The Spanish government intends to recognize the Palestinian state by July

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Tuesday that the leftist government in Spain is determined to recognize the Palestinian state by July.

The Spanish newspaper "El Pais" reported that Madrid's recognition of a Palestinian state may happen during the electoral campaign for the European Parliament elections that will be held in Spain on June 9 or "in the weeks that follow."

Media outlets quoted Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez as saying to a group of Spanish journalists accompanying him on a three-country tour in the Middle East that he began in Jordan: “We must seriously think about doing this during the next three months.”

Sanchez said on March 9 that he would propose that Parliament vote in favor of this recognition by the end of the current legislative term, that is, by mid-2027.

Then, on March 22, Spain and three other countries, Ireland, Malta, and Slovenia, issued a joint statement on the sidelines of the European Union leaders’ summit in Brussels, in which they said that they were “ready to recognize Palestine” as soon as the appropriate conditions for establishing a state were in place.

Sanchez has previously reiterated that the only solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is to recognize two states, Israel and Palestine.

It is known that little progress has been made towards establishing a Palestinian state since the signing of the Oslo Accords between Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the early 1990s, and among the obstacles is the expansion of Israeli settlements.

The Palestinian Authority, headed by President Mahmoud Abbas, exercises limited self-rule in the West Bank. Israel participated in the Oslo Accords, while Hamas excluded the Palestinian Authority (Oslo Authority) in 2007 from administering the Gaza Strip.