The PSOE reproaches Podemos for its "equidistance" and its excuses for not supporting NATO expansion

The opposition affects the division in the Government before the approval of the entry of Finland and Sweden

MADRID, 15 Sep. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The PSOE has reproached both Podemos and its investiture partners for the "equidistance" that they seem to maintain in relation to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and that they are using this issue as an "excuse" to criticize NATO and therefore not support the entry of Finland and Sweden in this organization.

This is how the PSOE spokesman, Sergio Gutiérrez, made it clear during the debate in the Congress of Deputies for the ratification of the accession of these two countries to the Atlantic Alliance and that parties such as Podemos or EH Bildu have taken advantage of to to attack this organization, which they have branded as "warmonger" and to denounce that no efforts are being made for peace in Ukraine.

The socialist spokesman has defended that one cannot be equidistant "in the face of the suffering of other peoples, between aggressors and attacked, between invaders and invaded, between those threatened and those who threaten".

In this sense, he has reproached them for having clung to the "mantra" that what should be talked about is peace, but they have not proposed "any ideas on how to achieve it without provoking the surrender of the Ukrainian people", unless "Don't have an idea for peace but a slogan, don't have a solution but an excuse."

At times like the present, "we have to be serious", he told them, emphasizing that if the Finns and Swedes want to join NATO now and leave their tradition of neutrality behind, it is not because "they feel like warmongering" but because they feel threatened by Vladimir Putin.

This has been precisely the main argument put forward by all the groups that will vote in favor of the entry of both countries into the Alliance, although the opposition has placed special emphasis on the fact that the PSOE's government partners do not see it thus.

In the opinion of the PP spokesman, Pablo Hispán, the fact that United We Can is not going to vote in favor shows that Pedro Sánchez "is only president of one part of the Government" and that we are facing "one more chapter of the extravagances to which we're used to it."

Hispán has also influenced the division shown regarding the shipment of weapons to Ukraine or regarding Sánchez's commitment to raise defense spending to 2% of GDP and has denounced that Podemos and the rest of its parliamentary partners only support the PSOE when it comes to to "weaken the State" but when it is to strengthen it like now they can only count on the PP.

For his part, the Vox spokesman, Alberto Asarta, has maintained that NATO is a "defensive and dissuasive tool, necessary and decisive not only during the Cold War but during the subsequent period and also today."

However, the Spanish extreme left "continues with its obsolete, stale and stale discourse" instead of rectifying as President Felipe González did at the time, who from rejecting entry into the Alliance later went on to defend remaining in the referendum on 1986.

In turn, the spokesman for Ciudadanos, Miguel Ángel Gutiérrez, lamented that what should be a mere formality since the Swedes and Finns have already decided that they want to join NATO is being used by some to question it and try to amend it "from that superiority morality, so far to the left, of telling citizens that they are wrong and how things really are".

"Since this is democratically questionable, the worst thing is the equidistance and dirty and vomitive comparison of confusing victims with executioners", he lamented, recalling that they are the same ones who do not condemn the ETA murderers and who ask for their approach to Basque prisons.

Meanwhile, the spokesman for United We Can, Gerardo Pisarello, has confirmed that they will not vote in favor. "Let Sweden and Finland take the decision they consider appropriate but it will not be in our name", he maintained, after harshly criticizing the Alliance and also the EU, "which was founded with the declared objective of seeking peace and is doing little or nothing to stop the war.

The spokesman for EH Bildu, Jon Iñárritu, has also questioned NATO as an organization and has said that the war in Ukraine cannot be resolved with it or with the sending of more weapons. In this sense, he has advanced that although they respect the decision of the Finns and Swedes to enter since "they are sovereign states" they will not support it.

The only one who has confirmed in plenary that he will vote against it has been the BNG deputy Néstor Rego, who has taken the opportunity to question Sánchez's plans to increase defense spending, warning that it will be done to the detriment of more social spending and asking the Government to ask the Spaniards if they want "more bombs or more schools".

In the corridors of Congress, the ERC spokesman, Gabriel Rufián, has recalled his critical position with NATO but underlining the right to "self-defense" of any State, "including Ukraine", and also the "scrupulous respect" of his formation to the "sovereignty" of the two Nordic countries.