The appointment of Santiago Abascal as president of Patriotas por Europa, the formation of the new European group that emerged after the division in Brussels of the traditional far-right families, will serve the leader of Vox to try to reinforce his leadership and gain momentum in the face of the new political scene that opens around the world after the victory in the United States of the Republican Donald Trump, one of the idols of the European and Latin American extreme right, along with the Argentine Javier Milei.
The leaders of Patriotas, whose main figures are the Hungarian Viktor Orbán and the French Marine Le Pen, have already warned that they want to become “fundamental political actors on the European stage”, to “face the challenge of consolidating an alternative majority to the traditional coalition between socialists and popular ones” in the European Parliament. And Abascal, although he does not have a seat in Brussels, has proposed to champion these challenges in his new position as president of the party. On the same day of his appointment he committed to “promote a frontal and total response to globalismand may the Europe of the homelands be great, prosperous, safe and free again”, following in the wake of Donald Trump and his promise to make “America great again” that has brought him back to the White House.
“Until now only the ‘bad guys’ have worked together, we have the duty to propose a total and global response to globalism. The ‘good ones’ have to be united,” he said that day. The “good guys” for the Vox leader are the leaders of the extreme right, like him, to whom he has not stopped calling to form “a big family” of the extreme right. It could not be and Vox abandoned the Reformists and Conservatives group where the formation of the Italian Georgia Meloni is located, with whom it has distanced itself, to join the new party, much more radical, promoted by the Hungarian Prime Minister and Matteo Salvini and which was joined shortly after by the Frenchwoman Marine Le Pen after the French elections.
The “bad guys” for Abascal are evidently all the leaders of the “criminal left”, who “impose their 2030 agenda”, which he and his co-religionists consider “lethal” for the future of European citizens. As he continues to warn, the continent suffers from “the permanent and growing, increasingly aggressive threat against the sovereignty of our nations” coming from “bureaucrats and globalists.” Leaders who, for the extreme right, only seek to “impose perverse, liberticidal and ruinous ideologies, from the ‘woke’ ideology, which destroys minds, to climate fanaticism and the green dictatorship that destroy our industries and our countryside and impoverish our people. ”.
Despite the fact that the left-wing parties are its main and great enemies, Vox’s relationship with the conservatives has been worsening over time, both in Spain and in Brussels, as has been seen these days with the DANA crisis and the appointment of Teresa Ribera as vice president of the European Commission.
Abascal has not stopped accusing the PP of being “accomplice of the PSOE” for voting jointly with them on many of the resolutions in the European Parliament and for agreeing here with the Government of Pedro Sánchez on the “distribution of the institutions.” The Vox leader does not stop pointing out that in Congress they do not act “as a true opposition.” “Only Vox remains,” he insistently repeats.
In the European Parliament, they have also had to see how the group to which Feijóo belongs (PPE) imposed a cordon sanitaire on them because they considered Orbán to be a “radical extreme right and a friend of Putin.” The first consequence of this European cordon sanitaire was to leave them out of the distribution of commission presidencies, a decision that was denounced by Patriots for Europe before the General Court of the EU (TGUE). However, in day-to-day parliamentary life, that veto ended up being lifted. The EPP negotiated with the ultras a resolution on Venezuela due to the refusal of socialists and liberals to include the recognition of the opposition Edmundo González as elected president. It was the first time in plenary that the EPP made use of its new alternative majority. More would come later.
This cordon sanitaire on the extreme right, however, has never been placed by the PP in Spain on Vox, a party that has been governing until recently in coalition with the PP in several autonomies. The refusal of Abascal’s party to accept the immigrant quotas requested by the Sánchez Executive, which Feijóo finally accepted, blew up those pacts and Abascal ordered him to abandon all the positions he held in several communities governed by the conservatives, although he maintained the that had closed in the town halls, among them that of Valencia.
Relief for not now being part of the Government of the Generalitat
In the party they now consider the internal crisis they have experienced after the breaking of those pacts, which led to a trickle of casualties and resignations, to be over, and they are very satisfied with the role they are playing in the face of the Valencia tragedy where they can afford not only to fiercely attack the management of Pedro Sánchez’s Government before the DANA, but also that of Carlos Mazón himself with whom, however, they are more lukewarm given that they continue to co-govern with the PP in the City Council.
In the Mazón Government, Vox held a vice presidency that included the Ministry of Culture and Sports and was also in charge of the areas of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, and that of Justice and the Interior, which included the management of Emergencies despite being a party. climate denier and have no prior experience on the subject. The greatest milestone of the former far-right councilor at the head of that department was dismantling the Valencian Emergency Unit (UVE), created by the previous PSPV-PSOE and Compromís government to coordinate catastrophes. Mazón himself worked hard to “sell” this political success because it ended with “a beach bar,” which, according to what they also said, was never put into operation. Mazón did not wait for Vox to announce their resignations and dismissed the directors beforehand.
At the Vox headquarters they are now happy to not be part of the autonomous government since they believe that it would have served as an alibi to offload a good part of the responsibilities of the disastrous DANA management on them. So he feels some relief. “If we had been in the autonomous government, many eyes would have turned towards us. The deterioration would have been brutal,” sources from the training acknowledge.
On the day of Mazón’s appearance in Les Corts, they described his management as “negligent” but did not demand his resignation although they announced the request for a commission of investigation to clarify the facts and settle, where appropriate, political and/or criminal responsibilities. Nor have they supported the motion of censure proposed by Compromís.
Since the DANA devastated several municipalities in Valencia, the Vox leaders have preferred to direct all their heavy artillery against the central government, even announcing a criminal complaint against Pedro Sánchez and several ministers for “reckless homicide” and “omission of the duty to help” and They have also directed their attacks against the vice president and Minister of Ecological Transition Teresa Ribera, whom they have demanded to resign. His wishes have not materialized, nor have the demands on the PP to block his appointment. Now they believe that the one who has been the worst off of all these failed maneuvers against Ribera has been Feijóo, whom they do not hesitate to reproach for the little influence he has in the European Popular Group chaired by Manfred Weber.
A new role in Europe
The Vox leadership believes that with Abascal leading Patriotas por Europa the party will play a leading role in European politics and that its ‘friendship’ with Trump will benefit and revitalize the party also in our country, while Feijóo will appear as a increasingly “weak” and isolated leader. The desperate offer of the conservative leader to now present a motion of censure against the Government with the support of Sánchez’s own partners has been spurned by Abascal who asked him this Friday “not to deceive the Spanish” since he knows that it is impossible for it to prosper. .
“I am not against presenting a motion of censure, but I do believe that we should not confuse the Spanish people about the possibility that the separatist parties, which enjoy a weak government and want a weak government in Spain, could come to support a motion of this type,” the Vox leader said in an interview on the COPE network.
Vox has always been in favor of this type of initiatives to erode the Government. In fact, the party has presented two motions of censure throughout Sánchez’s two terms, but neither had the support of the PP. Furthermore, the far-right party refuses to include any type of transfer to nationalist or independence parties, such as PNV or Junts, votes that are essential. so that it prospers.
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