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Spain has accused Germany’s leader of acting like a “vassal” of the United States after he failed to defend Madrid against criticism from President Trump.
Last week, Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor, sat next to Trump in the Oval Office as the American president threatened to impose a trade embargo on Spain for its refusal to adopt Nato’s updated defence spending target.
When Merz was asked to respond, instead of contradicting his US counterpart he echoed the core of Trump’s criticism and urged Spain to put more money into its military.
The German leader subsequently tried to remedy the situation by insisting that he had privately warned Trump against cutting off trade relations with Spain. This, however, has done little to appease the indignation in Madrid.
Spain has vociferously opposed the American-Israeli strikes on Iran while Merz has all but endorsed them. José Manuel Albares, the Spanish foreign minister, compared Merz unfavourably with his predecessors Olaf Scholz and Angela Merkel, and suggested that the chancellor had betrayed the original values of his Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party and its revered founder, Konrad Adenauer.
“I can’t imagine Merkel or Scholz behaving like this,” Albares told the Cadena Ser radio station. “It corresponds neither to Konrad Adenauer nor to the European values on which this party [the CDU] was founded,” he said. “Now there’s a different leadership with different values.”
Yolanda Díaz, Spain’s deputy prime minister, said that Merz was one of several EU members “who have no idea how to manage this historic moment we’re living in”. She told Politico: “What Europe needs today is leadership, not vassals who pay homage to Trump.”
On Monday evening, Merz tried to patch things up by calling Pedro Sánchez, his Spanish counterpart, but it was unclear whether he got through. One report suggested he had the wrong number.
