Sumar leader to condemn ‘international hypocrisy’ at Palestine visit

Sumar platform leader and Labour Minister Yolanda Díaz will travel to Palestine to sign several bilateral agreements, demand a ceasefire, and condemn the “hypocrisy” of the international community in the Middle East conflict, official sources confirmed on Wednesday.

Díaz, who is also deputy prime minister, will travel to the region at the invitation of the Palestinian labour minister to sign a memorandum on labour relations, and will also take the opportunity to meet with human rights associations and demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the minister told Euractiv’s partner EFE on Wednesday.

She also plans to denounce the “international hypocrisy” in the conflict.

In Díaz’s words, international law is being violated in Gaza, committing war crimes and “killing children every day” with “the complicity and silence of the entire international community”.

Among Sumar’s conditions for a government agreement with Sánchez was Spain’s recognition of the “Palestinian state”.

According to those same sources, the definitive date of the trip, of which Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has been informed, has not yet been set, although it is expected to happen soon.

Spain, ready to take ‘unilateral’ steps

The prime minister said late last year that Madrid was ready to take this historic step unilaterally if its EU partners did not.

This week, Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares said that Spain would “take its own decisions” to recognise a “Palestinian state” if there is no consensus among EU countries.

In an interview published by Saudi Arab News on Monday, Albares said Madrid was prepared to take such a step alone.

“We are having a dialogue with the European countries to see how we can move forward. If in the end, we don’t manage to reach a consensus, Spain is a sovereign country and will make its own decisions”, the Spanish official said.

Albares also pointed out that peace in the Middle East can only be achieved through the creation of “a single Palestinian state, uniting Gaza and the West Bank with a single Palestinian authority and connected to a corridor with an outlet to the sea and with East Jerusalem as its capital”.

The minister insisted that this was the “real solution” and “fair for the Palestinian people and the best guarantee of security for Israel and peace in the Middle East”.

Sánchez’s controversial words on Hamas

In November 2023, Sánchez travelled with Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo to Israel, Palestine and Egypt to demonstrate Spain’s unilateral recognition of the Palestinian state if the international community did not take joint decisions in this direction.

In Ramallah, before the President of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), Mahmoud Abbas, Sánchez defended the joint fight against terrorism in the wake of the Hamas attacks of 7 October and reiterated Madrid’s commitment to the coexistence of two states, Israel and Palestine.

Sánchez said then that “the indiscriminate killing of innocent civilians, including thousands of children, is completely unacceptable” on his visit to the Rafah border crossing.

His words sparked a brief diplomatic crisis with Israel and with right-wing parties in Spain, including the far-right Vox party, as well as in the EU parliament.

European People’s Party (EPP) group leader Manfred Weber then accused Sánchez of dividing Europe by “applauding Hamas terrorists”.

(Fernando Heller | EuroEFE.Euractiv.es)

Read more with Euractiv

France’s Sarkozy guilty - again - of illegal campaign financing

France’s former president Nicolas Sarkozy was found guilty of illegal campaign financing by the Paris Court of Appeal on Wednesday (14 February), and given a one-year prison sentence.