The European partners of PSOE and PP fight in the electoral battle of Sánchez and Feijóo

2023-05-07 22:02:06

Spain has become the ‘jewel in the crown’ for the European partners of PSOE and PP. Retaining the government of the fourth largest economy in the EU is one of the priorities of the European Socialist Party, of which Pedro Sánchez was the main reference until the German Olaf Scholz managed to wrest power from the conservatives with the march of Angela Merkel after 16 years ahead. Elevating Alberto Núñez Feijóo is, likewise, one of the obsessions of the European People’s Party (EPP), which has been gradually losing representatives in the Council of the EU. Although the conservatives have recently won in Finland, they are at stake in the elections in Greece, and they have high expectations in Madrid.

The act of the PP with an evangelical preacher shows the gaps in the control of the funds of the Eurochamber

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The battle has already begun. The PPE has been stoking the Government in Brussels throughout the legislature. First, it was sowing doubts about the situation of the rule of law by trying to torpedo the renewal of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ) under the false premise that the European Commission wanted a change in the election system before electing a new government of judges. and also because of Sánchez’s alliances with the pro-independence forces. Then came the turn of the European funds. The conservatives have questioned the Spanish recovery plan as well as its execution, despite the fact that the community government has congratulated Spain for its management, which is the most advanced country and the only one that has received the third disbursement. The last episode was that of the pension reform, which Feijóo opposed despite having agreed with the European Commission, after having charged against the Iberian exception that has allowed a cap on the gas with which electricity is produced.

The belligerence of the conservatives went a step further as a result of the Doñana crisis. The PP of Juan Manuel Moreno Bonilla, with the support of Vox, has promoted an initiative to pardon illegal irrigation that has been rejected by the European Commission. The conservatives have raised the conflict to the point that the leader of the EPP, Manfred Weber, has entered the dispute with serious accusations of partisanship against the community government of Ursula von der Leyen, especially against the Commissioner for the Environment, Virginijus Sinkevicius, of a green and conservative Lithuanian party, which he has accused of putting on “the red shirt to campaign for Sánchez.”

Behind the unprecedented battle was the fight for the agrarian vote in Huelva at a time when the rise in prices has been a triggering factor for mobilizations in the primary sector in several European countries, such as Poland, where the ultranationalist government came to ban imports of Ukrainian grain in a move that other eastern states followed. Warsaw is another of the objectives of the conservatives, who have been losing power in favor of the extreme right, with which they no longer have misgivings about governing.

Sources from the conservative formation admit the importance for them that Feijóo arrives in Moncloa. Hence, they plan to celebrate in Spain one of the great events that they have planned this year. The leader of the PP will be surrounded in Malaga at the end of June by the main provosts of his European family, including Weber, Von der Leyen and the president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, during the summit in which the European conservatives will establish the guidelines of his campaign for the 2024 elections. The appointment will take place just a week before the rotating presidency of the EU begins, for which the PP has already anticipated its strategy by planting the Foreign Minister, José Manuel Albares, in a meeting preparatory. Popular sources do not rule out that there will be new appointments later.

Opposite, the European social democrats seek to elevate Sánchez. The PSE has chosen Spain for the celebration of its congress next October. From there will come the candidate for the presidency of the European Commission. “In the coming months, and during the Spanish presidency of the EU, we will have a great opportunity at this congress to lay the foundations of our European roadmap by bringing together our leaders, commissioners, sister parties and organizations, activists and progressive citizens. We will be able to send a clear message of unity and strength to our European political family. A message of support for our work in recent years and our policies for the future”, say the Secretary for Organization, Santos Cerdán, and the Secretary for the EU, Iratxe García, in the letter in which they offered to be the hosts of that appointment. The group of socialists and democrats in the European Parliament also intends to hold its next semi-annual meeting in Spain.

And it is that if the PP has used Europe to try to wear down Sánchez, it has been precisely the international agenda, and especially community politics, that has given the coalition the most oxygen in the last three years in which it has faced the pandemic and the consequences of the war with an authorized expansive policy.

The acts of the pre-campaign and the rotating presidency of the EU will be the new scene of an electoral battle that has already begun.