The President of the Government and Secretary General of the PSOE, Pedro Sánchez, has vindicated this Sunday the 'No to war' as a symbol of "memory, dignity and commitment" of Spain, in a letter sent to the socialist militancy in which he denounces the war escalation in the Middle East and stresses that the country maintains a "coherent and firm" stance in favor of peace.
"Spain can say something that not everyone can say: that it speaks clearly, that it acts with coherence and that it does not renounce its principles. Today there are many people who feel proud of our country. And that pride is also yours. Because when Spain says "no to war", it is not just a Government speaking. A society speaks. A history speaks. You speak," Sánchez states in the letter addressed to the party's grassroots.
In the letter, the head of the Executive recalls that last February 28 the United States and Israel bombed Iran, which led the ayatollahs' regime to respond by attacking neighboring countries "in a spiral of instability that has only grown and threatened the entire region, and the planet as a whole."
"We have had a month of open war in the Middle East: more than 2,000 lives lost, four million people forced to abandon their homes, broken supply chains, oil and gas prices skyrocketing and a food crisis looming on the horizon," laments the socialist leader when describing the consequences of the conflict.
Sánchez emphasizes that Spain adopted from the beginning a "clear" position and aligned itself with the "no to war," a slogan that, he recalls, he learned 23 years ago when "a Government turns its back on its people and bows" to foreign interests. "But, above all, I learned what happens when an entire people rises up with courage and decorum. When millions of people fill the streets to say "not in my name." I was there. And many of you too. In those streets we forged something that accompanies us to this day: the certainty that peace is not a slogan, but a conviction. It is not a luxury, but a necessity. It is not a plea, but a demand," he recalls.
The President of the Government contrasts this attitude with that of other political parties, whom he reproaches for "doubting when one must be firm" or "hiding in ambiguity when one must take a stand", and emphasizes that the socialists "know which side they are on".
"When we socialists are in government, we act accordingly. We mobilized with Ukraine against Russian aggression. We demanded that the Palestinian genocide in Gaza stop. And now we shout, loud and clear, that this illegal war must end now. And it is also worth saying with all clarity: not everyone is in that place," he states in the letter.
In this vein, he highlights the package of economic and social measures approved on Thursday in Congress to cushion the impact of the crisis, which he describes as "the largest social and economic shield in the entire European Union", with resources aimed at protecting "20 million households and three million companies" against the consequences of the war. "While we defend peace outside, we protect our people inside", Sánchez emphasizes.
Finally, he assures that the current situation is one of the reasons why he decided to dedicate himself to politics and states he feels "deeply" proud to be general secretary of the PSOE and to represent a militancy "that does not hide, that does not fail and that is always where it needs to be".
"We are here to defend peace, to protect people and to be on the right side when it matters most," he adds, before stressing that "if there is one thing we have demonstrated time and again it is that the Socialist Party not only has history. It has conscience, it has courage and it has a future. And it has all the strength of those who never give up."