March 31, 2025
European Artists

Hundreds of cultural organisations in Spain speak out against war and Europe’s massive rearmament drive


Supporters and signatories of the “We refuse to accept rearmament and war in Europe” manifesto on the steps of the Spanish parliament, March 26, 2025.

Hundreds of actors, filmmakers, singers, and other cultural workers—joined by more than 16,000 signatories and over 850 social organisations—have launched the manifesto “We refuse to accept rearmament and war in Europe” in opposition to the mass rearmament programme of the European Union and its militaristic drift.

The manifesto also denounces the NATO-backed Zionist genocide in Gaza, coinciding with a separate statement signed by 700 members of the US Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), criticising the Academy for failing to speak out in defence of Hamdan Ballal, co-director of No Other Land, who was brutally assaulted by Israeli settlers and soldiers in the occupied West Bank last week. A further 19,000 people have signed an international petition calling for the protection of Hamdan Ballal and the team behind No Other Land.

These statements reflect the widespread opposition among cultural workers and artists to the genocide in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as to the militaristic policies being advanced both by the European Union and the fascistic government of Donald Trump.

The manifesto endorsed by Spanish artists was presented by actors Juan Diego Botto and Carolina Yuste outside the Spanish parliament last Wednesday—the very day Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez stood before that same chamber to defend the acceleration of defence spending. Sánchez plans to increase military spending to 2 percent of GDP, bringing forward the original 2029 deadline. Sánchez has already announced that this escalation will not be submitted to a parliamentary vote but imposed by decree through the Council of Ministers—where he will count on the support of his junior partner in government, the pseudo-left Sumar coalition.

The manifesto opens by stressing the importance of strong social services and peace: “Society needs the security that comes from quality public healthcare and education for all; young people need a home to live in; our elders do not want to see their pensions put at risk; and above all, we do not want our children and grandchildren to experience the horrors of war.”

It then poses a direct challenge to current policy undertaken by the European ruling class: “To what extent, exactly, does the unchecked increase in military spending—proposed for approval by European governments without public debate, without transparency or detail, and with urgency—contribute to that peaceful future?”

The text rejects the wall-to-wall propaganda of the media and the political establishment that rearmament will bring peace, insisting instead that “it will bring us even closer to war.”



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