The EU Parliament President Roberta Metsola and political group leaders’ visit to Madrid, which was scheduled for 26 June on the occasion of the Spanish EU Council presidency inauguration, was indefinitely postponed on Thursday after Sánchez announced snap elections on 23 July.
The decision was taken during a closed-door meeting of the Conference of Presidents (CoP), comprised of the political groups’ presidents and Metsola.
In a new blow to the Spanish EU Council presidency, the EPP agreed with the far-right and the Catalan independentist faction within the Greens/EFA to postpone the visit, the socialists (S&D) said.
“We regret that the EPP has allied itself with the extreme right and the independentists to attack the Spanish presidency once again”, S&D President Iratxe Garcia said in a communication, and added that “the damage is not done to Pedro Sánchez [Spanish PM] or the Socialist Party, it is done to the country and Spanish society as a whole”.
Last week, EPP chief Manfred Weber requested Metsola to postpone Sánchez’s address in July’s plenary to present the priorities of the presidency, to conduct the speech “outside domestic political battles”. Shortly after, the Spanish government announced the speech would be delayed to September.
Sánchez called national elections after a landslide win of right-wing Partido Popular (EPP) and far-right Vox (ECR) in the recent regional and municipal elections. The elections are now scheduled for 23 July, almost one month after Spain takes over the EU Council presidency.
Spain will chair the EU Council presidency from 1 July to 31 December and will be succeeded by Belgium.
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