Alex Trelinski
SPAIN’S Prime Minister, Pedro Sanchez told the European Union on Tuesday that defence and security improvements have to be made and paid from public coffers to counter any threat from Russia.
Sanchez took part in a meeting of the European Council in Brussels which addressed the situation in Ukraine.
“We are in a difficult situation,” Sanchez explained, adding that the current context is marked by major changes in the world order.
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“This is why, in the face of the uncertainties generated by this situation we have come here to provide certainty”, he stressed.
“In the face of external attacks on our common institutions, we have come to strengthen our EU,” the Prime Minister added.
In relation to the war in Ukraine, he reiterated Spain’s unequivocal support, highlighting the country’s more than three years of heroic resistance.
Pedro Sanchez made it clear that there is an aggressor, Putin’s Russia, and an attacked party, Ukraine.
He warned this conflict, which is global in scope, violates international law and the basic principles and rules of peaceful coexistence between nations, thereby ‘eroding the world order’.
Sanchez stated that Vladimir Putin’s neo-imperialist vision goes beyond Ukraine, and that Ukraine’s security and defence are Europe’s security and defence.
He also underlined that ‘we support Ukraine because we are coherent and we have wanted to make this one of the flags of Spanish foreign policy’.
“We are consistent in our loyalty to the European project, under the assumption that Spain is a great country within the European context.”
“We are not only pro-European out of interest but out of conviction,” he affirmed.
On the security and defence of Europe, Pedro Sanchez stressed that Russia’s aggression in Ukraine is the greatest threat facing the continent, recalling that ‘unfortunately, it is not the only one’.
In this context, he said that ‘we are at a historic moment that requires us Europeans to resolutely assume our responsibility in security and defence, defending our strategic autonomy. It is Europe’s time’.
He went on to say that Spain defends a broad and comprehensive concept of security, with a 360º vision, covering both the geographical sphere, with an eye too on threats from the South, and the material sphere, strengthening the response to cyberattacks, supply crises, terrorism and climatic catastrophes.
Sanchez stressed that this impetus should serve to increase the competitiveness and innovation of European industry, with the aim of strategically developing a high-tech sector whose advances can also be applied to civilian uses.
“It is a boost that strengthens our European and Spanish industrial base and from which different regions can benefit,” he said.
