Feijóo defines Sánchez as an "authoritarian president" before European and Ibero-American leaders

MadridThe Libertas Forum is an initiative of the European People's Party that aims to build bridges of dialogue between Europe and Latin America and is made up of right-wing and centre-right organizations. And it was within the framework of the summit held in Madrid on July 15 and 16, before European and also Latin American leaders, that Alberto Nuñez Feijóo defined Pedro Sánchez as an "authoritarian president". In an inaugural speech in which he claimed "Western values" and the alliance with the United States, Feijóo accused Sánchez of wanting to "control" key elements of the State and "threaten" democracy, which is "weakened" – he said – because "it is attacked by the highest instances".

"If a president distrusts judges, despises parliamentary majorities when they do not favor him, substitutes merit for state dependence, and fears the ballot box when it does not guarantee him power, he is an authoritarian president," he proclaimed. Feijóo made these statements the day after the conviction of Pedro Sánchez's brother, David Sánchez, to 9 years of disqualification and the Spanish government's open criticism of the judicial resolution. The Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, even said that it was part of an attempt to overthrow the executive, while the spokesperson for the PSOE in Congress, Patxi López, said it was a "barbarity" of a sentence and "unbearable to have to comply with one after another", after the former minister José Luis Ábalos was also recently sentenced to up to 24 years in prison.

Prior to Feijóo, the president of the European People's Party, Manfred Weber, who is one of the firm allies of the popular party in its battle for the narrative against Pedro Sánchez within the European institutions, also spoke, as did the Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Antonio Tajani, and the president-elect of Peru, Keiko Fujimori, although remotely. In the end, they will also have the speech of the Venezuelan opposition leader, María Corina Machado. "Faced with authoritarianism, more freedom. This is more than a political family," he claimed, before this forum that aims for the right, as the far-right and the left have already done at the summit organized by Pedro Sánchez in Barcelona, to weave alliances on a transnational scale.

"The current international order is in transformation, a change of an era. This context generates risks [...]. Liberal democracies face a challenge, authoritarian projects are trying to gain ground, but we are not afraid, we know the strength of our societies and the capacity of freedom to forge its way," said Feijóo, advocating for Europe as the "greatest space of freedom" in the world and also "the West." In his opinion, the fact that the European People's Party is now the leading force in the European Union countries is an indicator that the population trusts its political project based on "freedom, prosperity, and the rule of law.

In this regard, he highlighted the shift to the right in Ibero-American countries as well, citing Javier Milei's Argentina, Abelardo de la Espriella's Colombia, Keiko Fujimori's Peru, Antonio Kast's Chile, and Daniel Noboa's Ecuador. Although these leaders are closer to the ultra tendency through their policies than what could be a liberal right of a European character. Kast himself has been a defender of Pinochet's dictatorship; Milei is characterized by his public administration cutback policies, while Fujimori has returned to power 26 years later after his father, Alberto Fujimori, convicted of crimes against humanity, governed the country.

In any case, Feijóo claimed them as his own, and wished that Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua would soon join "freedom." "Many citizens have woken up from a great lie and have said enough," he concluded, stating that the flag of progress—he assured—"always brings material and moral poverty." According to Feijóo, until now the left and "populism" have united against liberal democracy, and now it is also their turn to "unite" in favor of "the person, freedom, and the law." In fact, he spoke of a "new center-right political enlightenment," although the current trend also includes an electoral rise of new far-right formations like Vox in Spain.