“I am announcing that Spain will deliver offensive military material to the Ukrainian resistance,” he said. Pedro Sanchez in the plenary session of Congress. These words have irritated United We Can. Just a few minutes after the Prime Minister stepped down from the platform of the Lower House, the Minister for Social Rights, Ione Belarrahas accused Sánchez of “contribute to the war escalation” and of not putting “all the effort” into diplomatic channels.
Barely 48 hours after Sánchez assured that Spain would not send weapons to Ukraine directly, which generated calm in the purples, the rectification by the President of the Government has caused the opposite feeling. “I think it’s self-evident that we all want to stop [Vladimir] Putin and that we all want this war to end as soon as possible. The key is how we can do it most effectively. Contributing to the escalation of war will not resolve the conflict sooner and it can lead us to a completely uncertain and very dangerous scenario of world conflict,” said Belarra in the corridors of Congress.
The commitment to diplomatic channels has to be real and translated into concrete facts. Contributing to the escalation of war can lead us to an unpredictable and very dangerous scenario. War is never the way. pic.twitter.com/tdgZi1WqMJ
— Ione Belarra (@ionebelarra) March 2, 2022
The apparent coordination that was taking place between socialists and purples seems to have been broken with the appearance of Sánchez. Sources from United We Can indicated a few days ago that they were happy with the course that Sánchez was choosing and that he did not want to confront within the Executive. However, the new announcement has put an end to this climate.
The spokesman for the purples, Pablo Echenique, has stressed that it is a “mistake” to send weapons. The leader of United We Can has explained that this decision “is not effective”, since “arming the civilian population [de Ucrania] it will not change the correlation of forces”.
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Belarra has denounced that has “missed references to diplomatic channels” in Sanchez’s speech. “When you don’t bet on diplomatic channels, things happen like the negotiators at the Belarusian border going without any kind of international support,” Belarra continued. In this sense, he has reiterated that it is necessary to commit to a “dialogued and peaceful solution”.
Belarra’s position contrasts with that put forward by the second vice president and leader of United We Can, Yolanda Diaz. First thing in the morning, before Sánchez spoke, the also Minister of Labor pointed out that in the Executive “all the measures that are effective to stop this war will be shared”. And he reiterated that “the response that the Government of Spain is giving is absolutely consistent with the policy” deployed by Podemos. Sources close to her point out that at that time Díaz had already been informed about the shipment of weapons.