The former Spanish minister was on Onda Madrid's 'De cara al mundo' programme

Josep Piqué: “Rusia está contrastando permanentemente hasta dónde está dispuesto a llegar Occidente”

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Josep Piqué has reviewed international current affairs in the microphones of 'De cara al mundo', on Onda Madrid. The former Spanish politician and businessman, who was Minister of Industry, Foreign Affairs and Science and Technology in the Spanish government, tackled the current controversy between Russia and NATO and other issues such as Morocco's proposal for the autonomy of Western Sahara under Moroccan sovereignty. 

Russia and the Atlantic Alliance met in Brussels to find solutions to the crisis that has arisen since Moscow concentrated 100,000 soldiers on the border with Ukraine.  The Russian Foreign Ministry's second-in-command told NATO of Moscow's conditions for reversing the threat of invasion of Ukraine. The demands include halting NATO's expansion and preventing it from deploying military weapons on the border. These demands are "unacceptable" to NATO. For his part, Jens Stoltenberg denounced Russian interference in its neighbours and the real threat of invasion of Ukraine.

Mr Piqué, if you had been Foreign Minister and had been at those negotiating tables these days, what would you have tried to do?

It is not easy. As they are negotiating tables, and if you have ministerial responsibility, you have to go with a great deal of information, having previously contrasted opinions and, therefore, being able to speak with greater knowledge of the facts than those of us who are observing from the outside. I think the timing is extremely delicate. What Russia is proposing is not acceptable to the members of the Atlantic Alliance and neither is it acceptable to the European Union, and we must therefore maintain our principles and not allow ourselves to be carried away by appeasement policies, which always end badly. We must show credibility in the possible responses, and to this end I believe that the approach being taken is reasonable. At no time can we discuss the right of sovereign countries to join a defensive alliance such as the Atlantic Alliance or a political community such as the European Union and, therefore, Russia's requests cannot be accepted. However, it is possible to negotiate on the deployment of tactical and strategic weapons on European territory. I believe that a diplomatic solution will have to be found in this way. If this is not possible, there will be no choice but to react, and to react with all kinds of measures and instruments that do not necessarily exclude military intervention, even if it is indirect, including very strong economic sanctions.

It makes one's hair stand on end to imagine an armed confrontation between Russians, Americans and Europeans in the heart of Europe.

Of course, but that is the threat Russia is playing with. Russia is constantly "testing" and contrasting how far the West is willing to go in defending Ukraine's sovereign capacity. I believe that to give in there would be to accept a fait accompli, as we had to accept at the time with the occupation of the Donbas, the annexation of Crimea or the war in Georgia, which involved creating two republics, pseudo-republics, under Russian protection in that country. I think there is enough historical experience to argue for the need to show a great deal of firmness. When I say military confrontation, I am not thinking of a large-scale military confrontation, but I am thinking of responding to certain military movements that are taking place on the border with Ukraine, and there is a set of instruments that do not have to involve direct military confrontation, which, in fact, makes everyone's hair stand on end

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Are we in a new Cold War since the 2014 crisis?

I think there has been a clear strategy for some time now on the part of Russia, but also China, to question the liberal international order; the world we have organised since the Second World War through multilateral organisations. The situation, with the hegemonic position of the United States, neither China nor Russia accepts this, but they are claiming what we would call their spheres of influence with increasing determination and threats, and this is not just now.

Putin, many years ago at the Munich Security Conference, anticipated Russia's policy, which is none other than to regain the sphere of influence once held by the Russia of the Tsars or more recently by the Soviet Union itself. We must be aware that this is incompatible with the perseverance of the sovereignty of the former republics that were part of the Soviet Union itself and that they have every right to go their own way.

Is it perhaps a demonstration that Putin needs an external enemy because internally he has a lot of problems? Because in these times of COVID, of economic crisis, maybe we should all be more concerned about overcoming these problems and not be raising these kinds of tensions, right?

That is always the case. When someone has internal difficulties, you try to find some kind of adversary or external enemy to bring your own society back together, but let's be aware that the moment is a time of great popularity, Putin's policy was exactly the same as it is now. When the war in Georgia started, the Donbas was occupied or Crimea was annexed, we didn't have the pandemic and the economic and social crisis was the same. This is a historical and political determination that goes far beyond the current situation. We would be mistaken if we thought that if Russia's internal issues were resolved, Putin would ease the pressure. I believe this is not the case.

Is this a test of the need for the European Union to have its own security and defence policy within NATO or outside? What is your view on this question?

I think the European Union as such has to move towards what we call strategic autonomy. We have a great opportunity now. In this semester with the French presidency we have to discuss the so-called Strategic Compass presented by the Commission. Of course, doing so is compatible because it means taking on greater commitments in the field of security and defence, which the European Union has never taken on before. It means making it compatible with what we also have to discuss at the end of the six-month period, precisely in Madrid, at the NATO summit, which must establish what is called the Atlantic Alliance's strategy for the next decade: the strategic definition. 

Personally, I believe that these two things are compatible, and that furthermore, reinforcing a European pillar in security and defence is very positive for strengthening the alliance itself and for the United States to continue to believe that maintaining and strengthening the Atlantic is worthwhile. Although they are much more specific now in the Indo-Pacific to confront China's expansionism, it is clear that the very alliance that exists between China and Russia obliges the United States to have a very clear position on the European continent itself and in other areas, because we have also just seen what has happened in Europe itself, in Belarus, or what has just happened in recent days in Kazakhstan, which are new expressions of Russia's expansionist will and the recovery of the old space that we now call post-Soviet.
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In this scenario with China and the United States, is President Biden strong enough, given that there are elections in November and that he may lose his majority in both Houses?

I believe that, on the China issue, it is one of the very few issues on which there is still bipartisan consensus. There are no fundamental discrepancies in the positions of the two parties, and I think we could say exactly the same about Russia. The other thing is that, for the credibility of US positions, in view of a strong presidency, it is much better. It does no one any good at the moment for the US presidency to be perceived as weak.

The US presidency has gone ahead with the Trump administration's tweet about Morocco's sovereignty over the Sahara. These days the UN special envoy is making his first tour of the area. What are your thoughts on this? Do you think that the way out is the one Morocco is proposing of broad sovereignty over the Sahara under Moroccan sovereignty and relaxing relations with Spain and the rest of the countries?

This is a great example from a foreign policy point of view. The United States' approach is not very different depending on whether the president is a Republican or a Democrat. It is the form, and the way Trump used to position himself in favour of Moroccan positions on the Sahara is not the best possible one; using a tweet is not part of formal diplomatic practice. That said, the position of the new US administration has not been to go back on what that tweet said, but to put it in terms that I believe are in the interests of the United States and which are linked to the recognition of Israel by a large part of the Arab world. At the time this was achieved with Egypt and then with Jordan, but now we are going much further and this is something of strategic interest to the United States, hence the support for Morocco.

Relations with Morocco will by definition always be difficult. There are many areas of collaboration, from trade and investment to tourism, technological cooperation and a reasonable migration policy. But we will always have to start from a reality that is what it is, and that makes relations between Morocco and Spain incompatible in the long term; I am referring to Ceuta and Melilla. Any Spanish government must be very aware that if Morocco's de facto sovereignty over Western Sahara, which it now has, becomes de jure sovereignty, we must bear in mind what its next step will be. Obviously, Spain has to follow what international law and, therefore, the United Nations' doctrine on the matter, and support the special envoy and, if possible, find a solution to the Sahara issue together with Algeria, which involves recognising something that is also completely obvious, which is that the viability of a Saharawi state cannot be contemplated at the present time, but at the same time we must guarantee the balances, receive guarantees and put an end to a very sad episode, especially for the Saharawis. The Saharawi people, in particular, have been suffering since 1975.

On another matter, do you think Mr Johnson should go home or can what he has done be forgiven?

He shouldn't if it were a one-off circumstance, but there are quite a few, and there is one that is the most important, which is how he forced and then raised the issue of Brexit. Mr Johnson has been very negative for everyone, certainly for the European Union, but fundamentally for the United Kingdom, even calling into question the very internal cohesion of the United Kingdom. What he is doing is constantly demonstrating a degree of frivolity that is incompatible with the responsibility of being no less than the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

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