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Mark Nayler
Friday, 9 January 2026, 11:03
Pedro Sánchez travelled to Paris this week, to attend a meeting of the "Coalition of the Willing" - a group of 35 nations committed to ensuring that a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine would last. Formed last March by the UK and France, the coalition's meeting in the French capital on Tuesday was attended by 27 heads of state, including Ukraine's president Volodimir Zelenskyy. Unsurprisingly given his recent intervention in Venezuelan affairs, Donald Trump was not among them, nor was the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
Instead, the US was represented by two men with lower profiles: Steve Witkoff, America's special envoy to the Middle East, and Jared Kushner, a businessman who happens to be married to Trump's daughter Ivanka (and whose father Charles was pardoned by Trump on charges of illegal campaign financing and tax evasion in 2020). The high-powered Paris huddle came a week after Zelenskyy presented Trump with a 20-point peacekeeping plan in Florida.
Sánchez indicated, for the first time, that he would be willing to send Spanish troops to Ukraine once the war is over - a proposal he will now discuss with each of the major parties (except Vox). At Tuesday's meeting, the UK and France also said they would establish a post-ceasefire military presence in Ukraine.
Sánchez has no problem performing policy U-turns, but he has been consistent in his support of Ukraine, even when it has threatened the stability of his coalition. The day before heading to Paris, he wrote in a post on X that "Respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states is a non-negotiable principle. From Ukraine to Gaza, including Venezuela." (But not including Gibraltar, presumably - a territory over which Spain won't renounce its claim, despite the wish of Gibraltarians to remain a British Overseas Territory.)
Spain has had peacekeeping troops deployed around the world for years, most notably in Lebanon, where it leads a UN Interim Force. Sánchez's proposal shouldn't be controversial, especially as he would only send troops to Ukraine post-ceasefire, not for combat (although another idea discussed in Paris was legally binding nations to assist Ukraine if Russia were to launch another invasion). But it has already provoked a variety of responses in congress, from outright refusal (Podemos), to conditional assent (Sumar, although the leftist alliance hasn't stated what these conditions would be).
Podemos, once an ally of the Socialists, is more concerned with opposing the US - in this case its "neocolonial theft of rare earth minerals" - than it is with helping Ukrainians. If Vox deserves to be excluded from these talks because it is the "complete opposite of what foreign policy [should be]", as the government's spokesperson said this week, then the far left should be sidelined on the same grounds.