The Diplomat
Unidas Podemos has formally decided that it will vote against the agreement reached with the United States to increase the number of US destroyers at the Rota (Cadiz) base from four to six when it reaches Congress, according to sources from the parliamentary group quoted by Europa Press.
Last week, Unidas Podemos already announced that they did not like the sealed pact and said that they were not going to support it, although they had not yet decided how they would vote, because they had a “different” position to that of the PSOE, as the president of the parliamentary group and leader of En Comú Podem, Jaume Asens, said.
However, this debate has already taken place within the leadership and the MPs, who have decided to oppose it and vote against it. In this way, they join ERC, which has also announced that it will not support the agreement reached between the head of the Spanish government, Pedro Sánchez, and the US president, Joe Biden.
“We don’t like this pact, it means more military, more American destroyers and more dependence and submission to the United States”, said Asens last week.
The leader of Izquierda Unida and Minister for Consumer Affairs, Alberto Garzón, also expressed his opposition to the agreement and warned the Socialists that the left will be making a “very serious mistake” if it adopts the “reactionary” and “conservative” security model of the right based on “more arms and tanks”, given that the problems of the social majority will not be solved with more military budgets.
Yesterday, the Minister for Social Rights and leader of Podemos, Ione Belarra, commented on the General Budgets, and in allusion to her coalition partner, the PSOE, that the country’s “urgent needs” do not include “doubling military spending”, which in her opinion are already at “record” levels, because “Spain is not at war” but rather protecting itself from the socio-economic effects of the conflict in Ukraine.
He also argued that citizens “do not need” to buy “bombs or fighter planes” because of “the demands of a foreign power”, in reference to the United States.
And, specifically, on the agreement to increase the US military presence in Rota, he said that he did not think it was “a pertinent decision”, given that, in his opinion, what Europe needs is “more strategic autonomy” and “not to depend on external subjects”.
The Minister of Defence, Margarita Robles, in response to Belarra’s criticism, recommended that her cabinet colleague ask the Second Vice-President of the Government, Yolanda Díaz, “to see if she says in Ferrol that the F-110 frigates, which are creating many jobs, should stop being built there”.
Díaz replied in turn to Robles, assuring that the increase in military spending planned by the PSOE has no impact on Navantia’s activity in Ferrol, but that most of it will go to the acquisition of new weapons and troop protection services.
“The agreement to propose a billion euros more for Defence has nothing to do, and I am sorry to say, with the workload for my region of Ferrol, nor of Cadiz, and I am sorry to say,” said the Vice-President, who added that this increase in credit to the military area “is for two concepts, which is for ordinary activity and completely unrelated to Navantia and some 650 million in armaments for Spanish troops”.
The spokesman for the Federal Executive Committee of the PSOE, Felipe Sicilia, did not want to reply to Belarra and assured that “there is no plan B” to approve the General State Budget (PGE). In any case, he said he was convinced that they would get them through, despite the discrepancies with their coalition partner, Unidas Podemos, over the increase in defence spending.
