The Government maintains its strategy of not entering into a public clash with the PP due to the management of DANA, but believes that Feijóo’s party has crossed all the red lines with the attempt to boycott Teresa Ribera in Brussels. This Wednesday, the opposition’s reproaches against Pedro Sánchez’s Executive have been incessant during the appearance in Congress of the Minister of Territorial Policy and during the subsequent control session. Criticism that has been avoided by the blue bench until the opposition leader has appeared to publicly demand that the vice president not be a candidate for the Commission.
“There is no right for Brussels to be at the expense of Mr. Feijóo’s tantrum. He is trying to give instability to the European Government. And he has no right to try to contaminate the European institutions with the politics of lies and hoaxes that he practices here,” María Jesús Montero attacked the president of the Popular Party in the halls of Congress.
Just a few minutes before, and after not appearing all morning in the Plenary during the appearance of the Minister of Territorial Policy to which the President of the Government has not attended either, Feijóo has summoned the Congress press to support Carlos Mazón cornered, to hold Teresa Ribera responsible for the mismanagement of DANA and to solemnly demand her withdrawal as a candidate for the Commission.
“All the ministries failed,” he said before focusing all his attacks on Ribera, who is in the process of being elected Vice President of Competition of the European Commission. Feijóo has demanded that the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, choose another person from his Cabinet for the position: “Spain does not deserve this commissioner.” Today, the candidate to preside over the Commission, the member of the European Popular Party Ursula von der Leyen, has ratified her support for Ribera.
“Yesterday the Spanish candidate did not pass the first exam. “It is an unusual and worrying situation for Europe and our country,” said Feijóo, who ignored the fact that on Tuesday none of the six people running for a Vice Presidency in the Commission were voted on. The leader of the PP has called it “blackmail” that the Government maintains its commitment to Ribera and has assured that “she is not the one that Spain needs as a candidate nor the one that the Commission needs as vice president.”
“She should not be awarded a position of relevance in the EU in the name of Spain,” he added. “I ask the Government to withdraw the candidacy of Teresa Ribera and propose another person who garners the support of society,” he said. Feijóo has once again mentioned the possibility that Ribera may have legal problems for his role in the Valencia tragedy and has asked for someone “free from suspicion.”
This offensive by the Popular Party against the vice president as a strategy to mask the political scandal that Carlos Mazón’s management at the head of the Generalitat on October 29 has already become is considered in Moncloa a declaration of hostilities. And that is why María Jesús Montero has entered the melee on this occasion.
“Feijoo lies. He lies when he says that Ribera has failed the exam. The six executive vice presidents who were going to vote have been postponed to vote in the coming days. It is a lie that Ribera has failed any type of test,” claimed Montero, who has disfigured the PP’s attack for “partisan interest.” “Not only is he trying to instrumentalize national politics, but now he is trying to do it in Europe. This represents instability for the European institutions and speaks for itself of Feijóo’s lack of responsibility,” he concluded.
Inside, in the chamber, the popular party’s strategy has been clear since early in the morning: save Mazón with an attack on the Government centralized in the figure of the vice president, whom they are trying to boycott her way to the Commission. “Teresa Ribera is responsible,” said spokesperson Miguel Tellado during the control session. Previously, the popular ones have come to demand explanations from the Executive about where Pedro Sánchez or his vice president were at five in the afternoon on October 29, just the time when it was learned that the president of the Generalitat was locked up and without coverage in the booth of a restaurant with a Valencian journalist.
“We wonder what the Government was doing during the most critical two and a half hours of the catastrophe. What were you up to, Mr. Torres? Not a phone call. What was Mr. Sánchez doing in India, Ms. Ribera in Brussels, Mr. Morán in Colombia or the director of civil protection in Brazil? It’s 5 in the afternoon. “Why didn’t Mr. Marlaska declare a national emergency that afternoon?” said PP deputy César Sánchez, who accused the Executive of “resigning from its responsibilities” and “abandoning the Valencians on the same afternoon of 29 October for not declaring a national emergency.”
“They are one impossible story away from trying to avoid their responsibilities. But we are not going to get into their provocations, we are not going to get into the political assessments at this moment, there will be time,” María Jesús Montero replied from her seat. The vice president has raised the tone against the PP to point out that, although for now they avoid public criticism, the management of the Generalitat has no possible defense. “The facts are incontestable, no matter how much you insist on lying about what the president said. But we are already used to their lies. Remember the Prestige, the Yak-42 or 11-M,” he noted amidst the murmur of the popular bench.
The PP: angry with Von der Leyen
From the PP leadership, meanwhile, they respond with disdain to Von der Leyen’s explicit support for Ribera and the hypothetical failure of his boycott attempt: “Ask Von der Leyen.” Feijóo’s relationship with the president of the Commission has been bad for years and has worsened the closer the community leader got to Pedro Sánchez.
“Yesterday the Spanish candidate did not pass the first exam. “It is an unusual and worrying situation for Europe and our country,” said Feijóo. But the reality is different. It is not that Ribera did not pass the exam, it is that there was no vote. Neither about her, nor about the other candidates.
Feijóo has called it “blackmail” that the Government maintains its commitment to Ribera, while hiding that the European PP, including his own, is pressuring social democrats and liberals in Brussels to accept the ultra candidate Giorgia Meloni. In fact, the EPP makes support for Ribera conditional on others supporting Raffaele Fitto.
The leader of the PP has refused to intervene this Wednesday to respond to the Minister of Territorial Policy in his extraordinary appearance on the DANA. In fact, Feijóo has been absent from the entire debate. He then tried to justify himself and pointed out that he could not intervene due to the absence of the President of the Government, on an official trip to Azerbaijan. And he has redoubled his attacks against Ribera, whom he has even threatened with the courts.
#Government #accuses #Feijóo #poisoning #Brussels #hoaxes #demanding #Ribera #candidate #Commission
