If anyone believed that there was a truce in their confrontation with the Government of Spain, the Argentine president, Javier Milei, took care to deny it. Spanish President Pedro Sánchez is “an incompetent, a liar and a coward,” Milei said in a television interview Thursday night, as well as “Europe’s laughingstock in diplomatic matters.” Regarding the letter from the Argentine Embassy in Madrid that stated that his visit last week to Spain was of a “private” nature, which fuels the questions against him for the use of state funds to finance trips without public interest, Milei justified himself : “What I try to do is fit in activities, to save resources,” he argued, alluding to his participation in the summit of the ultra Vox party and the meeting he held with Spanish businessmen.
The far-right president’s statements on Thursday night deepened the confrontation that began last weekend, when Milei called the president of the Spanish Government “sleazy” and his wife, Begoña Sánchez, “corrupt.” Spain demanded an apology that never came and an unprecedented diplomatic crisis opened, which has left the European country with the Buenos Aires embassy beheaded.
The new chapter of the controversy took place in an interview that Milei gave to the conservative television channel The Nation+. Asked about Pedro Sánchez, Milei called him “an incompetent, a liar, a coward who sent his ministers to attack me, he did not even have the courage to do so.” He also said that he “interfered in Argentine politics by playing a role in the electoral campaign,” in reference to the Spaniard’s support for Sergio Massa, the Peronist candidate defeated in last year’s elections.
Then the Argentine president added: “Sánchez cowardly sent women to attack me, to frame it in an issue of misogyny and since it didn’t work, he and (José Luis Rodríguez) Zapatero directly attacked me. He attacked me in every way possible, and when I responded in the abstract, he felt addressed and used the State apparatus to respond to me, to the detriment of a beautiful relationship between the people of Spain and Argentina. For Milei, the Spanish president “today is the laughingstock of Europe in diplomatic matters.”
The letter
The Argentine opposition attacked Milei’s Government this Thursday for paying with public money for his private visit to Spain. References from different opposition parties demanded that a judicial investigation be opened for alleged fraud against the State following the dissemination of a letter from the Argentine Embassy in Madrid addressed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Spain in which it reported the private nature of the trip. The local media echoed the publication of that letter by EL PAÍS and reopened the debate on the controversial expenses of the ultra Executive.
Sources close to Milei described the communication sent to the Spanish government prior to the president’s trip to that country as an “error by the embassy in Spain” and confirmed that the visit was “official” since he met “with the most important businessmen in Spain.” Spain”.
But the president tried another response. “You can make a head of state visit and not necessarily see another head of state. What I try to do is fit in activities, to save resources,” he justified. “When I have an activity, of course, originally it had a format, but later we made an agenda to solve problems in Argentina. And Spain is one of the countries with the most investments in Argentina, so I went and sat down to talk with Spanish businessmen. Part of my international agenda has to do with finding the best scenario to encourage investment in the country,” he said. Thus, he made it clear that his trip was scheduled to participate in the launch of Vox’s European election campaign.
In passing, Milei attacked the opposition leaders who question him. “I understand that the majority of Argentine politicians are of a Lilliputian scale, that is, inconsequential, unknown and with zero international shine… That’s not what happens to me, where I go is a sensation. In fact, I am, let’s say, the most popular politician in the world,” he assured. “I understand that this fills them with envy, hatred, resentment and then they will want to get dirty with me. “They invite me to a lot of places, they give me a lot of prizes.” He said that he takes advantage of these activities to develop “a marketing action for Argentina in the world.”
Opposition criticism
“The ‘weekend in Madrid’, in addition to having caused regrettable diplomatic consequences, has had private purposes and has been paid for with State money,” denounced the former Argentine president Alberto Fernández through social networks, who requested an investigation for part of an independent prosecutor on Milei’s conduct. The Peronist leader criticized that “those who denigrate the State, dismiss public officials and employees without any consideration and mistreat teachers, spend the State’s public funds for their enjoyment.”
From the Radical Civic Union, Deputy Fernando Carbajal He assured that he will appear before Justice: “It merits a criminal complaint because it implies fraud against the State and misuse of public assets and resources.”
The main Argentine media cited the diplomatic letter in which they warned of the “private” nature of Milei’s visit to Madrid. The communication makes the Argentine Government uncomfortable due to the debate generated around who should bear the expenses of a trip focused on promoting the figure of the far-right leader. The Executive has not yet made the cost of the trip official, but according to what the newspaper calculated The nationjust the use of the presidential plane was around $200,000.
Milei came to power promising to reduce political expenses and eliminate caste privileges, but the media questions whether he is beginning to resemble those he criticized during the election campaign. “No, we are not Kirchnerists,” responded last week the presidential spokesperson, Manuel Adorni, when a journalist compared her way of acting with those of the previous Government.
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