The measures that Sanchez has not wanted to take to stop favoring Russia

Rulers should not be judged by their promises or their propaganda, but by their actions, which are often much poorer.

The infamous favors of Pedro Sánchez's government to Vladimir Putin's dictatorship
Sánchez increases the percentage of Russian gas imported by Spain: it already exceeds that from the US

The Spanish Prime Minister, the socialist Pedro Sánchez, is an example of a politician whose actions do not match his words. A few weeks ago I reviewed here his favors to the dictatorship of Vladimir Putin, favors for which he should be automatically excluded from any European meeting whose purpose is to help Ukraine achieve a fair peace with Russia. Despite this, Sanchez will attend today the emergency meeting called by Macron in Paris to address the situation in Ukraine. The question is: why is he going to this meeting?

Those of us who know his performance as head of the Spanish government know the answer to this question well: Sanchez is going to pose, take photos and promote himself, with a view to the moment when he has to leave the government. To show that he has something to offer vis-a-vis Russia, Sanchez should announce these measures that he has not wanted to take until now:

• Stop buying Russian gas. As the British newspaper Financial Times pointed out a few weeks ago, Spain is the second largest importer of Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG) in the European Union. First is France, which also makes it very clear how little seriously Macron has taken the Russian invasion of Ukraine so far. Let us remember that instead of reducing these imports after the Russian invasion, Sanchez has increased them at the same time that it prohibits extracting gas in Spain, which has 40 years' worth of natural gas in its subsoil. Sánchez prefers to buy it from Putin, something incomprehensible and that should be investigated by the agencies in charge of fighting corruption.
• Stop buying Russian oil from Morocco. The government of Sánchez has violated the European ban on buying Russian oil, buying it from Morocco, knowing where that oil came from: coinciding with the European veto on Russian oil, Morocco began to export oil to Spain for the first time since 2015. Again, anti-corruption agencies should investigate this.
• Dramatically increase Spanish military aid to Ukraine. Currently, the cost of this aid is much lower than the amount of natural gas purchased by Spain from Russia. According to data from the Ukraine Support Tracker of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, Spanish aid to Ukraine is proportionally much lower than that of other European countries such as Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, the Netherlands or Denmark. In absolute terms, Spanish military aid is lower than that of small countries such as Belgium, the Czech Republic and Lithuania, and is even lower than that of a poorer country such as Romania. Sanchez puts much more effort into buying Russian gas than into helping Ukraine.
• Investigate Russian interference in the 2017 separatist coup in Catalonia. Sánchez is allied with the separatist parties that promoted that coup, so instead of investigating that interference, has prevented it from being investigated by the judges, and after doing so, his government launched the version that this Russian plot did not exist, a colossal lie that demonstrates the lack of scruples of his government.
• Fulfill the commitments acquired by Spain before NATO in defense investment. This commitment required member countries to invest at least 2% of their GDP in military expenditure. In 2024, Spain was the NATO country that invested the least percentage in defense: at 1.28% of GDP. A ridiculous percentage, which is the result of Sánchez's alliance with the extreme left and with separatist parties bent on boycotting national defense.
• Recall the Spanish ambassador to Russia. Let us remember that last year, his government recalled the Spanish ambassador to Argentina after provoking a diplomatic incident with that country due to insults by several of Sánchez's ministers against Argentine President Javier Milei. Sanchez has not taken that measure against Russia despite all the crimes that country is committing against the Ukrainian people. It is a shameful diplomatic attitude.
• Breaking his pacts with the parties closest to the Kremlin in Spain. Sánchez has in the government a minister, the communist Sira Rego, who refused to condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine and who voted against the European condemnation of Putin's repression against Navalny, the Russian dissident murdered a year ago. Sanchez also relies on separatist and far-left parties that have been favouring Putin. The clearest case is the communist party Podemos, which acts as the Kremlin's main puppet in Spain. Sanchez has sought out these vile allies because he lost the last general election. He prefers to govern in a minority, with a weak government and depending on Russian puppets, rather than calling new elections and letting the Spanish people elect a stronger government.

Sanchez has had the opportunity to do all this in three years and he has not done it. There is no indication that he will do it now. Even if he had the will to do so (something he has not expressed until now), he has chosen to depend on political allies who are very comfortable with his favours to Russia, but that does not prevent him from travelling to Paris to show, once again, that his word is worthless.

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Photo: PSOE.