Photo by Tomáš Nožina on Unsplash
The European Green Party has “congratulated” the new Spanish government formed by PSOE, Sumar and regionalist parties.
The message on Thursday came after Socialist leader Pedro Sánchez clinched a vote in parliament to lead Spain for another term as prime minister.
He has secured a four-seat majority in the 350-seat chamber. He clinched a second term as Spain’s prime minister after winning an ill-tempered investiture vote that was dominated by his decision to secure the support of Catalan separatists with a controversial amnesty
The European Council president, Charles Michel, has also congratulated Pedro Sánchez.
“I look forward to continuing our work to make the EU stronger and fit for the challenges ahead” said Michel.
The vote on Thursday came almost four months after a snap election in July in which Sánchez’s governing Spanish Socialist Workers’ party (PSOE) was narrowly defeated by its conservative rivals in the People’s party (PP).
It is claimed that the progressive, green and social coalition agreement makes the Sanchez III government “the most Green Spanish government ever.”
Three Spanish political parties are members of the European Green Party: Esquerra Verda since 2006, Verdes Equo since 2016 and Catalunya En Comú since 2021.
They all participated in the Sumar alliance, who campaigned on a platform of green and social policies, fending off the right (Partido Popular/EPP) and far right Vox.
In the election, Sumar received just over 3million votes and won 38 seats in the Congress – including Green MP Júlia Boada Danés, a long-standing and appreciated former member of the European Green Party team in Brussels.
Sumar reached an agreement with Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s PSOE on 24 October.
Some 95% of Catalunya En Comú members and 91% of Verdes Equo members voted in favour of the new government programme.
On Thursday, the Sumar group in Congress supported the Sanchez III Government, who got 179 votes.
Reaction came from European Green Party co-chairs Mélanie Vogel and Thomas Waitz.
In a joint statement they commented: “In July, Spanish citizens said “¡No pasarán!” to the right and far right.”
“And four months later, the most progressive and Green Spanish government to date has begun.”
“The government will integrate the Green transition in all public policy, and all climate policy will be socially just.”
“This Spanish victory is a great inspiration for Europe and the upcoming European elections”.
Separately, they said, “It is very good news for Spain and Europe that Spain will be governed by a progressive and Green government. Our Spanish Green member parties played a crucial role in making this happen.”
“In the face of an aggressive right and far right, the progressives and Greens, united in Sumar, ran a positive campaign. Spanish civil society rose up, Spanish citizens went to the polls, leading to this historic moment. In Spain the people fended off the right-wing government, in Poland the voters threw out the hard PiS government. Let’s hope that this wave will continue next Wednesday in the Dutch elections, where there is also the threat of a harsh right-wing government”.
The Partido Popular (affiliated to the European People’s Party – EPP) and the far-right party Vox called for demonstrations which recently turned violent.
Waitz and Vogel said, “Spain has had democratic elections. These were followed by democratic negotiations. And these negotiations led to a democratic majority in the Spanish parliament. It is legitimate to organise demonstrations; but to incite violence and use inflammatory language, as Vox and some of the PP are doing, is dangerous, potentially criminal and very immature. This is not the behaviour of a democratic opposition”.
