, any kind of war and against the Atlantic Alliance itself.
Among the groups that have been invited to support this mobilisation are Ecologistas en Acción Madrid, Solidaridad Obrera, Desarma Madrid, NATO No Madrid, and the 25S coordinator, among others. All of this under the hashtags ‘#NotNATO26J’ and ‘#OTANNO’.
The federal spokeswoman for IU, Sira Rego, called for participation in the march and said that NATO is an “instrument of war, not of peace”, and its head of international affairs, Jon Rodríguez, proclaimed that the march will “make it clear” that the country and the EU want to be “masters” of their own security policy and “not hand it over to the United States”, because the continent must be “peaceful” and not a “board of confrontation”.
Podemos, whose ministers Ione Belarra and Irene Montero have made no secret of their dissatisfaction with the holding of the summit, assured yesterday that they will not organise any counter-summit to the NATO summit, but that they respect the mobilisation of citizens and agree with its objective, as they are an anti-militarist party, reports Europa Press.
The Podemos sources consulted said that it has not been decided whether they will take part in this march and that it is possible that the party will attend, but it will be limited to intermediate positions, not the main leaders of the party.
