Somehow life has brought me to work today for the government of Pedro Sanchez. And I have to admit that I am really alarmed by the haste with which texts against him are being written in Greece, at a time when he is one of the few European leaders who are articulating a sober and dignified speech at an extremely critical international juncture.
Spain has refused to allow its territory to be used as a springboard for strikes on Iran, even after threats of economic retaliation from Trump. Today Sanchez positioned himself clearly with a single sentence: «We cannot respond to one illegality with another, because that is how the great disasters of humanity begin». That is why international media are already presenting him as perhaps the only European leader who so openly clashes with Trump's logic, even reiterating the historic motto of Spanish society since 2003 and its opposition to the invasion of Iraq: ’No a la guerra“.
And yet, in Greece there is an almost reflexive certainty that «he lied», that «he did a backflip», that «his revolution lasted one day» - on the basis of allegations that he supposedly backed down after pressure from Washington. Although the Spanish foreign minister denied this in the most categorical manner, making it clear that there had been no change of position. At the same time, the stereotype of the «Philoturkic Sanchez» is being mechanically reproduced - an easy label that completely ignores the complexity of Spanish foreign policy.
Most worrying, however, is the normalisation of a trite public discourse where irony, suspicion and fake news replace calm analysis.
Kostis Kornetes
