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Spain’s Senate has rejected a friendship treaty with France. A total of 142 senators from the conservative People’s Party and far-right Vox voted against the document, while 106 senators from Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez’s Socialist Party voted in favor.
Operative Information Center-OMM reports that the vote took place as an official dinner was beginning at the Royal Palace, attended by French President Emmanuel Macron, King Felipe VI and Queen Letizia.
The vote was held during the banquet at the Royal Palace, located several hundred meters from the Senate building.
The friendship treaty between France and Spain was first signed by Emmanuel Macron and Pedro Sanchez in Barcelona in January 2023. The document was subsequently approved by Madrid’s Congress of Deputies, as well as France’s National Assembly and Senate in Paris.
Spain’s People’s Party, which holds an absolute majority in the Senate, opposed one of the treaty’s provisions. That provision calls for a government member from one of the two countries to be invited to attend a meeting of the other country’s Council of Ministers at least once every three months.
On Sept. 23, several days before Macron’s visit to Madrid, Spain’s court ruled that the France-Spain friendship treaty was constitutional.
In addition to Spain, France has signed similar friendship treaties with Germany, Italy and Poland in Europe. Spain, meanwhile, has concluded comparable agreements with its neighbors Portugal and Morocco.
Friendship treaties of this kind are generally intended to strengthen political coordination and institutional dialogue between participating countries.
