Eduardo González/Luis Ayllón
Sumar, the political party of the acting vice-president Yolanda Diaz, warned yesterday the acting president of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, that he will condition the support to his investiture to Spain recognizing the Palestinian State “unconditionally, unilaterally and without waiting for a previous consensus within the European Union”. For this, the PSOE would be forced to recover an idea that was, precisely, suppressed in its electoral program of the past elections of July 23.
“We believe that the time has come for Spain to recognize the Palestinian State unilaterally, unconditionally and urgently, as an essential contribution to the resolution of the conflict and to peace”, declared the spokesman of Sumar, Ernest Urtasun, during a press conference at the party’s headquarters together with the parliamentary spokesman, Marta Lois.
Urtasun also recalled that the Congress supported in 2014 the recognition of the Palestinian State and that the only thing missing is for the Government to make it a reality. Therefore, he said, “Spain can, as a country, recognize the Palestinian State without waiting for the European Union, and it must do so now”. This recognition, he continued, must be “unconditional, unilateral and without waiting for a prior consensus within the European Union”.
“We have already told the PSOE that this should appear clearly and unequivocally in the next government agreement in order to make a debt that we Spaniards also have with the Palestinians to make a key contribution to peace,” Urtasun continued. “We want it to be one of the first measures to be taken by the next coalition government and that is why it must be in the government agreement,” he insisted.
Sumar’s request is presented as an indispensable condition to contribute its 31 votes in Congress to Sánchez’s investiture. In any case, Sumar sources quoted by the agency Europa Press assured yesterday that the recognition of Palestine was already part of its programmatic proposals before the Hamas attacks against the civilian population of Israel and the military offensive launched by the government of Benjamin Netanyahu against the Palestinian civilian population of the Gaza Strip. In any case, the PSOE has repeatedly rejected the inclusion of this point in the program of the coalition government and socialist sources have warned that, at this moment, the priority of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is “to press for peace” in the region as a whole.
A stalled issue since 2014
In November 2014, the Congress approved a Proposition not of Law to authorize the Government to recognize the Palestinian State. However, that text, agreed by PP (which then controlled the Government under the presidency of Mariano Rajoy) and PSOE, eluded any time reference for this step by Spain, linked the recognition to the prior occurrence of “a negotiation process” between Israelis and Palestinians and urged the Government to “seek a coordinated action, in concert with the International Community, and in particular with the EU, taking fully into account the legitimate concerns, interests and aspirations of the State of Israel”.
Since then there has been no progress. Last April, the Minister of Foreign Affairs (now acting), José Manuel Albares, assured his Palestinian colleague, Riyad al-Maliki, in Madrid, that the Government was looking for the appropriate moment to carry out this recognition, but that it wanted to do it together with other countries of the European Union. Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, Malta, Cyprus and Sweden have already recognized the Palestinian state, although all of them, except Sweden, did so before joining the European Union.
On the other hand, the electoral program of the PSOE for the last elections of July 23 did not include any reference to the recognition of the Palestinian State, something that did appear in the proposals of Pedro Sánchez for the 2019 elections. In the Socialist program of four years ago, it was stated, textually: “We will promote the recognition of the Palestinian State by the Member States of the European Union”. And it added: “We will work on the two-state solution – Israel and Palestine – based on the 1967 borders and with the shared capital of Jerusalem”. The proposal was aligned with the text approved in November 2014.
The Spanish government is aware of the repercussions that such a decision could have on relations with Israel, which even recalled its ambassador in Stockholm for consultations when Sweden took the step. In any case, the PSOE, in its 23J election program, diluted its promises of four years ago with a more ambiguous text: “In the Middle East, we will continue to promote and support efforts aimed at resuming peace talks, necessary to advance in the two-state solution, which will allow Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace and security, freedom and democracy. We are committed to a serious and sincere dialogue that will lead to a viable and just solution to the conflict and guarantee a stable and lasting peace in the region”.
The PP’s electoral program for the 23J also did not allude to the recognition of the Palestinian state and limited itself to “working for the resolution of conflicts, especially the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, through a two-state solution”. On the other hand, Sumar committed itself in the last elections to promote “effective policies to advance towards the recognition of the Palestinian State, always taking into consideration the will of the Palestinian civil society”, and it bet on “the strict compliance with international law in Palestine to put an end to the occupation and the apartheid practices suffered by its populations”.
The two States
The two-state solution has become Spain’s usual argument with regard to the Middle East. In this regard, Pedro Sánchez declared yesterday in Tirana, during the opening session of the Berlin Process Leaders’ Summit, that “the only way to definitively resolve the conflict is the recognition of the two States, so that they can coexist in peace and security”.
This text is perfectly in line with the “common position” agreed last Sunday by the European Council, in which the 27 EU leaders expressed their determination to “find a lasting and sustainable peace based on a two-state solution by revitalizing efforts in the framework of the Middle East peace process”. The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, has called for a videoconference meeting of European leaders today to “set out a common position and a unified and clear line of action” for the EU.
