<h6><strong>Eduardo González</strong></h6> <h4><strong>The Congress' Foreign Affairs Committee approved its opinion on the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation between Spain and France on Tuesday after the People's Party (PP) chose to abstain rather than vote against, pending the Constitutional Court's ruling on the text.</strong></h4> The Commission's opinion was passed by a narrow margin of 18 votes in favor (almost all from the PSOE), three against (Vox), and 16 abstentions (14 from the PP), after which the Treaty could be voted on in Congress before the end of May. However, the future of this text will depend on the decision of the Constitutional Court, which has already warned that any subsequent decision by the Senate will depend on its ruling. The Treaty can only be ratified when it has the support of both chambers. The "Barcelona Treaty," signed on January 19, 2023, in Barcelona by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, within the framework of the 27th Spanish-French Bilateral Summit, is the first of its kind between the two countries and elevates bilateral relations to the highest possible level, comparable to that already enjoyed by Spain and Portugal since the Trujillo Summit in October 2021. France has already ratified the text, but Spain has not yet been able to take that step, precisely because of doubts about its constitutionality. At the end of January of this year, the Council of Ministers agreed to submit the text to the Cortes Generales as an emergency measure and authorized Spain to express its consent to be bound by the aforementioned treaty. However, just a week later, the PP filed a constitutional appeal against the Treaty, arguing that one of its articles, which stipulates that "a member of the Government of one of the Parties shall be invited to the Council of Ministers of the other Party, at least once every three months and in rotation," is incompatible with the Constitution. On February 12, the Senate plenary approved the constitutional appeal against the Treaty, with the favorable votes of the PP (which holds an absolute majority in the Upper House), UPN, and Vox, and the dissenting votes of the PSOE and the rest of its usual parliamentary partners. Likewise, the Constitutional Court accepted the request made by the Lower House in March. The Socialist Group has asserted, contrary to the PP's arguments, that the Constitution does not expressly prohibit the presence of non-government members in the Council of Ministers and recalled that the presence of foreign representatives at government meetings in other European countries is not uncommon, and that Pedro Sánchez himself has even attended meetings of the German government. <h5><strong>The debate</strong></h5> During Tuesday's debate at the Commission, Pepe Mercadal of the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party) recalled that France is one of Spain's "closest allies," both as a border country and a member of the European Union. He stated that the Treaty, which "has received considerable media attention because the right wing has wanted it to," is "positive for Spain, for Spain's relationship with our neighbor and ally within the EU, and for the regions that share a border with France." "There has been a lot of media attention about a minister occasionally attending the Council of Ministers, but there hasn't been much talk about the fact that one of our ministers will also attend their Council of Ministers," he continued. Furthermore, he added, the text includes other mechanisms, "such as annual bilateral summits, several working groups at the ministerial level, a Defense Council with the participation of the foreign and defense ministers of both countries, and, very importantly for the Spanish autonomous communities along the border, a consultative border cooperation committee." In his response, the PP spokesperson on the Commission, Carlos Floriano, stated that “the fact that we have excellent relations with our neighbor and with a country as important as the French Republic has nothing to do with things being done well.” According to Floriano, the debate over the approval of the Treaty is not, legally, “a peaceful issue,” and “to such an extent that the Government had to promote an ad hoc reform of the 1997 Government Law so that this treaty could be signed.” “It is not a trivial issue, it is not an issue raised by the right, because it is raised by the right, the left, or the center; it is a legally unpeaceful issue, and even for the Government it has not been,” he insisted. According to the PP spokesperson, the speech the day before by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, before the same committee was "so absolutely sectarian, so absolutely contrary to the truth, and so completely directed against the position of the Popular Parliamentary Group, that it led us to say no to this agreement," but "we are not here for personal revenge or to get angry or to lose our tempers; we are here to seek what we believe is best for the general interest." "And in that sense of seeking what is best for the general interest, we will abstain while we await the Constitutional Court's ruling on this issue. We will abstain for the general interest and despite the Minister's inappropriate intervention yesterday in this Foreign Affairs committee," he added. During his appearance on Monday before the Congress' Foreign Affairs Committee, Albares accused the PP of becoming "an anti-French party" with its decision to go to the Constitutional Court. "What's wrong with you and France? Why are you boycotting the first Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation between Spain and France?" the minister asked. "Tomorrow (today), ladies and gentlemen of the Popular Party, you can amend it. To err is human. Be the state opposition. There are times to be Spain. Tomorrow is one of them with this treaty," he added.
