The government of Pedro Sanchez he conceived the rotating presidency of the European Union as a “country project”. However, despite the fact that the team that has worked on this event has been working on it for ten months, there has not been a stable communication channel between the Socialist Party and the Popular Party to talk about this milestone, which will not happen again for some time. of three decades.
Sources of foreign They justify themselves by recalling that “the Government has spoken with the PP in the Senate and Congress, which also called them to speak in strasbourg but the MEPs planted Albares”. They also wonder why the President of the Government would have to call feijóo and not to the rest of the leaders of political parties. However, and although the Foreign Ministry is sure that the elections will not affect the presidency, other voices are more cautious, not knowing what is going to happen.
“The Government of Spain has invested a lot of capital in wanting to strengthen its influence in Europe, and the fact that there are early elections at the beginning of the presidency can affect it. Also, if there is a change of government, it is necessary to see if the new Executive wants to demonstrate the leadership we have seen in recent years,” analyzes Raquel Garcia Llorente, a researcher at the Elcano Royal Institute, who is conducting doctoral studies to analyze the ecosystem of influence of Spain in Brussels. “However -he continues-, the impact will not be very great because the rotating presidency is of a technical nature, it falls to officials and if the government changes, it will fall to a party that also has experience in rotating presidency,” recalls García Llorente.
because this is the fifth time that Spain assumes this responsibility, an opportunity to “enforce priorities at a European level and that it continues to be an important role”, explains the researcher. The Government is aware that the geopolitical environment surrounding this presidency, with a war that is expected to be long, makes it possible that at some point in these six months Spain will have to take major initiatives.
This is what happened to Croatia, who during the presidency of the first half of 2019 had the declaration of the pandemic and intergovernmental coordination mechanisms were put in place. During the French presidency, the war broke out in the Ukraine and it was Macron who led the united and forceful response from Europe. By the way, in that presidency there were elections, as there will also be in Spain 22 days after taking over from Sweden.