Spain will defend a “triple transition: green, digital, and social” at the European Council, including “the housing crisis”

Eduardo González The Spanish government will defend a "triple transition: green, digital, and social" at the European Council on October 23 and 24 to help "strengthen European competitiveness" and include the issue of housing in Europe, "a true social crisis" that requires "European measures and funding to address them." This was announced Tuesday in Luxembourg by the State Secretary for the European Union, Fernando Sampedro Marín, upon his arrival at the General Affairs Council meeting, which will address issues such as the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF) 2028-2034, the simplification legislative packages, and the preparations for the October European Council, among other matters. The provisional agenda for the European Council, to be held in Brussels and attended by Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, includes Ukraine, the Middle East, European defense and security, competitiveness and the twin transition, housing, and migration. According to Sampedro, Spain will advocate at the European Council "a 360-degree approach, both geographical and thematic," on security and defense issues, because "southern Europe also has to face other types of threats that have more to do with hybrid threats, cybersecurity, and climate catastrophes, and this requires investing in other types of capabilities in full alignment and complementarity with NATO." He also continued, Spain will advocate "a firm commitment to the triple transition: green, digital, and social, to strengthen European competitiveness," which requires maintaining "the level of ambition in climate targets and maintaining that ambition of reducing emissions by 90% by 2040." “Another point on the European Council agenda is housing,” explained the State Secretary. “For Spain, this triple transition—green and digital—must also be social,” and therefore, the Government welcomes the fact that “housing policies will feature prominently in this European Council and on the agenda of this European Commission, which for the first time has a commissioner appointed to work on these policies, to address what we consider to be a true housing crisis in Europe, a true social crisis, which requires measures also to be taken at the European level and funding to address them.” Regarding migration, Spain will call for the “full implementation of the Asylum and Migration Pact, which was a historic agreement of the 2023 Spanish presidency and which must also be developed in its external dimension,” explained Sampedro. According to the State Secretary, “The West and the entire European Union are experiencing a demographic winter, which makes migration very important for our growth.” "In fact, if we did nothing about it, we would be talking about a situation of much lower economic growth in a few years, which would not allow us to sustain our pension and social security systems," so Spain will go to Brussels with "a positive narrative about the role that migration plays in the European Union and in maintaining our welfare state, of course accompanied by the necessary integration policies." Languages On the other hand, Sampedro downplayed the fact that the official status of Catalan, Basque, and Galician are not on the agenda of the General Affairs Council. "This is an issue that does not always have to be on the agenda," he declared. "We will not cease in its defense and we hope to make progress," the State Secretary stated, adding that there is no need to formally bring this issue back to the agenda of the General Affairs Council "as soon as it is confirmed, and we are optimistic about this, that there is unanimity in COREPER (the Committee of Permanent Representatives of the EU, the body that coordinates and prepares the work of six EU Council formations), and it could be included on the agenda of any other European Council, hopefully very soon."

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