Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said Spain will formally request the European Union suspend its association agreement with Israel at a meeting of EU foreign ministers on April 21 in Luxembourg, El Pais reported on April 19.
"A government that violates international law or the principles of the EU cannot be its partner," Sanchez said at the opening rally of the Andalusian election campaign in Gibraleon, Huelva.
Sanchez made the announcement at the first pre-campaign rally for the regional elections scheduled for May 17, attended by around 2,000 people. The prime minister is backing Socialist candidate Maria Jesus Montero, a former vice prime minister and finance minister, whose party faces a heavy defeat according to polls.
A survey by the Andalusian Studies Centre published earlier in the week gave Montero 21% of the vote and between 26 and 27 seats, below the 30 seats the party won in 2022, which was the Socialists' worst result in the region. The same poll rated Montero as the lowest-scoring leader of all candidates at 3.7 out of 10.
The Spanish government has been among the most vocal European critics of Israel's conduct in Gaza. Madrid recognised Palestine as a state in May 2024 alongside Ireland and Norway and has repeatedly called for the EU-Israel Association Agreement, which provides preferential trade access, to be reviewed on human rights grounds.
Sanchez drew on his anti-war messaging during the rally. "We are friends of the Israeli people, but we do not agree with their government," he said.
The prime minister accused Spain's opposition People's Party (PP) and far-right Vox of blocking measures on housing access, aid for working classes dealing with the impact of the war, minimum wage increases and pension revaluations. He repeated a pledge from summer 2024 to add €25bn ($28.4bn) to Spain's pension reserve fund by 2027.
Montero told the rally that if elected, no patient would wait more than 80 days for a medical test under her administration. She pledged to build 10,000 homes and facilitate access to them. The candidate said recent delays of more than a year in breast cancer screening diagnoses in Andalusia amounted to "the greatest negligence of a health system in this country."
Gibraleon is one of the towns where the Socialists retain an absolute majority in what was historically a party stronghold in southern Spain.
Spain recently reopened its embassy in Tehran as relations between the two continue to grow amid the ongoing fued with Israel and the US which backs Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's campaigns in Gaza, Syria, Lebanon and Iran, IntelliNews previously reported.
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