The “reinterpreted” Treaty of Friendship with France passes its first hurdle in Congress despite renewed opposition from the PP

Eduardo González The People's Party parliamentary group has once again announced its rejection of the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation between Spain and France, despite the "interpretation" agreed upon by the two governments regarding the controversial article that allows members of one party's government to participate in the Council of Ministers of the other. The text was rejected on May 14, 2025, by the plenary session of Congress due to the opposition of the PP, which had filed a constitutional challenge against the Treaty, arguing that one of its articles—the one stipulating 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 on a rotating basis"—is incompatible with the Constitution. In an attempt to salvage the Treaty, the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, and his French counterpart, Jean-Noël Barrot, agreed, through letters exchanged on April 6 and 10, 2026, on “the interpretation of Article 2.4 of the Treaty.” Eleven days after the interpretative agreement, the Council of Ministers again submitted the agreement to the Spanish Parliament (Cortes Generales) under the urgent procedure and authorized Spain's expression of consent to be bound by the aforementioned Treaty. A week later, the Bureau of the Congress of Deputies entrusted the Foreign Affairs Committee with preparing an opinion under the urgent procedure. The text was approved this Wednesday by the Commission with 20 votes in favor and 17 against (including those of the PP and Vox parties), but it must subsequently go to the Senate, where the PP holds an absolute majority. The Treaty can only be ratified when it has the support of both Houses. During the Committee meeting, PSOE MP Pepe Mercadal recalled that the two ministers had signed “an agreement interpreting this article specifically,” which, as he read verbatim, stipulated that “a member of the Government of one of the parties will be invited to the Council of Ministers of the other party” and that “this invitation, when it takes place, will be to participate on the sidelines of said Council of Ministers in a separate meeting.” “In other words, I believe the doubt has been dispelled, and therefore, the arguments of the People's Party for voting against it no longer exist,” Mercadal stated. “This is clearly a positive treaty for our country, members of the People's Party, you should vote in favor,” he concluded. In his response, Ricardo Tarno, of the PP, warned that the text “is exactly the same, not a single comma has been changed; that is to say, they are bringing up something that the House has already rejected.” “The Congress Bureau, not unanimously, but with the dissenting votes of the representatives of the People's Party, has once again admitted this agreement for processing, an agreement that makes no difference to the one rejected on May 14, 2025,” he continued. Therefore, he announced, “we will maintain the same position, because it is the same agreement with which we continue to have the same doubts about the constitutionality of Article 2.4, which establishes the invitation of a French minister to the Council of Ministers every three months.” “If the Government is so certain about this exchange of notes, why didn't it include the exchange of notes as an article of the agreement? If it was so sure, this exchange of notes could have been incorporated as an addendum to the agreement,” he warned. Once the debate is over, the bill will be voted on this Thursday. The government has enough votes to pass it in Congress, but it will then face a vote in the Senate, where the People's Party (PP) holds an absolute majority. The treaty can only be ratified with the support of both houses of Congress. The Odyssey of the Treaty of Friendship The Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation between the Kingdom of Spain and the French Republic was authorized by the Council of Ministers on January 17, 2023, and was signed on January 19, 2023, in Barcelona by the Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, and the President of France, Emmanuel Macron, within the framework of the XXVII Spanish-French Bilateral Summit. This is the first agreement of its kind between the two countries and elevates bilateral relations to the highest possible level, comparable to the relationship Spain has had with Portugal since the Trujillo Summit of October 2021. France has already ratified the text, but Spain has not yet been able to do so due to doubts about its constitutionality. At the end of January 2025, the Council of Ministers agreed to the first submission of the text to the Spanish Parliament (Cortes Generales) under urgent procedure and also authorized Spain's expression of consent to be bound by the aforementioned treaty. However, just one week later, the People's Party (PP) filed a constitutional challenge against the Treaty, and on February 12 of the same year, the Senate plenary session approved the challenge with votes in favor from the PP (which holds an absolute majority in the Upper House), the Navarrese People's Union (UPN), and Vox, and votes against from the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party (PSOE) and its other usual parliamentary partners. A month later, the Constitutional Court accepted the request made by the Lower House. Finally, the Treaty was rejected on May 15, 2025, by the plenary session of the Congress of Deputies due to the votes against it from the People's Party, which insisted on the need for the Constitutional Court to rule on the text before any approval, and the abstentions of Junts and Podemos. Last December, the Constitutional Court chose not to rule on the appeal previously filed by the Senate at the initiative of the PP, considering that the parliamentary 'no' vote prevented the validation of the text.

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