Spain to push migration pact, corporate taxes under EU presidency

OVIEDO, Spain

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Thursday that Madrid will push for a pact on migration when his country holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU.

"I expect that within this term we will have definitively closed this pact on migration and asylum," he said during a presentation in Madrid, pointing to recent positive developments in negotiations.

Sanchez was in Madrid outlining Spain's priorities for its presidency, which will begin on July 1 – just a few weeks before Spain will hold national elections on July 23.

While Sanchez did not explain what a new Spanish government could mean for the EU, he stated: "Democracy is never a problem. This is not the first time in Europe that elections take place during a rotation."

A Sigma Dos poll published Wednesday suggested that Sanchez's left-wing government could be toppled by a coalition of conservative and far-right politicians. Even so, many of the priorities Sanchez presented for its EU leadership had a progressive slant.

Among them, Sanchez said Spain hopes to spearhead fiscal reforms to ensure corporations pay a minimum amount of taxes in all EU countries and fight against tax havens.

"How can we ask citizens to pay taxes if big corporations do not have to?" he asked.

Tackling the climate emergency is also paramount, he said, for both environmental and economic reasons.

"If we play our cards right this decade, the EU could become a leader in renewable energy production," he said.

Sanchez also said Spain aims to boost unity within the EU, which would mean, besides the migration pact, the deepening of the internal market and a new banking union.

While these goals may not align with a potential right-wing coalition government, Sanchez said Spain's top priority is pushing for the reindustrialization of the EU – something generally agreed upon across Spain’s political spectrum.

"Opening to the world has driven growth and welfare in Europe. However, it also brought negatives … Current changes give us an opportunity to revert this trend and recover lost industries and bring in new ones," said Sanchez. "Our goal is to ensure Europe's centrality in the new global order … which means the China-US binary is over," he added.

The rotating presidency of the Council of the EU is currently held by Sweden and was last held by Madrid in 2010.