Respect for EU values ‘red line’ for Spanish right in new European Parliament

Respect for European values is the absolute “red line” of the conservative Partido Popular (EPP), the main opposition force in Spain, for any future alliance in the European Parliament after Sunday’s elections, the party’s main candidate in the European elections Dolors Montserrat told Euractiv’s partner EFE in an interview.

However, Montserrat did not want to speculate or discuss concrete possible agreements between the European People’s Party (EPP) and other right-wing – or far-right – parties after the European elections on Sunday.

“Let voters choose on 9 June. We are not going to get ahead of ourselves,” said Montserrat, for whom Spanish citizens are “coming closer to the PP” with their vote because the Spanish formation governs “from the centre”, she said.

While highlighting the key role of the EPP and PP as pro-European formations, Montserrat stressed that the Spanish party would continue to “defend European values”.

“We are not going to back down. These are our ‘red lines’,” she said.

The PP has governed in coalition with the far-right VOX party, a member of the Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) group, in several Spanish municipalities and regions since 2023.

New polls predict a victory for the PP on Sunday, followed by the Socialist Party (PSOE/S&D) and VOX, the third force in parliament. The progressive Sumar platform, the PSOE’s junior coalition partner, would come fourth and its former ally Podemos fifth.

Spain will have 61 seats in the new European Parliament, two more than it has now (59).

According to Montserrat, Spanish Prime Minister and PSOE leader Pedro Sánchez has broken these “red lines” after agreeing to sign pacts with “partners who do not believe in the European Union and who have violated European values”.

Controversy surrounding Pedro Sánchez’s wife

The media spotlight has been on a judge’s order for Begoña Gómez, the wife of Sánchez, to appear in court in July to face charges of influence peddling and corruption.

On Tuesday afternoon, the Spanish prime minister published a new “Letter to the Citizens” on X, in which he defends his wife and criticises the fact that the judge investigating the case announced his decision to summon her coinciding with the campaign for the European elections, which, according to several analysts, could have a very negative impact on the PSOE’s results on Sunday.

“My wife and I have learned only today, through the media, that Begoña has been summoned for investigation on 5 July. This decision was announced only five days before the European Parliament elections, which is strange,” Sánchez says in the new letter, following the one he published on X in April, in which he speculated about his possible resignation.

“The unwritten rule of not issuing decisions that could affect the normal course of an election campaign and, therefore, the citizens’ vote, has usually been followed. In this case, it is clear that this practice has not been respected. I leave it to the reader to draw his or her own conclusions,” he added.

(Fernando Heller | EuroEFE.Euractiv.es)

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