The slogan “no to war” can take on different variations, such as “no to hunger.” The first stop on Pedro Sánchez’s trip to Rome was a conference of the FAO, the United Nations agency for food, headquartered in the Italian capital, titled “Food Security and Nutrition Under Pressure: Consequences of the Conflict in the Middle East.”
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Alongside him was also Luis Planas, Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, who aspires to become the next director general of the organization. “He is our candidate,” Sánchez said openly.
For the Prime Minister, the visit to the FAO became a mass gathering, perhaps unexpected, but undoubtedly relevant in especially complicated days on the domestic front. His speech from the podium was interrupted twelve times by applause, in addition to the initial and final ovations, with the FAO delegates and officials standing. There were more applause, selfies, and handshakes upon exit. “He should stay here, look how much they love him,” joked a Spanish worker while updates on political scandals in Spain kept arriving on his phone.
At the entrance, however, journalists asked him if he still supported Zapatero following the information emerging about the judicial investigation affecting him. Sánchez postponed the response until Wednesday, when a press conference is scheduled after his meeting with the Pope.
Spain’s role in the fight against hunger was also recognized in the opening remarks. The FAO director general, the Chinese Qu Dongyu, described Spain as “a strategic ally against malnutrition” and added that Sánchez “is seen in China as a pillar of stability,” a compliment with ambiguous reading that the president received with a restrained smile. Cindy McCain, executive director of the World Food Program, also praised the increase in Spanish contributions to the fight against hunger, particularly to school feeding programs, while other countries — including the United States — have chosen to cut them.
In his speech, started with a quote from José Saramago (“With hunger, thought becomes slower, the heart more vulnerable”), Sánchez claimed Spain’s leadership in defending international law against the “delusions” of those who “set the world on fire” but are never the ones who end up starving.
The most applauded passages were those dedicated to the Middle East. Sánchez cited Gaza as an example of a situation in which some — referring to Israel — intend to win a war by subjecting a people to starvation. “It is very important that societies around the world see and hear that with the same determination with which we reject wars, we also say no to hunger,” he stated, before warning that these “unjust and illegal” conflicts are causing global food crises on an unprecedented scale.
After adopting the Pope’s words, who before the FAO defined hunger as a scandal and a collective failure of humanity, Sánchez urged action and demanded respect for international law.
That is, he said, what Spain does, a country he presented as a reference in various fields, including food security, having become the fourth largest European exporter and the tenth worldwide in the agricultural sector.
Sánchez also emphasized that Spain increased development aid by 13% in 2025, in a context where global aid has fallen by 23%.
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