Feijóo agrees to meet with Sánchez to discuss Ukraine but sets conditions

MadridPedro Sánchez and Alberto Núñez Feijóo will meet next Monday within the framework of The round of contacts by the Spanish president regarding a hypothetical deployment of troops on a peacekeeping mission to UkraineFor this, he needs the backing of a majority in Congress, which he does not have from the outset due to the opposition of some of his left-wing parliamentary allies. The leader of the People's Party (PP) has agreed to meet with the head of the national government, according to party sources, although he has set conditions for the meeting, in which he does not want the discussion to be limited to Ukraine. They have also indicated that the PP will not support "any defense decision made in isolation" and demand a "binding vote" on "the entire budget, military strategy, and foreign policy." The previous meeting between the head of the government and the leader of the opposition was ten months ago, on March 13 of last year, at the Moncloa Palace, also to discuss defense issues and the war in Ukraine. At that meeting, they addressed the increase in military spending—which has not been put to a vote in the lower house—within the framework of another round of meetings with parliamentary groups.

Since then, the already strained relationship between the two leaders—they hadn't met since December 2013—has worsened as the legal cases against Sánchez have intensified and become a constant weapon used by the People's Party (PP). "We will not allow Sánchez to use national security as a smokescreen to cover up his parliamentary precariousness, his massive corruption, and his political decay," warned PP Deputy Prime Minister Miguel Tellado in a statement released by the party. The meeting will therefore take place at a time when relations between the two main parties in Spain are practically nonexistent and when they are in the midst of an election campaign—less than a month before the elections in Aragon. "Our responsibility is not to talk about what Sánchez needs, but about everything that concerns Spaniards," argue the conservatives, who, to justify agreeing to the meeting despite this context, have demanded a broader range of topics that Feijóo wants to discuss with Sánchez. Among them are Spain's defense commitments "in their entirety" and its "strategic priorities" in foreign policy—among which the Spanish government's "ties" with the Venezuelan "dictatorship" stand out.

Shortly after the PP's statement, sources at La Moncloa confirmed that Sánchez will meet with Feijóo on Monday with the intention of explaining the "geopolitical changes taking place in the world." "He will also inform him of the security and diplomatic strategy that the [Spanish] government is deploying in response, which the executive branch regularly presents to Congress and the media," they added, in a clear jab at the leader of the opposition. Sources within the Spanish government had already indicated last week that they would discuss more current affairs in the round of talks with parliamentary groups, which has been delayed by a week—Sánchez had announced it would begin this Monday—and which will kick off with Feijóo, followed, in descending order of size, by the former parties with representation in Congress.

Vox criticizes the PP for accepting

Vox, which will not participate in the round of talks and categorically rejects the deployment of troops, criticized the People's Party (PP) for agreeing to meet with Sánchez and "continuing to grovel" before the Socialist leader. "Feijóo will go to shake his hand at the worst possible moment for the Socialist Party (PSOE), after everything we are learning and the corruption that is surfacing," criticized the far-right's spokesperson in Congress, Pepa Millán, at a press conference. The Vox representative called it "yet another swindle against all Spaniards" that the PP would agree to give Sánchez "a lifeline" and warned that the PP leadership's decision "could interfere" with the negotiations to invest the PP's María Guardiola as president of Extremadura, who needs the votes. The meeting "interferes with the change that Spain needs," lamented Millán, at a time when polls show the far right gaining ground, which exacerbates the PP's already existing dependence on the PP.