The Minister of Agriculture considers the criticism of the Minister of Consumption to the macro-farms as “unfortunate” and avoids supporting him
The only thing left to join the controversy over macro-farms was the Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, Luis Planas. This Tuesday he did so to confirm that the PSOE is totally unmarked from the statements that the head of Consumption, Alberto Garzón, made in an interview in the British newspaper ‘The Guardian’ on December 26 – he stated that meat from intensive livestock was « of poorer quality ”compared to the extensive one–. Far from supporting him, Planas once again disavowed his partner, as the rest of the Socialist members of the Executive have done, and dismissed his arguments as “unfortunate.”
In Ferraz they have raised this debate to a capital issue facing the new electoral cycle and they are already taking positions to face the elections in Castilla y León on February 13, trying to distance themselves from the attacks by PP and Vox on the United Minister We Can. The strategy is to avoid stepping on the mud of a sector that in said community accounts for 9.2% of the region’s economy and to close ranks with the ranchers. In fact, Planas went so far as to admit that some fragments of the interview were intentionally recovered last week “to confront facing the elections in Castilla y León. It’s obvious, “he said.
Despite this, the head of Agriculture focused on what he considers “misconceptions” by his colleague in Consumer Affairs. He expressed his concern about the confusion between intensive and extensive livestock farming and believes that both models can coexist. “Here there is no conflict, there is diversity, and Spain is a country that is an international agri-food and livestock power, we are the fourth largest exporter in the European Union,” he said.
Planas, who had kept a low profile for the last week, offered four interviews on different radio and television networks on Tuesday. In all of them to reiterate “the Government’s commitment to the livestock sector” and to make it clear that the noise “bothers him as Minister of Agriculture.”
The Minister Spokesperson, Isabel Rodríguez, also avoided supporting Garzón at all times in the face of the barrage of questions that were posed to her at the press conference after the Council of Ministers on Tuesday. He limited himself to repeating the slogan set up by Moncloa during these days: “We maintain our commitment, that in Spain it meets all quality standards.”
The day before, the second vice president of the Government, Yolanda Díaz, publicly showed the discomfort that the lack of support from the socialist ministers to Garzón has generated in the purple sector of the coalition. Last week the head of Labor had a conversation with President Pedro Sánchez to try to settle the issue and establish a common position, however, this Monday, after the chief executive did not support the coordinator of Izquierda Unida, he warned him that “you have to take care of the coalition.”
In fact, Planas admitted in interviews that he has not spoken with Garzón all week. They only did it this Tuesday, “briefly”, after the Council of Ministers but without approaching positions. “We each have our point of view,” he settled.
In United We can attribute the position of the PSOE to fear of losing the rural vote in the face of the regional elections. They also assume that their minister has been left alone in this storm and are outraged. For this reason, the Minister of Consumption has no intention of resigning, on the contrary, in each public intervention he defends his arguments to criticize the macro-farms, which he considers less ecologically sustainable.
Government crisis
Nor can the coalition allow itself a government crisis of unpredictable consequences just at the beginning of an electoral cycle with nine elections in two and a half years, and which will have its icing on the cake with the general elections of 2023. In Moncloa they directly trust that the noise will cease in the following days. “It is a coalition government in a parliamentary minority that has managed to reach agreements with up to fifteen political formations. Health is measured in decision-making capacity. A success that is exemplified in the last Budgets with the incorporated European funds, “said Rodríguez when asked about a possible change in the Cabinet.
Meanwhile, in the United We can parliamentary group they are looking for a way to stop the processing of the initiatives that the PP, Vox and Ciudadanos are going to launch to reprove Garzón. The spokesman for the morados in the Ba Chamber, Pablo Echenique, acknowledged conversations with the PSOE to try to reject Garzón’s requests for appearance. Hours later, the Socialists promised to offer their votes to overthrow them.
With this pact they settled another attempt at confrontation that took place in the morning, when the Socialists did not reject at the Table the qualification of two written questions from PP and Vox addressed to the Minister of Consumption and a request for the appearance of Citizens. This led Podemos to accuse them of “lowering their arms” before the “hoax policy.”
The Minister of Consumption sees “contradictions” in the socialists
The Minister of Consumption, Alberto Garzón, has assured this Tuesday that he sees “contradictions” in the PSOE on the issue of macro-farms, recalling that he supported a moratorium of Castilla-La Mancha in Cuenca against these projects, and has indicated that he does not feel unauthorized by the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, who regretted the controversy for his statements.
In an interview in La Sexta, collected by Europa Press, Garzón lamented that the Castilian-La Mancha president, Emiliano García-Page, attacked him with “ferocity” and with ways in politics that he does not share. Thus, he has reiterated that he does not feel unauthorized by Sánchez. “I think it is the line that a progressive government has to follow,” he said about the livestock sector.
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