The Congress has lived this Thursday an “unusual” momentone more, when no member of the Government has come to appear before the Joint National Security Commission to which he was summoned to answer questions from their honorable Members on issues such as the infection of mobile phones with the Pegasus programRussian interference in Catalonia or migratory flows.
The convocation of this mixed parliamentary committee, of the Congress and the Senate, was set for 10:00 a.m. this Wednesday with several points on the agenda. The first were related to the debate of four non-law proposals registered by the parliamentary groups of Vox and the Popular Party.
This section has happened without a hitch, the debate has taken place and also its subsequent votethe popular ones managed to carry out two initiatives – on a reserve of smallpox vaccines and on NATO – with the opposition of the PSOE.
But it was immediately afterwards, in the second block of the commission, when the surprise has arrived. The agenda then included the Government’s response to a battery of questions – seven in total – on issues raised by the political groups.
The president of the mixed commission, the popular Edurne Uriartehas asked the Chamber usher to ask the member of the Government who had attended the call to enter the room to resume the session. However, the usher has noted that there was no one waiting outside and thus he has transferred it to the committee table.
“We are informed that no member of the Government has attended the call”Uriarte confirmed to the members of the commission. This is an “unusual” event, as she herself has described it, although not unprecedented because it already happened this term in a session of the road safety commission.
Formal and informal contacts
The usual practice is for parliamentary committees to set an agenda and, if it requires the appearance of a member of the Government, inform you formally and also maintain informal contacts to agree on a date.
So, as the president of the joint National Security commission assures that it was also done in this case. When the body closed the agenda for the session, she He formally communicated it to the Executive and also contacted him informally by telephone.. However, there was no positive or negative response from the Executive, he assures.
The Government is the one who decides who attends these parliamentary appointments, from a minister to a secretary of state or undersecretary. In this case, due to the content of the questions, the logical thing would have been for it to be someone from the Ministries of Defense, the Interior or even the Presidency of the Government.
However, in the absence, the president of the commission has accused the Executive “breach their constitutional obligations” -specifically, he has cited articles 66, 108, 109 and 110 of the Magna Carta- and has announced that he will therefore request protection from the tables of Congress and the Senate.
The incident has also been reported by the spokespersons for the PP, Antonio Hernando, and for Vox, Alberto Asartawho have lamented the Government’s “lack of respect” for Parliament by absenting itself from an official call to answer questions registered by the parliamentary groups.
«What happened today, apart from being unusual, is a very clear contempt of this Government to a mixed commission in which all of the Cortes Generales are represented,” denounced the popular deputy. Hernando also recalled that Pedro Sánchez’s is the »largest Executive in history« and therefore one of its members should have been available to attend Parliament’s call.
He PSOE spokesperson, Víctor Javier Ruiz de DiegoOn the other hand, he has defended the commitments that the senior officials of the Executive had and has reproached that if he had gone to someone “from the bottom rung”, he would have been “an object of ridicule and ridicule.” Furthermore, he recalled that the parliamentarians’ questions could be answered on another occasion.
“I ask, based on parliamentary decorum, that in the next call we work with a time forecast that allows a member of the Government to come to answer the questions,” he requested, directly pointing out the commitments that those responsible for the Ministry of Defense had this Thursday: a trip abroad for the Secretary of State, Amparo Valcarce; and other commitments by the minister, Margarita Robles (her agenda includes an appointment in her office with her counterpart from Saudi Arabia at 2:00 p.m.).
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