Sánchez travels to Paris this week after the PP’s umpteenth block on the Treaty of Friendship with France

Eduardo González The Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, will travel to Paris this week to participate in the meeting of the Coalition of Volunteers and attend the military parade for the French National Day. The visit comes just days after the Senate, again at the behest of the People's Party (PP), referred the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation between Spain and France back to the Constitutional Court. Sánchez will participate this Monday, July 13, in the meeting of the Coalition of Volunteers, which will be held at the Hôtel des Invalides in Paris. The Coalition of Volunteers is an initiative launched in March 2025 by France and the United Kingdom, which has been joined by 35 countries (mostly European, as well as Canada, Australia, and Japan), including some 20 heads of government, to review progress on security guarantees for Ukraine and analyze the collective strategy toward Russia. The objective of this meeting, as announced last Wednesday by French President Emmanuel Macron at the conclusion of the NATO Summit in Ankara, is to strengthen military support for Ukraine with new initiatives in defense, security, and industry. In this regard, according to Macron, the main purpose of the meeting of volunteers is to "respond" to the "legitimate request" of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky regarding ballistic missiles and air defense, and to "mobilize industries from several of our countries that, in the area of anti-ballistic missiles, are fundamental to the security" of Ukraine. The French president also spoke about the possibility of conducting future joint and unprecedented military exercises by the Coalition countries to "lend credibility and consolidate all the work we are doing together against the phantom fleet," referring to the ships that help Russia evade international sanctions, and to guarantee "Ukrainian security the day after" the war ends. At the last meeting of the Coalition of Volunteers, held in September 2025, twenty-six countries pledged to participate in a joint "security force" that would be deployed in Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire. For his part, Sánchez warned at the same meeting of the need to continue pressuring Russia to accept a ceasefire. Bastille Day Parade On Tuesday, July 14, the traditional military parade for France's National Day will be held on the Champs-Élysées in Paris. According to Macron, "the forces of the participating countries will be invited to march, to stand alongside us, because the security and freedom of the European continent are also at stake with what is happening today in Ukraine." Nearly 500 soldiers from the Coalition member countries will participate in the opening of the military parade before some thirty heads of state and government, as announced last Thursday by the Élysée Palace. In addition, 25 Ukrainian soldiers will also march immediately after the Coalition of Volunteers soldiers. While the complete list of heads of state and government attending the parade is still pending, the presence of Zelensky, Pedro Sánchez, and the leaders of Germany, Friedrich Merz, and Italy, Giorgia Meloni, has already been confirmed. The Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with France Pedro Sánchez's visit to France comes just days after the Senate plenary session, at the behest of the People's Party (PP), once again approved referring the Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation between Spain and France to the Constitutional Court. This is the PP's second constitutional challenge against the Treaty. The first was filed in February 2025 and was also supported by the Senate plenary session. Under these circumstances, the text was rejected by the Congress on May 15, 2025, pending the Constitutional Court's decision. In December 2025, the Court opted not to rule on the challenge, considering that the parliamentary "no" vote had prevented the text's validation. The PP's opposition to the Treaty is related to the controversial Article 2.4, 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 on a rotating basis." According to Alberto Núñez Feijóo's party, this clause is incompatible with the Constitution. Therefore, and in an attempt to salvage the Treaty, the 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," according to which the invitation to members of the other party will not be to participate in the Council of Ministers, but rather to "participate on the sidelines of said Council of Ministers in a separate meeting." With these changes, the Treaty was again submitted to Parliament and approved in mid-June by the Congress with 175 votes in favor, 170 against, and one abstention. The text is now stalled awaiting the Constitutional Court's decision. Should the bill ultimately be put to a vote in the Senate and rejected by the upper house, it would return to the Congress for a final vote, which, unlike the previous one, would require an absolute majority (176 votes). Following Thursday's vote, José Manuel Albares accused the People's Party (PP), via social media, of having boycotted "the first Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with France: our friend and largest trading partner." The Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation between the Kingdom of Spain and the French Republic was signed on January 19, 2023, in Barcelona by Pedro Sánchez and Emmanuel Macron during 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 one Spain already has with Portugal since the Trujillo Summit in October 2021. France (which maintains similar agreements with countries such as Germany and Italy) has already ratified the text, but Spain has not yet been able to take that step.

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