The PP rejects Vox’s “blackmail” but clings to its pacts: “We are not breaking anything”

The PP is keeping its swords high with Vox over the reception of the 6,000 unaccompanied immigrant minors who are overwhelming the assistance capacity of the Canary Islands, although it does not go so far as to propose breaking its agreements. This Tuesday, at a press conference, the spokesperson for the national leadership of the PP, Borja Sémper, appeared defiantly with his allies, after Abascal threatened to break with them in five autonomous regions if they accept the distribution. “Threats and blackmail with Feijóo do not work. Whoever tries to blackmail is wrong. Let him forget it. They will see what they do, we are a state party, serious, responsible and supportive. This is our position, far from that of Vox and the Government,” Sémper defended. Hours earlier, Pepa Millán, spokesperson for Vox in Congress, was blunt: “Breaking is breaking. If the PP gives in to pressure, we will break up and the PP will have to govern in a minority or will have to make a pact with the PSOE.” The socialists have also increased the pressure from all sides on the popular party, on whose support depends the approval of the modification of the law so that the distribution of minors is obligatory instead of voluntary, as it is now. “Vox’s threats are not new, Feijóo has a magnificent opportunity to stop giving the far right a thumbs up and break with it,” Pilar Alegría, the government spokesperson, has attacked.

The PP communities, Génova sources stress, will accept the voluntary distribution of minors as long as they have sufficient capacity to host them, which is the case in several of them, so that Vox will have to decide whether, as a result, to break up these governments. “In general, the territories can attend to the limit of their capacity. Exceeding it would be incurring in inhumane behaviour. For everything that goes beyond our maximum capacity to host, it is the Government that has to provide the means,” Sémper indicated. According to the popular party, the autonomous communities that have exceeded their capacity are “practically all”, but sources from the popular leadership specify that in reality only the Valencian Community would be outside any limit. “All the presidents lead host territories and are supportive, but no one can ask them to host more than they have,” the popular leader justified.

However, the PP is not in any way considering breaking the Executive with the extreme right – they govern in coalition in the Valencian Community, Aragon, Castile and Leon, Extremadura and Murcia as well as in 140 municipalities – due to differences in the reception of minors. One of Vox’s flags is illegal immigration, which it links to crime, as its president, Santiago Abascal, did when he assured that it would not be “complicit in robberies, machetes and rapes” in the ultimatum he launched on Monday to the PP. “We motu proprio We are not breaking anything. We want stability”, insisted Sémper. The Popular Party proclaims a contingency fund for the reception of young people, while it has not yet revealed what position its barons will adopt at the Sectoral Conference on Children and Adolescents this Wednesday. “The financing is contemplated in the legislative modification and will be sufficient”, affirmed the Minister of Territorial Policy, Ángel Víctor Torres, who has closed with his predecessor at the head of the archipelago, Fernando Clavijo.

The PP presides over 11 communities and, in addition, the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla, which are also in favour of the legal reform. “The PP should support this reform and, therefore, we must immediately enter into a process of negotiation, of agreement so that the measure comes out as we all want,” urged the president of Ceuta, Juan Jesús Vivas, in an interview on SER. Vivas considers that Vox’s demands are “absolutely unviable and respond to ideological positions” that the PP “does not share at all”.

The PP’s position is based on “solidarity and responsibility” and on seeking to treat immigrants arriving in the Canary Islands “in a humane manner,” argued Sémper, who has attacked the central Executive, accusing it of “treating minors like express parcels” and “in an inhumane manner.” “We demand responsibility from the PP. We are talking about people, about boys and girls who are leaving their countries of origin at war, in a situation of famine. We are asking for an equitable reception to deal with this situation,” replied the Government spokesperson, who recalled that in 2018 Andalusia faced a major migration crisis. In 2023, more than 39,000 migrants arrived in Spain, exceeding the number recorded in the so-called crisis of the cayucos from 2006. But the record dates back to 2018, when more than 50,000 migrants landed in Spain and most did so in a community that is now one of the PP’s strongholds.

The PP also demands a public and written agreement and that “all communities participate in a hypothetical reception, without exception.” That is, thinking about Catalonia, since Junts demands that the community be left out of the distribution. “16 autonomous communities will enter, that is, all except the Canary Islands. Catalonia would enter, obviously,” Torres stressed, who also made it clear that the The Government will not approve a comprehensive transfer of powers over immigration as demanded by the neo-convergents in exchange for their vote in favour of the modification of the immigration law. The Government is determined, whether or not there is an agreement with the PP, to take the reform to Congress through a bill to address the distribution of migrant minors in the plenary session on 23 July. “Everything will end in a few days with a parliamentary demonstration and that is where all the groups will show up… There is no plan B, we are reaching out to the maximum,” said Torres. But first, the PP will have to take a position this Wednesday at the sectoral conference in Tenerife. In the last distribution, last October, the communities received 396 migrant minors from the Canary Islands and Ceuta with state funding of 20 million euros.

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