Pedro Sánchez defended his record before Harvard students. Questions about corruption, Pegasus and Venezuela pushed artificial intelligence aside and put the political disputes around his government at the center of the event.
Pedro Sánchez arrived at a Harvard forum to discuss the threat posed by tech oligarchs. He left facing questions about corruption, Pegasus and Venezuela. The discussion quickly moved away from artificial intelligence and toward the most disputed issues around his government. Students questioned him about his party, his family, his decisions on the Sáhara Occidental and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's position on Venezuela.
The toughest question concerned corruption cases linked to the PSOE and the Government. Sánchez accepted that both had faced some corruption cases. He said the response had been effective. He rejected the idea that the investigations involving his wife, Begoña Gómez, and his brother, David Sánchez, should be called corruption cases or scandals.
В сентябре 2026 года дело Бегоньи Гомес перешло из стадии расследования к устному разбирательству: судья Juan Carlos Peinado направил его в суд по обвинениям в трафике влияния и растрате.
He called those matters political attacks instead. He accused the opposition and some far-right associations of crossing red lines. He also said the personal pressure was difficult to endure. Sánchez objected to the student treating his wife and brother as guilty. Neither, he said, had been shown to be responsible.
The dispute also includes a judicial episode involving David Sánchez's work in the province of Badajoz. Opposition parties have presented it as part of a wider set of allegations involving the prime minister's family.
That answer changed the event.
For roughly 40 minutes, Sánchez had spoken about regulating social networks and artificial intelligence. The student questions turned the rest of the forum into a direct challenge over Spain's domestic and foreign policy. Sánchez had argued that democratic institutions must control technologies capable of improving themselves. Humanity's future, he said, should not be left to a small group of billionaires.
Факт заражения телефонов Педро Санчеса и нескольких министров программой Pegasus подтверждён, однако расследование, о котором сообщалось в сентябре 2026 года, по-прежнему не привело к установлению обвиняемого. Среди причин называлось отсутствие сотрудничества с израильской стороной.
He drew a similar line when asked about Pegasus. Sánchez confirmed that his phone had been hacked. The phones of Fernando Grande-Marlaska, Margarita Robles and Arancha González Laya were also affected. The government reported the attacks to the Audiencia Nacional, but it does not know who carried them out.
According to El País and other Spanish outlets, the intrusion itself is established. The identity of the attacker remains officially unresolved.
The student asked whether the espionage could have influenced Madrid's position on the Sáhara Occidental, Ceuta or its relationship with Morocco. Sánchez denied that pressure from other governments had driven his decisions. He defended the policy as serving Spain's interests and said it had ended a political crisis lasting more than 15 years.
He also pointed to support from Morocco, the United States and many European countries for the United Nations resolution favouring an autonomous region within Morocco in the Sáhara Occidental. In 2022, Spain officially backed Morocco's autonomy plan for Western Sahara. The decision remains one of the most disputed parts of Sánchez's foreign policy.
The student also asked about Sánchez's defence of Morocco after the migration crisis in Ceuta. Sánchez dismissed the premise as based on false news rather than answering it as an established fact.
Venezuela brought the final confrontation. A student described the country's continued failure to hold democratic elections and asked whether Sánchez would demand free presidential elections. The student also asked whether he would distance himself from Zapatero, whom the student linked to the Chavista regime.
Sánchez said Spain had not recognised Nicolás Maduro's electoral results and had consistently supported free elections. He said Venezuela's people must decide their own future. He did not answer the question about Zapatero.
That position matches Sánchez's repeated public statement that Spain did not recognise the results announced by Maduro's regime and supported a return to free elections.
Before the questions began, Sánchez had urged the students not to trust the promises of tech oligarchs. He referred to Sam Altman's warning that the world was right to be afraid but should trust technology companies. Sánchez said confidence without strict oversight was unacceptable.
His answer was regulation, not destruction. He said he was not calling for Meta's servers to be wrecked or X's headquarters to be burned. He called for limits on artificial intelligence's ability to improve itself. He also called for independent supervision and full reports on every incident.
The Harvard appearance exposed a gap between the planned subject and the questions that mattered most to the audience. Sánchez made a clear case for slowing artificial intelligence until it can be made safer. The students used the forum to test his credibility on corruption, surveillance, Morocco and Venezuela.
That pressure exposed the weak point in his argument. Democratic oversight was presented as the answer to powerful technologies, but Sánchez became defensive when asked about the disputes closest to him. Moncloa described the proceedings involving Begoña Gómez as unfair and a form of persecution. The government also maintained that she was innocent.
The dispute remains both judicial and political. The Harvard exchange did not settle it.
