The Diplomat
The PP will bring a motion to the plenary session of the Congress to ask the House again to pronounce on the Government’s position on Western Sahara and ask it to reverse its support for Morocco’s proposed autonomy plan for the former Spanish colony.
This is one of the specific questions that have been included in the motion resulting from the interpellation that the PP submitted last week to the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, in relation to the foreign policy of the Executive.
The text presented by the ‘populares’, to which Europa Press had access, consists of eight points which, in all probability, will be voted on separately and not as a whole in order to try to get the greatest possible support among the MPs.
The revision of the position on Western Sahara has already caused the PSOE several defeats in Congress, as neither Sumar nor its nationalist and pro-independence parliamentary allies accept it. Specifically, the PP wants Congress to urge ‘the recovery of Spain’s historic position of active neutrality with respect to the Western Sahara dispute, thus rejecting and leaving without effect the unilateral position adopted by the President of the Government in March 2022′.
The ‘populares’ refer to Sánchez’s letter to King Mohamed VI in which he maintains that the autonomy plan is ‘the most serious, credible and realistic basis’ for resolving the conflict and recall in the explanatory statement that in the change of position ‘neither the Council of Ministers nor the Congress was taken into account’.
Likewise, and in line with the new stage in the relationship that opened this position and the joint declaration that was agreed in April 2022, they want to urge the Executive to ‘make public the timetable agreed with Morocco in which the date for the reopening of the commercial customs in Melilla and the opening of the one in Ceuta is established’.
Anti-missile systems for Ukraine
On the other hand, the People’s Party Group also wants the House to call on the Government to fulfil ‘the commitment made to NATO to invest in defence to reach 2% of GDP by 2030’, as well as to reiterate ‘the condemnation of the Russian invasion in Ukraine’ and to send ‘the military aid requested in agreement with our EU allies, especially Patriot anti-missile defence systems, artillery ammunition and Leopard tanks’.
They also argue that Congress should reaffirm its position ‘on the two-state solution aimed at ending the conflict in the Middle East, adopted in the non-legislative proposal of 18 November 2014’. This proposal, approved by a large majority with the support of both the PP and the PSOE, encouraged the government to recognise the Palestinian state.
Likewise, the PP asks the Government to make known ‘the negotiating position’ it has ‘with the United Kingdom regarding Gibraltar, in the framework of negotiations with the European Commission, as a consequence of Brexit’, in reference to the agreement being negotiated that will regulate the Rock’s relations with the EU-27.
Finally, if the PP motion is successful, Congress will also call on the Executive to condemn ‘the violations committed against human rights, democracy, freedom and the rule of law by dictatorships in Latin America, especially in Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua’.
And in line with this point, it will demand in all international forums ‘the holding of free and fair elections in Venezuela, with the presence of international observers and conditioning the review of sanctions in the framework of the EU that have been carried out in these terms’.
