The Polish Government first reported that the country's Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, was meeting with the President of France, Emmanuel Macron; the British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer; and the Italian President, Giorgia Meloni. In that same conversation, addressing the incident in Poland and the violation of its airspace by over 10 Russian drones, were also present the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, and the NATO Secretary-General, Mark Rutte.
Subsequently, sources from the Polish Government added that Tusk would also have a conversation with Dick Schoof, the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, and the German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz. These are high-level discussions involving countries directly affected by the Russian threat, the NATO representative, and the presidents of the largest European economies. All except the President of the fourth largest economy, Spain, as the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, was not present.
When asked about this situation, Sources from Moncloa declined to respond or provide explanations for Sánchez's absence. This is not the first time the Prime Minister has been left out of a meeting of this level, but it is the first time Russia has violated EU and NATO territory, testing the response of Eastern European countries and NATO.
The attendees are the most involved in defending Ukraine and confronting Russia. In fact, many of them were directly responsible for shooting down the Russian drones. "Several allies were involved alongside Poland. This included Polish F-16s, Dutch F-35s, Italian AWACS, NATO's multi-role tanker aircraft, and German Patriots," Rutte himself declared on Wednesday.
Sánchez's absence adds to episodes like the one at the NATO summit in The Hague, where he was the only leader who refused to go beyond 2% of GDP in Defense spending and even showed physical distance from the rest of the leaders during the family photo. The situation was so tense that even the President of the United States, Donald Trump, harshly criticized the Spanish Prime Minister.
What Sánchez has done is describe the violation of Poland's airspace as "unacceptable." "We express our full solidarity with Poland, which can always count on Spain in defending our common peace and security," he added on his X social media profile. The Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, also stated that the action is a "flagrant violation" and that there is an "escalation" taking place.
But apart from these words and a very significant absence in the aforementioned talks, the Spanish Government has emphasized the decision of the President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to propose a partial block of trade relations between the EU and Israel due to the situation in Gaza.
Albares has indicated that this decision is due to the "influence and leadership" of Spain in the EU, and from the Sumar perspective, the Vice President has welcomed the measure while criticizing that it comes "late."