The parties belonging to Sumar, the far-left coalition that is part of the government led by the PSOE, held a meeting late on Monday afternoon (which extended into the early hours of the night) to try to reach a consensus on the latest mandate from the European Council before the meeting between the second vice president, Yolanda Díaz – leader of Sumar – and the president of the Government.
The consensus in Sumar is to reject entering into an arms race that fuels the prevailing warlike spiral, on one hand; and the agreement to defend the need for Europe to build an autonomous defence independent of the United States. Regarding the specific issue of increasing military spending (which Sánchez will defend this Thursday in a round of talks with parliamentary groups), there is still no unified position free of nuances, but the general coordinator of Izquierda Unida – a coalition that includes, among others, the Communist Party – and a fundamental member of Sumar, has firmly refused to increase military spending.
