Yolanda Díaz has warned against the “grand coalition” represented, in her view, by the Popular Party and the Socialists in the EU. She emphasized that both groups have agreed on new fiscal rules and the Pact on Migration and Asylum in Europe. At the same time that Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez was speaking in Seville, calling for a mobilization of the left against the “reactionary grand coalition” of the right and the far right, the second vice president wanted to highlight the close relationship between the PSOE and policies she considers conservative. Díaz and the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasun, arrived in Vigo to support the head of the Sumar party’s list for the June 9 elections, Estrella Galán. The candidate offered a “progressive pact against austerity and cuts” to the PSOE candidate, Teresa Ribera.
In recent months, the lack of General State Budgets has blurred the role of the leftist organization’s five ministers in the Government. Díaz underscored, “In Spain, the PSOE governs with Sumar. What we are doing is because we are in the Government. We have just restored public universality in health, prohibited co-payments, reformed dismissals, sent letters to Spanish companies not to collaborate with the genocidal regime of Israel, eliminated the National Bullfighting Prize…” She then contrasted, “In Europe, the Socialists govern with the PP.” The Minister of Labor, whose party has hardened its tone against the PSOE at the start of the campaign, recalled that socialists and populists voted together for a “shameful” migration agreement. Díaz called on voters to support Sumar as the “only formula against austerity.”
Estrella Galán urged the Socialists to abandon their “erratic path” and “break the temptation to lean to the right.” She expressed her confusion about the PSOE’s direction towards the right or left, highlighting the party’s openness to pact with the extreme right in the European Parliament, although the Socialists have denied this. Galán proposed, “Mrs. Teresa Ribera: we offer you an agreement. Let’s break the temptation to lean to the right, the temptation of neoliberal logic. Let’s make a pact of all progressive forces against austerity and cuts, for new fiscal rules, for the well-being of people and a just ecological transition. Embrace our coalition, the progressive one, because that is what Spain needs.”
This is the first time Díaz has attended an event of her party in Galicia since the regional elections last February when she failed to enter Parliament. The involvement of the Sumar leader–and other heavyweights of the party–will be absolute in the coming days. The vice president is expected to participate in more than a dozen events in the campaign and will also travel to Zaragoza on Sunday. For the party led by the Minister of Labor, the European elections on June 9 are a key opportunity to position themselves as the hegemonic force to the left of the Socialists, against a Podemos led in this election by former Minister of Equality Irene Montero, who has been preparing for the contest for months.
