The second vice president, Yolanda Díaz, together with MEP Ernest Urtasun (left) and advisor Carlos Corrochano, this Wednesday at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid. Mariscal (EFE)
Two days after the one year anniversary of the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Yolanda Díaz defended this Wednesday that Europe must "lead a new diplomatic effort" to put an end to the conflict.
In an extensive article for the French magazine
Le Grand Continent
, which was presented in the afternoon at the Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid, the second vice president delves into a thorny issue for the government coalition and which was the subject of a deep crisis in March, when the Executive of Pedro Sánchez decided to send arms to the Government of Volodímir Zelenski in the face of the frontal rejection of Podemos.
The head of Labor, who supported the president's decision on her day, advocates an "autonomous reading" of the United States in terms of security and rules out that the solution involves a greater investment in weapons.
Precisely this morning, Defense Minister Margarita Robles confirmed the delivery of six refurbished Leopard tanks to Ukraine.
Accompanied by MEP Ernest Urtasun, one of the profiles that make up the central nucleus of Sumar,
“European citizens should not and cannot rely
ad aeternum
on American security guarantees.
It needs, we need, an autonomous reading of the world ”, underlines the vice president in her article.
“As long as we depend on the United States for our security, we will not have the autonomy to decide and organize our own role in relation to, for example, China”, she elaborates in the text published under the title Transforming Europe to protect the
people
.
“We need to move these responsibilities from an unstable NATO to a European security area that is subject to democratic control”, questions the vice president.
"For this we do not need to spend more on defense, but rather greater coordination in spending, shared purchase and investment programs," she says.
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In his article, Díaz emphasizes that Europe must "lead a new diplomatic effort aligned with the aspirations of Ukrainian citizens", "reinforce" humanitarian aid and "devise" a reconstruction plan for the country "based on aid and not in loans”.
The vice president did not go into any of these details during her speech this Wednesday, but she has stressed the illegal nature of the invasion and has demanded, in line with Pope Francis and the Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, "a peace just and lasting.
“We need a Europe with an autonomous project in economic, fiscal, and security terms.
A strong Europe that affects European citizenship and that serves to change people's lives ”, she pointed out in her speech.
“Transformative Europeanism”
The vice president has outlined this Wednesday the lines of her "emancipatory project", a "transformative Europeanism, which seeks to protect ordinary people and the planet", as described in the text.
"Talking about a transformative Europeanism is talking about a new social contract on a European scale and a gradual and ambitious reform program," says Díaz before reeling off the axes of that transformation: labor, green, feminist, democratic, with fair taxation , multilateral and for human rights.
Among her proposals, the vice president calls for the renewal of the Treaties ("to put them at the service of working people"), to give the European Parliament full legislative capacity and to improve the method of electing the European Commission
and change some paradigms, such as the "agility of decision making".
In full construction of Sumar, Díaz has finished his speech appealing to the need to build a European political alternative.
"I am in favor of joining Europe as well (...) let's think big, especially because the
Orbanes
exist and we want a future for our children with hope," he warned.
In the published text, the vice president alludes to "duty"
to build "a new political movement on a European scale and with a transversal vocation that unites and excites the Greens, lefts and progressives of very different traditions and origins, feminisms, citizen movements and the trade union world" in order to articulate "broad blocs and consensus” to transform Europe “in an ecological and social key”.