Historically close to the Arab world, Spain is trying to push a line more favorable to Palestinian aspirations within the European Union. An approach defended Thursday by its Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, visiting the Middle East.
“It is in Israel’s interest to work for peace and today peace requires the establishment (…) of a viable Palestinian state,” said the socialist during a meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem.
While supporting Israel’s “right” “to defend itself” after the “atrocities” committed by Hamas during its unprecedented attack on October 7, the Spaniard, who is also scheduled to meet Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas judged that “the number of Palestinians killed” in Israel’s reprisals was “totally unbearable”.
Renewed a week ago for a new four-year term, Pedro Sánchez, who governs in coalition with the far left, promised that his “first commitment” in foreign policy would be to “work in Europe and in Spain to recognize the Palestinian state.
The Spaniard – whose country organized a peace conference in 1991 which paved the way for the Oslo Accords – tirelessly calls for the holding of a peace summit which should lead to a political solution to the conflict on the basis of two states.
His visit, accompanied by his Belgian counterpart Alexander de Croo, who will succeed him on January 1 as the rotating presidency of the EU, will continue on Friday in Egypt.
“Training effect”
According to Isaías Barreñada, professor at the Complutense University of Madrid, Mr. Sánchez, who has been striving for several years to try to strengthen Spain’s international weight, hopes that his positioning will have “a ripple effect” on the rest of the EU, while Western countries are the subject of criticism in the Arab world where they are considered too favorable to Israel.
In 2014, under a conservative government, the Spanish Parliament had already adopted a resolution calling for the recognition of the Palestinian state, supported by all political groups. This vote, which was non-binding, was however not followed by any effect.
In Europe, several small countries have taken this step, such as Sweden, Hungary, Malta and Romania. But none of the main EU member states have done so, which could lead Spain to become a pioneer.
For Pedro Sánchez, who has integrated into his new government a minister born of a Palestinian father, there is today “an opportunity” but also “a lot of pressure” to move in this direction, particularly from his wing left and public opinion, explains Isaías Barreñada.
Recognizing that the current conflict was “a very divisive subject in Europe”, the head of European diplomacy Josep Borrell, a former minister of Pedro Sánchez, judged Monday in the daily El Pais that Spain was one of the countries with “a clearer sympathy for the Arab world.
Diplomatic mini-crisis
Geographically close to the Maghreb, Spain turned to Arab countries during the Franco dictatorship (1939-1975) in order to circumvent its isolation in the West – a so-called “substitution” diplomacy long cultivated by Madrid, recalls Juan Tovar, professor at the University of Burgos.
It was not until 1986, moreover, that the country established official relations with Israel. The consequence of tensions born from the Hebrew State’s opposition to Spain’s entry into the UN at the end of the Second World War, due to its proximity to Nazi Germany, recalls Mr. Barreñada.
Madrid then went so far as to play mediator, thus hosting a Peace Conference in 1991, with for the first time all the Arab parties in direct conflict with the Jewish state: Palestinians, Syrians, Jordanians and Lebanese.
Two years after this conference, the Oslo Accords, through which Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) mutually recognized each other, were signed in Washington.
But overall, Spain remains perceived by many actors as pro-Arab. At the end of October, a mini diplomatic crisis even broke out with the Israeli embassy after controversial statements by a far-left Spanish minister who spoke of a “planned genocide” in Gaza.
Given the differences within the EU, “it is difficult to imagine that Spain has the capacity to reorient the European position” but “it can contribute to showing that there are sensitivities within the EU different,” says Mr. Barreñada.