It has already become a constant. The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, is not welcome at key meetings in which continental leaders debate the future of Ukraine and, by extension, the European Union.
This weekend it happened again twice. On Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was in Canada, where he was received by the Prime Minister, Mark Carneybefore traveling to Florida for his key meeting with Donald Trump.
At the end, both held a virtual call with the leaders of the old continent. The guests? Emmanuel Macron (France), Alexander Stubb (Finland), Friedrich Merz (Germany), Giorgia Meloni (Italy), Mette Frederiksen (Denmark), Donald Tusk (Poland), Dick Schoof (Netherlands), Jonas Gahr (Norway) and Ulf Kristersson (Sweden).
No sign of Sánchez or any mention of Spain. The same country that hosted the NATO summit in 2022 is not invited today to the spheres of power in which the future of Europe is determined.
Also on that video call were Mark Rutte, NATO Secretary General, and Jonathan Powelladvisor to the British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer. Both were in charge of coordinating this appointment.
A day later, hours before Zelensky and Trump had the key meeting in Florida, the Ukrainian president contacted the last relevant leader in the negotiations with whom he had not yet spoken.
“I started my morning in Florida with a detailed telephone conversation with the Prime Minister of the United KingdomKeir Starmer. “We talked about the preparations for the meeting with President Trump, as well as all our contacts with European partners,” he said in a message on the X social network.
Meeting with Trump
This Sunday, Trump was the host at his residence in Mar-a-Lago (Florida). There he received Zelensky with the aim of moving towards peace after almost four years of war and many disagreements between the two men.
Many things have changed since the first meeting between the two: Trump has exchanged the initial ambush for polite courtesy, while Zelensky has shed his military uniform to dress in a more elegantly tailored suit.
However, there is one constant: when they both said they would contact the European leaders After the meeting, no one doubted that Sánchez was not part of the select group chosen.
And so it was: during the meeting in Florida, Zelensky and Trump made a video call with Macron, Stubb, Meloni, Starmer, Merz, Rutte, Von der Leyen and Gahr, which was also joined by the president of Poland, Karol Nawrocki.
“They are all great leaders and we had a great conversation,” Trump told reporters.
a constant
And on the diplomatic board where the fate of Ukraine is at stake, Sánchez has been systematically relegated to the spectators’ box. Meanwhile, the European hard core dictates the master moves.
August 2025 marks the beginning of the end for Moncloa’s claims: excluded from the two key video conferences called by Merz, where Macron, Meloni, Starmer, Tusk and Stubb aligned their batteries with Zelenski and Trump before the Alaska summit.
Sánchez He wasn’t even invited.. He barely had a cameo in the third wheel of logistical “volunteers”, without the shine of the greats or the weight of real decisions.
Days before, he had received the first blow. Since August 9, the Government of Spain He was not invited to the security summit between the US and Europe held in the United Kingdom. The name of our country does not even appear in the document of European support for Ukraine, signed by Von der Leyen and five EU countries the next day.
The exclusion comes at one of the moments of greatest isolation for Spain in recent decades, after Sánchez refused to increase defense spending up to 5%.
The peak of the confrontation came on October 9, when Trump proposed expelling Spain from NATO, a possibility that is not included in the organization’s statute, for refusing to increase defense spending, for not increasing spending.
“They have no excuse not to do it. But that’s okay. Maybe They should be expelled from NATO, frankly“said the Republican in a joint appearance with Stubb at the White House.