BRUSSELS, 31 May. (EUROPE PRESS) –

The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has reduced Podemos’s rejection of NATO and the Summit to be held on June 29 and 30 in Madrid to a “testimonial position”. He has even hinted that they are old positions by pointing out that they come “from far away” from when he was little. In any case, he has avoided whether or not the second vice president will attend the Summit by making it clear that he is the host.

This is how the head of the Executive responded from Brussels, where yesterday and today he attended an informal European Council, when asked about the position of Podemos against the holding of the NATO Summit in Spain and the non-specification of the ministers of the purple formation of whether or not they will attend the aforementioned Summit.

“I respect the testimonial positions, some positions come from a position regarding NATO that comes from afar, from when we were little, in 1982 I was 10 years old”, exclaimed Pedro Sánchez.

In this regard, he recalled that many years have passed since then, the geopolitical context is different, Spain’s permanence is now going on for 40 years and its responsibility is to guarantee Spain’s defense and security. And this, he has warned her, is based on and consolidated by belonging to the EU and also to NATO.

In addition, he pointed out that this fact is known “from Finland to Sweden, which are knocking on the door to integrate, to Portugal and Spain, that is, from north to south, from east to west, and people from the right and left”. All of them, he specified, agree that “it is a success” that Spain is part of NATO.

Therefore, he has defended the importance of belonging to the Alliance and the Madrid Summit. To do this, he first thanked the NATO Secretary General for his participation yesterday in the 40th anniversary of Spain’s accession to the Atlantic Alliance, in an act in which the Podemos ministers were precisely absent.

Furthermore, he warned that the Summit to be held in Madrid “is going to mark a before and after in the history of NATO”. Thus, he has indicated that not only will the strategic concept be defined in this geopolitical context for the next 10 years, but that two “very important and consolidated” democracies such as Sweden and Finland will be incorporated.

To this is added that Spain wants to give a “double meaning to this summit”: reinforcing the ties between NATO and the EU, which according to Sánchez “have to be complementary, not antagonistic” and reinforcing “everything that represents the southern flank in matter of security, which for Spain is of fundamental importance”. That is, the stability of the Sahel.

Pedro Sánchez has also wanted to take the edge off the debate on whether or not the Podemos ministers will attend the aforementioned Madrid Summit. In this sense, he has made it clear that he has attended many NATO summits and the host has always been the Prime Minister.

In fact, he has assured that nobody has raised anything with him in relation to this Podemos issue. He has even given as an example the fact that yesterday the Secretary General of NATO praised the work of the Government of Spain and recognized his commitment to the Atlantic Alliance.

Therefore, he has affirmed that this debate is about “national politics” but has pointed out that “it has no translation to the Summit or to Spain’s commitment to NATO”.