The Diplomat
The MPs of Unidas Podemos and PSOE yesterday voted differently on fourteen of the fifteen points of a broad motion on foreign policy presented by the Popular parliamentary group to highlight the division between the two partners of the coalition Executive on foreign policy and defense.
The vote was carried out in the Plenary of the Congress point by point at the request of the Popular Party, in order to put on record the internal differences in the coalition Government.
The biggest discrepancies were related to NATO and military support to Ukraine. With the PSOE voting in favor and Unidas Podemos voting against, the Plenary of Congress expressed its support for the results of the NATO Summit and urged the Government to guarantee adequate funding for national defense “reaching 2% of GDP” before 2030.
Apart from this, Unidas Podemos opposed to further increasing military support to Ukraine so that “it has the necessary capabilities to repel aggression”. The purple formation abstained on two other points on Ukraine, one in favor of Ukraine’s candidacy to the EU and another point praising the role of the Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelenski, and his defense of the country’s independence and integrity.
Likewise, Unidas Podemos voted in favor and the PSOE against that Spain and Algeria recompose their political, economic and commercial relationship recovering the position of active neutrality regarding the future of Western Sahara.
The motion is a consequence of the interpellation that the Foreign Affairs spokeswoman of the PP, Valentina Martinez, addressed last week to the head of the branch, Jose Manuel Albares. During the debate between the two, the ‘popular’ stressed to the minister that “improvisation and amateurism” leave Spain in its weakest foreign position and he reproached him for the lack of “sense of State” with which, in his opinion, the first opposition party acts in foreign policy.
