The President of the main party in the EU accuses the Spanish Prime Minister, Pedro Sánchez, of generating controversies and taking positions on issues like the Iran war for pure national political interest. According to Manfred Weber, the Government "is using this current international debate for his political profile", as he stated this morning from Strasbourg.
According to the German politician, this is the same approach that Sánchez took when he refused to increase Defense spending to 5% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) at the NATO summit last summer. "And we see it again in this issue where he is not contributing to a broader European common sense, he is trying to provoke debates. We will see how this progresses," he added.
Weber's criticism aligns with what, as reported today by EL MUNDO, the President of the Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, expressed to her inner circle: that Sánchez, like Orban, systematically rejects her proposals for pure electoral interest. These are his two "problems," as the German official herself pointed out in a conversation with several people and confirmed by two parliamentary sources at the European Council.
Sánchez's continuous rejection of a significant part of Europe's new political agenda has also led to his exclusion from important meetings. For example, before the last presidents' summit in February, the German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, and the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, organized a meeting to seek common positions to later defend at the Council on issues such as the "completion of the Single Market, regulatory simplification, and reduction of energy prices, and an ambitious and pragmatic trade policy."
Ultimately, 19 countries attended the meeting, including France, and Spain was the only major economy absent. Furthermore, when the meeting started, Sánchez was not even in Belgium yet. The Government's reaction was to harshly criticize the meeting because, according to government sources, it was a way to undermine EU values.