Sanchez urges right-wing PP not to harm Spain’s image in Brussels

Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez has urged the main opposition centre-right Partido Popular party (PP/EPP) not to harm Spain’s image in the EU after the conservative party accused EU Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevicius of partiality in a “hot” Spanish climate dossier.

On Wednesday, the president of the European People’s Party (EPP), Manfred Weber, and the head of the Spanish centre-right delegation to the European Parliament, Dolors Montserrat, accused Sinkevicius of “campaigning” for the socialist-led Spanish government due to their strong position against an Andalusian bill for the Doñana Park.

Speaking in parliament after the formal approval of a new housing law, Sánchez criticised the PP for accusing Sinkevicius and stressed that “rulings on Doñana are respected, and Spain’s reputation is defended”.

“It is extraordinarily serious. Are we facing a drifting opposition? Enough is enough”, stressed Sánchez, after regretting that the PP wants to “boycott” all the laws passed by the coalition government and intends to “flout the rulings of the EU courts on Doñana”.

“They (PP/EPP) damage Spain’s image by delegitimising the European Commission,” he said.

The Commission has only an ‘institutional role’

Meanwhile, Thursday, the European Commission insisted on its “strictly institutional” role in managing the Doñana dossier.

“The Commission here is in its role of managing a dossier”, and the role of the EU executive “is strictly institutional”, the chief spokesman for the EU executive, Eric Mamer, told a press conference in Brussels.

The secretary general of the PP, Cuca Gamarra, considered on Thursday the accusations made earlier by Manfred Weber to be “absolutely right” as [Sinkevicius] is “endorsing the positions of confrontation that Pedro Sánchez is promoting”, she said.

Spain will hold regional and municipal elections on 28 May, with a general election expected to take place in December, during the country’s final month of presidency of the EU Council.

(Fernando Heller | EuroEFE.EURACTIV.es)