<h6><strong>Eduardo González</strong></h6> <h4><strong>Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares assured this Wednesday that the Royal Decree Law that will legally consolidate the arms embargo on Israel, included in the Spanish government's nine measures to stop "the genocide in Gaza," will be completed "in a matter of days."</strong></h4> "It is a complex decree that we want to respond to the political mandate that the Prime Minister expressed to all Spaniards regarding this embargo, and therefore, we are analyzing it to ensure that no aspect is left out," Albares told the press in Cairo, where he is accompanying the King and Queen on their first state visit to Egypt. On September 8, Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez announced measures to halt Israel's "genocide" in Gaza, including the "urgent" adoption of a Royal Decree-Law legally consolidating the arms embargo on Israel, as well as banning transit through Spanish ports for all ships carrying fuel destined for the Israeli Armed Forces and denying entry to Spanish airspace to all aircraft transporting defense material destined for Israel. "I believe it's a matter of days before it's lifted," the minister continued. "There is a part of that embargo that we have already been implementing since October 7. For example, no new export licenses for arms sales to Israel are being granted, nor are stopovers for ships carrying weapons with a final destination in Israel permitted," he stated. According to Albares, "all the foreign ministers in the region" always tell him "the same thing: that we continue as we have been doing up to now, and that this is important for peace and stability in the Middle East." "But also, and this is what they tell me, it is important to save the honor and dignity of Europe, which is currently being saved," he added. "They ask us to continue calling things by their name, to continue, as we have done up to now, to have both clarity and courage to name the atrocities and the massacre being committed in Gaza, to continue defending peace, international law, and human rights, to not resign ourselves, as others do out of fatigue, out of cynicism, to thinking that the only way the peoples of the Middle East can relate to each other is through violence, and to continue leading Europe, as we have done up to now," he added. “I always encourage my European colleagues to describe things accurately and not be afraid to call things by their name so that the subsequent actions are commensurate with the seriousness of the situation,” Albares stated. “Of course, both the EU High Representative, Kaja Kallas, and (European Commission President) Ursula von der Leyen have our full support for the measures they have proposed at the European level, which we welcome and will support,” he continued. “They are not enough; we believe we must go further, but they are certainly welcome,” he stated.
