BarcelonaLeft within the Spanish coalition government. Sumar allied with the PP this Tuesday so that the Congress of Deputies must authorize the shipment of weapons abroad, against the criteria of the PSOE. The formation of the vice president, Yolanda Díaz, has refrained from taking into consideration a popular initiative so that the Spanish chamber has greater control of missions abroad. In exchange, the PP has supported a reform of Sumar to modify abusive clauses in mortgages.
Sources from Sumar, collected by Efe, have acknowledged that they were in talks about the two initiatives with the PP in order to gather support, but the spokesman for this group in Congress, Iñigo Errejón, has rejected the idea that there has been an agreement with the main opposition party. “I want to say it very clearly, it is not one thing for the other. It is good to end the abuses of the banks to mortgaged families with clauses that may have been flawed, and it is good that the governments have to be accountable to Congress when they want to send troops abroad”, said Errejón at the exit of the plenary in statements to the media.
In this sense, he has defended that the shipment of weapons abroad by Spain must have “more democratic control of the chamber” and, for this reason, he has argued, Sumar has abstained in the processing of this law promoted by the PP. A position, in any case, that those of Díaz have taken without taking into account the PSOE, which voted against it. As reported by Europa Press, the PP has had the support of Vox, UPN and Podemos, while the Socialists, Esquerra, the PNB, Bildu and Junts have voted against it. He has also abstained, just like Sumar, the former PSOE minister José Ábalos, at the center of the controversy over the Koldo case, in addition to the BNG and Coalició Canària. The split in the governing coalition in Congress occurs in an issue that has been straining Sumar and the Socialists for months: the shipment of weapons to Ukraine, in addition to the increase in defense resources.
Criticism of the PP
The popular ones have defended that the Spanish chamber has a “much more active role” in “State policy” abroad and that it has the “greatest possible consensus”. According to the PP, the initiative seeks to ensure that the Spanish government does not have a “monopoly on defence”. The reform that is on the table – from now on it will be debated in committee – is to change article 17 of the Organic Law of National Defense so that the authorization of Congress is necessary to send military material in a war zone A permit that would last for one year. Regarding military missions abroad, it is also determined that they are reviewed every five years.
Whatever the content of the initiative, however, several groups have criticized the PP for trying to break the unity of the Spanish government and the plurinational majority that supports the Spanish president, Pedro Sánchez. Their argument is that they recently brought an identical initiative to the Senate and that it is already being processed in Congress in committee. The same representative of Sumar Agustín Santos has accused the PP of using the proposal to “divide” the government, but in the end its formation has chosen to abstain anyway. Podemos has also emphasized: “We know that the PP is not presenting this reform because of a commitment to peace, but rather wants to exploit the contradictions of the investiture partners”, Javier Sánchez-Serna has sentenced, although he has also fired against the socialists: “If it is presented it is because of the little trace of a PSOE that has decided to subordinate Spanish foreign policy to that of [Joe] Biden and that he has not even allowed it to be debated in this chamber.”
