This week, the president of the Spanish Government, the socialist Pedro Sánchez, arrived in Beijing with the intention of projecting Spain as Europe’s pragmatic bridge to China. However, the trip was overshadowed by a judicial setback in his country: a Madrid judge ordered the prosecution of his wife, Begoña Gómez, for alleged influence peddling, embezzlement, corporate corruption and misappropriation linked to her work at the Complutense University. Gómez, his assistant Cristina Álvarez and businessman Juan Carlos Barrabés deny the charges.
The sentence, after a two-year investigation that began in April 2024, comes at a delicate moment for the Spanish president. Sánchez has described the case as a political offensive promoted by the right and the extreme right, noting that it originated with a complaint from Clean Hands, a group of anti-corruption activists with opposition ties. From Beijing, his response was concise: “What I ask of justice is to do justice.”
This message competed with a carefully orchestrated foreign policy strategy. Together with President Xi Jinping, Sánchez announced 19 agreements with China, launched a new “strategic dialogue”, defended rapprochement between the EU and China and supported a greater Chinese role in Middle East diplomacy. A few days ago, he called for the creation of a “common European army” to reduce its dependence on NATO and, therefore, on the US. Xi, for his part, presented Spain as a valuable channel between Beijing and Brussels and urged cooperation against the “law of the jungle.”
In Spain, Sánchez also promoted one of the most important social measures of his mandate: a massive regularization plan for some 500,000 undocumented immigrants, whose applications opened on April 16 and will extend until June.
He called it an “act of justice,” while the center-right Popular Party denounced it as a magnet for irregular migration.
The problem for Sánchez is the accumulation of conflicts. His brother David will appear in court next month in a separate influence peddling case, and his former transport minister, José Luis Ábalos, is already on trial for alleged bribery. Even as Sánchez sets the tone internationally, internal scandals continue to rewrite it.
@AlonsoTamez
