Luis Ayllón
The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has decided to become the main driving force behind the recognition of the Palestinian state by the European countries, and to this end he has scheduled a series of contacts over the next two weeks with his European colleagues whom he considers most likely to take the step.
The head of the Spanish government will travel to Warsaw on Thursday to attend the dinner organised by the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, who has been maintaining contacts in recent months with European leaders to discuss the European Union’s strategic agenda. There, Sánchez will meet other EU leaders, including the Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, and will have the opportunity to sound out those who are willing to recognise the Palestinian state.
In the case of Poland, it will not be necessary for Sánchez to try to convince the government, because it is one of the EU countries that already recognise Palestine as a state, because they did so before joining the Community Club, when they were part of the Soviet orbit.
It will be Friday, the 12th, when the President of the Government will begin to try to gain support for what he has set as one of his main foreign policy objectives, especially since the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza broke out on 7 October, following the terrorist group’s attack on Israeli soil.
On Friday, as the minister spokesperson, Pilar Alegría, announced yesterday at the end of the Council of Ministers, he is due to meet the Prime Minister, Jonas Gahr Store, in Noruega. As Alegría stressed, this is a country that “has a long history of mediation and conflict management in the region, with major milestones such as the Oslo Accords following the peace conference in Madrid in 1991”.
Afterwards, the President of the Government will travel to Ireland, where he will meet with the new Prime Minister, Simon Harris, to find out whether he maintains the position of his predecessor, Leo Varadkar, who, together with Sánchez and the Prime Ministers of Malta, Robert Abela, and Slovenia, Robert Golob, signed a declaration on 22 March in which they undertook to recognise Palestine when “the right circumstances arise”.
Back in Madrid, Sánchez will receive a visit from the new head of the Portuguese government, Luis Montenegro, who has decided to make his first official visit to Spain and make his first contact with the head of the Spanish government, after taking office last week. Montenegro has so far made no statement on the matter, and Sánchez will try to get him to join the initiative.
The Prime Minister will continue his round of contacts in Slovenia, where he will meet with his colleague Robert Golob, and later in Brussels, where he plans to meet, before the European Council on 17 and 18 April, with the Belgian Prime Minister, Alexander de Croo, who has aligned himself with Sánchez on the Palestinian issue.
Belgium currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU, and de Croo travelled with Sánchez to Israel, Palestine and Egypt at the end of November, on the prime minister’s first tour of the region after the new escalation in Gaza, which caused the Israeli authorities’ displeasure.
The Prime Minister’s tour will follow last week’s visits to Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, countries with a prominent role in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
Yesterday, Pilar Alegría said that the government has the “clear objective” of promoting recognition of the Palestinian state at a time when “the conflict is entering a decisive phase” and when the United Nations is discussing accepting Palestine as a full member. The government believes that this could contribute to ‘halting the humanitarian disaster that is occurring in Gaza’ and to the earliest possible start of a political peace process that will lead to the materialisation of a two-state solution.
Sánchez has set himself the goal of recognising Palestine before July, but he wants to take the step together with other European countries, said the government spokeswoman, who, however, did not rule out that Spain could do so alone. “We are a sovereign country”, she said. The two main EU countries, Germany and France, have so far been reluctant to take the step.
Recognition would take place by decision of the Council of Ministers, although the president would then go to Congress to explain the decision, according to the government so far.
As for whether Sánchez plans to seek an agreement with the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the spokeswoman said that this would be positive, but considers it “an absolute unreality” in light of the opposition leader’s “absolute silence” on the matter and the “hesitations” of the PP spokespeople. And she took the opportunity to stress that the only person who has expressed a “very clear position” has been former President José María Aznar, who rejected the existence of a Palestinian state.
She also recalled that, in its electoral programme, the PP mentions the “need” to recognise the Palestinian state, although in the light of what “we are seeing and hearing in the last few days” it seems that “they have changed their position completely”, Alegría said.
