The Diplomat
Senior members of the federal leadership of Izquierda Unida and leaders of the party, including the State Secretary for the 2030 Agenda and leader of the Communist Party of Spain, Enrique Santiago, will be present at the demonstration called for today in the centre of Madrid against the NATO Summit.
In addition to Enrique Santiago, IU federal spokesperson Sira Rego, members of Congress Miguel Ángel Bustamante and Roser Maestro and MEP Manu Pineda, as well as heads of IU federations across the country, are expected to attend.
However, Podemos, which, together with IU, forms the coalition Unidas Podemos, currently in government with the PSOE, is trying to keep a lower profile in the rejection of the Alliance Summit, which opens tomorrow in Madrid. Thus, from the purple formation they assure that there will not be any minister or any of their first swords in the march, although it is foreseeable that some intermediate position of the party will attend.
In any case, Podemos assures that, although there will be no leading representatives of the party at the demonstration so as not to generate controversy in the coalition, they share its anti-militarist spirit.
More belligerent are the PCE, which is part of IU, and whose leader, Enrique Santiago insisted yesterday in calling for the promotion of “all kinds of initiatives” that “put an end to war and military alliances as soon as possible” so that society can devote its resources to “alleviating the needs of the people”.
In view of today’s demonstration, the State Secretary for the 2030 Agenda, underlined his party’s support for the dissolution of military alliances in favour of peace, which he described as “essential” for the government to be able to carry out its task of helping workers.
This Sunday’s march, which will run between Atocha and Plaza de España, called by the state platform “NATO, no” is the culmination of the counter-summit against the Atlantic Alliance that took place yesterday in Madrid. The demonstration will take place under the central slogan: ‘No to war, no to NATO and for peace’. In addition, there will be two other prominent slogans inside the march, such as: ‘No to militarist budgets. We won’t pay for your wars’ and ‘No (military) bases’.
At the end of the demonstration, a manifesto will be read out calling for the dissolution of the organisation, which will be signed by the organising organisations, which are: Ecologistas en Acción Madrid, Marea Ciudadana, Solidaridad Obrera, Desarma Madrid, NATO No Madrid, la coordinadora 25S, CCOO, ‘Fridays for Future’, ‘Transform Europe’, Greenpeace, the International Federation of Women, the Sao Paulo Forum, ‘Rebellion or Extinction’, the Polisario Front, the World Peace Council, the European Social Forum of social and trade union forces, the Women’s International Democratic Federation and the Rosa Luxemburg Federation, among others.
