The European Commission will not oppose Sánchez's coup: we Spaniards must stop it

@ElentirENG ES 11·02·2023 · 19:20 0

Many Spaniards look towards Brussels in the hope that the European Commission will stop Sanchez's blow to the rule of law.

More than 1,300 judges in Spain denounce that Sánchez's amnesty means “blowing up the rule of law”
The devastating writing of eight members of the Judiciary denouncing that the amnesty implies “the abolition of the rule of law”

The hope of many Spaniards in the European Union

That hope is based on the idea that the European Commission acted harshly against the governments of Poland and Hungary for violating the rule of law, or at least that is what which the Commission itself alleged to justify those actions. Many Spaniards now expect the European Commission to be coherent and act with the same force against Sánchez. Many Spaniards trust that the European Union will stop the attack on the rule of law in Spain.

The European Commission has nine socialist commissioners

That belief is based on two errors. The first is to think that the European Commission is an independent body that acts objectively and without any bias, regardless of the color of the government whose actions should be reproached. Experience tells us that community institutions are as biased as many national institutions, because in Brussels the same people who have contributed to eroding democracy in Spain are in charge.

Let us remember, without going any further, that in 2019, before the last European elections, the Popular Party announced that it would form a coalition with the socialists to control the European institutions. They are the same parties that have degraded judicial independence in Spain for years, dividing up the General Council of the Judiciary, the Constitutional Court and the Court of Accounts.

In fact, although Ursula von der Leyen belongs to the CDU, a centrist party that is part of the European People's Party (EPP), the Party of European Socialists has nine commissioners, making it the second largest group in the Commission after the EPP. Among these commissioners there is a Spanish socialist, Josep Borrell, a member of the PSOE, Pedro Sánchez's party. As the saying goes, "dog don't eat dog." The next European elections will be in 2024 and European socialists are not going to expose one of their own as a danger to democracy.

The Commission has ignored all the notices that have come to it from Spain

This alliance between popular and socialists in Brussels is the reason why in April 2021, the Commission ignored the complaint from 2,500 Spanish judges warning the EU that Spain is going "towards totalitarianism", in reference to the attacks by Pedro Sánchez's government against judicial independence. Ursula von der Leyen's cabinet has ignored all the warnings that came from Spain about Sánchez's authoritarian drift. It is not to be expected that he will begin to take them into account now.

The persecution against Poland and Hungary was not because of the rule of law

The second mistake that many people make is to believe that the European Commission acted against Poland and Hungary in defense of the rule of law. On the contrary, what Brussels has done against Poland and Hungary is a clear ideological persecution against two conservative governments, in rejection of their totally legitimate positions against the ideological theses held by the parties that make up the Commission. That is why this offensive has included things like impose a pro-abortion agenda on Poland (both the EPP and the socialists have been supporting this agenda for years in many countries) and the rejection of the anti-pedophile laws approved by the Polish Parliament and by the Hungarian Parliament, in an attempt by the European Commission to prioritize the imposition of gender ideology over the protection of the childhood.

We Spaniards already stopped the coups of 1981 and 2017 alone

For better or worse, we Spaniards are not going to receive help from Brussels: we must stop this blow alone. The only thing we are going to receive from Brussels is indifference, unless there is a social outbreak in Spain strong enough that the rest of Europe cannot ignore it. We should not be discouraged: Spain has already stopped the coups of February 23, 1981 and October 1, 2017 without outside help. If we Spaniards take this new threat against our democracy seriously and act accordingly, we will also stop this blow. The European Commission will once again remain what it really is: a dubiously democratic government that has no other purpose than to impose ideological agendas and that is not concerned about seeing how democracy degrades in a European country as important as Spain.

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Photo: La Moncloa. The president of the European Commission, the German centrist Ursula von der Leyen, in a meeting with the president of the Spanish government, the socialist Pedro Sánchez, at the Moncloa palace on July 31, 2019.