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Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez is no longer a lone voice in Europe standing up to US President Donald Trump.
On Friday his role on the international stage will be boosted by a rally of like-minded leaders, including Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva and South African President Cyril Ramaphosa. The Barcelona gathering is one signal of Mr Sanchez's boost in popularity at home and abroad.
It is not just leftist leaders joining his side, he is now aligned with some of Europe's most conservative leaders too.
Mr Sanchez has described the Iran war illegal, unjustified and dangerous. The tone is similar to language he used in the past to describe the 12-day attacks against Iran and Israel's war on Gaza.
Last summer, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz admitted Israel was doing "dirty work" for not just itself in Iran. Now the tone has shifted. Even Mr Merz, a staunch Israel ally, is criticising Israel for its war against Lebanon.
Once viewed as a Trump whisperer, Italy's Giorgia Meloni is now feuding with the US president over his attacks on the Pope. She has also blocked the automatic renewal of a defence agreement with Israel.
Paris, Europe's closest Lebanon ally, has been sidelined from talks by Israel, which halted military imports from France last month because it refused a US overflight carrying equipment bound for Israel.
Unlike recent wars in the Middle East, the latest crisis in the Strait of Hormuz has caused Europeans feel the conflict's consequences in their wallets as fuel prices soar. An Ipsos poll published last week showed that 88 per cent of French respondents fear an increase in inflation, while three-quarters of Dutch respondents were more concerned about the Iran war than the Ukraine conflict.
An alternative path
While it's hard to quantify Mr Sanchez's precise influence on other leaders, he has offered an alternative at a time of waning popularity in Europe of both Mr Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, said Eduard Soler Lecha, associate professor of international relations at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. "It's not particularly productive for European governments to be aligned with those two leaders," Mr Soler Lecha told The National.
"He has built his international stature with his different positions on Palestine and pushback against Trump's disruptive policies in Europe and his defence spending demands," Isaias Barrenada Bajo, international relations professor at the Complutense University of Madrid in Spain, said.
Last year, Mr Sanchez was the only Nato ally who refused Mr Trump's injunction to increase military spending to 5 per cent, triggering threats of tariff increases from Washington that have yet to be implemented.
After the start of the Gaza war, Mr Sanchez was the first to use the disputed words "genocide" and "war crimes" to describe the conduct of the Israeli military in the enclave.
Spain was also the first country, alongside Ireland, to call in early 2024 for a suspension of relations with Israel, including scrapping preferential tariffs, after the first months of the war in Gaza.
Public backing
The call took over a year to gain some traction. In September, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen tabled a proposal to partially suspend the EU-Israel association agreement, a few months after an internal EU report found that Israel was in breach of its human rights clause. But it was quickly shelved after a US-brokered ceasefire.
Now, Mr Sanchez is again calling to suspend the agreement over Israel's military operations against Lebanon. While it remains unlikely with France, Italy and Germany will support this, the legitimacy of such calls has been bolstered by an online petition that has garnered the support of one million Europeans.
Reaching this threshold means that Ms von der Leyen, a close ally to Israel, must review the idea. However reporting has shown that such petitions rarely translate into legislative proposals.
Further comforting Mr Sanchez in his foreign policy choices is that he is supported by the vast majority of Spaniards. War remains deeply unpopular in Spain, shaped in part by the mass protests of 2003 after the country backed the US-led invasion of Iraq without a UN mandate. That legacy still resonates: as recently as last month, actor Javier Bardem revived the slogan “No a la guerra” on the Oscars stage.
Diplomatic relations between Israel and Spain have been tense since they were first established in 1986. Spain also sees itself as Europe’s closest bridge to the Middle East and North Africa, and Madrid has maintained a strong commitment to the Palestinian cause.
"Israel perceives Spain as a European country it should be wary of. There used to be a near-total consensus in Parliament in support of Palestine, and Israel has no leverage because commercial relations are insignificant," Mr Bajo said.
"So Israel uses historical rhetoric against Spain harking back to expulsion of Jews in the 16th century. This is upsetting in Spain; using this kind of argument in the 21st century makes no sense."
Personal views
Mr Sanchez's positions reflect a long-standing ideological commitment to multilateralism. His worldview was shaped through early experience on the ground with the United Nations in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and later in Brussels at the European Parliament.
Those formative roles appear to have cemented a belief that stability depends on adherence to international law. From this perspective, any war conducted outside a UN framework is inherently illegitimate. "He's not like other prime ministers who have been active in domestic politics then have to invest in foreign affairs. He has been interested in foreign affairs since the very first day and that can be seen by how active he has been since his first term," Mr Soler Lecha said.
Whether foreign policy can help Mr Sanchez in next year's general election is unclear. Polls show socialists a few points behind the right-wing popular party. Before the Iran war, the socialists' popularity had dropped to one of its lowest points, at 26 per cent, with a modest recovery since. The right has pointed at suspicions of corruption against his wife, who was charged with corruption by a Spanish court on Tuesday after a two-year investigation. "In Spain there is a saying: foreign policy does not help you win elections, but it can explain why you lost them," Mr Soler Lecha said.
