There has been no room for surprise. Even less so having to chain two consecutive campaigns. The PSC will once again place confidence in Javi Lopez so that it can be your again candidate for the European elections, as EL PERIÓDICO has learned. It will be the third time that the MEP, who has been in Brussels for 10 years, will be the reference for the Catalan socialists in the European Parliament, after appearing in the 2014 and 2019 elections. This is what the executive approves this Monday, and it will remain to be seen in What position is included in the PSOE list, which is about to be ratified by the minister? Teresa Ribera.
In the elections five years ago, López took fourth place in the candidacy, a position that the PSC hopes, at least, to maintain, given the importance that the Catalan socialists currently have for Sánchez. Socialist sources explain that the MEP Laura Ballarin He will also go in a “starting” position in the candidacy.
During the last months, the debate was opened on whether the European leadership of the party had to be renewed, although the socialists ended up choosing the balance in favor of continuity from a veteran leader in office who comes from a particularly difficult mandate, marked first by the pandemic and by Russia’s wars in Ukraine and Israel’s wars in Palestine. “The election also weighed influence and contacts“, they maintain from the PSC. And in this mandate the PSOE delegation was the most significant within the socialist group and López has managed to sneak into number 54 in the ranking of influence of the MEPs.
The aspiration of the PSC is to face these elections, which will practically link with those of May 12, being able to show off a victory of salvador illa in Catalonia that also serves to give a boost to the PSOE, which according to polls runs the risk of seeing the PP once again be the party with the most votes in the European elections.
From youth to senior citizens in Brussels
López (Madrid, 1985) has a degree in Law and was the youth leader of the PSC when he was chosen for the first time as a candidate for the European elections. He was 28 years old at the time, won a primary in which there was another candidate and took sixth place on the state list. He was, in fact, the youngest representative of spain who got an escape in those elections.
The Catalan socialists, then led by Pedro NavarroThey were betting on generational change, since López replaced the former leader of the PSC Raimon Obiols, who had been an MEP for 15 years, a time in office that he could now match with this third term. He was not even of legal age when he joined the PSC, a militancy that explains that he decided after actively participating in the massive demonstrations that took place in 2003 against the Iraq war and the Government chaired by José María Aznar.
Two decades later, the European elections are the most decisive in recent years in the midst of geopolitical change and growing conflict. Furthermore, the forecasts predict a rise of the far right which could give rise to an unprecedented majority with the PP in the European Parliament. Preventing it will be the ‘leitmotiv’ of the socialists in this campaign.
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