The alliance of parties that can support the investiture and the future Government of Pedro Sánchez already has, before being confirmed, a dissolving element within it. Just as the PSOE-Unidas Podemos coalition has suffered in the last term, foreign policy and, together with it, defense policy will be two State matters that will sow discord between the parties. A dispute that is already looming in view of the conflicting positions held by the socialist leader’s potential allies in relation to the most serious conflicts that attract world attention: the Russian invasion of Ukraine and above all the war between Israel y Hamas.
The positions of the parliamentary forces in the face of the outbreak of violence in Near East caused by the Hamas terrorist attack against Israel and the very harsh response of the Jewish State against Gazaare so far away that they already call into question the solidity of the Executive coalition even before it was born, undermining its international credibility and mainly within the European Union in the semester of the Spanish presidency.
The centrality that the PSOE in its capacity as a nuclear force of the Government in office and the foreseeable future coalition Executive is torpedoed by those who are called to be the pillars of governability in a legislature chaired by Sánchez: from the parties that make up the Sumar platform, mainly Podemos, to the independence formation led by Puigdemont essential to carry out an investiture, passing through the two Basque forces facing each other, PNV and EH Bildu. The similarities between all of them are barely reduced to a generic call for peace and humanitarian aid.
The PSOE in its capacity as the main party of the current Government and predictably from the next it aligns with the common position maintained on paper by the European Union. Among the 27, the positions are not identical, they are mainly marked by economic interests and historical ties with the parties in conflict, but the common position that unites them influences the unmitigated condemnation of the attacks of Hamasa terrorist organization for Union; Israel’s right to self-defense; the request for proportionality to the Hebrew response; the provision of humanitarian aid to the Palestinian population and the defense of a solution based on the principle of recognition of two States in peace and security, as established by United Nations doctrine.
In the last five years, the foreign policy of the Sánchez Government has not had the always latent Arab-Israeli conflict as a priority. The president has never visited the region unlike his predecessors, mainly Felipe González and José María Aznar, who dedicated many efforts to seeking understanding between the parties.