PP, Vox, Junts, and a Podemos MP reject a motion to defend international law against Trump

Eduardo González The plenary session of Congress rejected on Thursday, February 12, a non-binding motion from the Socialist Parliamentary Group "for the defense of international law" against the "new approach" of US President Donald Trump, due to votes against it from the PP, Vox, the Navarrese People's Union (UPN) and a Podemos MP, and seven abstentions from Junts. The vote resulted in 171 votes against, 168 in favor, and seven abstentions, all from the Catalan pro-independence party led by former President of the Generalitat Carles Puigdemont. The vote had to be repeated because the first vote resulted in a tie with 169 votes in favor and 169 against (in addition to the seven abstentions). Ultimately, the votes of a Vox deputy who had not been present for the first vote and of a Podemos MP, Noemí Santana from the Canary Islands, who decided to vote No after having voted Yes the first time, tipped the scales in favor of rejecting the motion. The Podemos MP who ultimately voted against, Noemí Santana, won her current seat on the Sumar list, the minority member of Pedro Sánchez's coalition government, in the July 2023 elections, but in December of that same year she left Yolanda Díaz's party and joined Podemos, within the Mixed Group. The rejected text warned that Public International Law is “a conquest of Humanity, which went from being governed simply by the military imposition of the strongest nations over others to developing a legal system that all countries, large and small, must respect,” and recalled that its “respect and application depends on the sovereign will of States, as there is no central coercive power.” However, the motion lamented that, “for some months now,” there has been “a new approach on the part of the most powerful (State) in the world, which has decided to disregard Public International Law in its actions.” “This has already been openly stated by the President of the United States (Donald Trump), who has affirmed that the only limit to military intervention abroad is ‘his morality,’ and not international law,” it continued. “Therefore, the actions of the United States, which was one of the principal architects of the current international legal order, place us in a new dimension of history on the path that had been embarked upon toward a world based on shared rules,” the non-binding resolution continued. For this reason, the rejected text urged the Government to “continue maintaining as a basic priority of its foreign policy the defense of international law and the values of peace, multilateralism, cooperation between States, dialogue, and collective security on which it is based, currently at risk,” and asked the Executive to continue “its involvement in promoting and fostering the necessary alliances in defense of International Law, denouncing its violation in every case and everywhere.”

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