This Tuesday begins the hearings of the 11 future directors of RTVE that Congress must elect. This week there is no plenary session in Congress, purely for scheduling reasons, and all other non-obligatory activities have been suspended or canceled for the Valencia tragedy. The Senate announced this Monday that it was suspending its weekly plenary session “taking into account the situation of national emergency caused by DANA.” But Francina Armengol continues to press the accelerator of the “assault” against public radio and television.
No more than two weeks have passed since the government approved in the Council of Ministers the takeover of RTVE through a decree which modified the electoral majorities, marginalized the Senate – where the Popular Party holds an absolute majority – and granted enormous powers to contract production companies and control news to its future president.
The examinations of these people will be completed, urgently, between this Tuesday and Wednesday. This day will have passed barely a week since Congress suspended the oversight session and any other parliamentary activity as a sign of “respect” for the victims of DANA, but the President of the House imposed the Moncloa criterion of maintaining the extraordinary plenary session to validate the decree.
“They are in such a hurry because there is fear so that the majority breaks“, explained a deputy during the call investiture majoritytoday among the rebel groups who no longer vote in a disciplined manner with the PSOE. “Power weighs more than the dead”added sources from the leadership of the People’s Party. “It must be formed part of the budget negotiation“That’s the only way to explain why they don’t mind paying for this shame.”
Since then, the Government of the Generalitat Valenciana, the most affected autonomous community, has estimated the immediate and long-term needs to recover its citizens, infrastructure, commerce, primary and industrial sectors at more than 31 billion euros .
AND The disaster more than quadrupled the death toll.. When the spokesperson for the PP, Miguel Telladothe control session stopped, it was 9:22 a.m. this Wednesday October 30 and a decision had just been announced. official figure of 52 deaths. At the end of this edition There have already been 215 deaths.
But all this has not stopped the priorities of the PSOE and its partners. The PP, however, refused to make statements this Mondayalthough this newspaper spoke to various sources in its management.
summary process
When the first candidates appear this Tuesday, a very summary process will take place by which Pedro Sanchezthe PSOE and its partners take control of RTVE for the next six years. And this will happen now, by the express will of the President of Congress.
The socialist Armengol was the one imposed this extraordinary plenary session for Wednesday October 30, unanimity not having been obtained on Tuesday October 29 within the Council and the spokespersons for strain the question on the agenda of the ordinary plenary session of the week. It was also she who decided that there was unanimity to suspend the control session and the rest of the political and institutional activity, but not to cancel the session of validation of the decrees.
It is Armengol who called a meeting of the board of directors immediately after the victory of this vote – which the government narrowly did, even at the risk of lacking a quorum, because PP, Vox and Compromís had boycotted the “assault” – to give the green light (“qualify” (called , in parliamentary jargon), the list of proposed advisers.
“A meeting convened irregularly”explains a parliamentary source, “because officially it was not possible to know that the decree would be validated. Nor that PSOE, Add, Together, MRC, PNV And Can would present a list less than an hour after the vote.
And Armengol did it even though embarrassment He had already been on the cover of all the newspapers and all the newspaper openings. From the media closest to the opposition and those closest to the Government.
Even a Podemos spokesperson, while waiting for the vote, commented laconically in the newspaper the “infinite clumsiness” of the PSOE for having done so. “A day of mass death for DANA, you accept the defeat against the PP and leave it for another day.”
Furthermore, the Popular Party’s own spokesperson had proposed “all kinds of facilities” in order to achieve unanimity, “and give a serious image of politics in the midst of so much suffering”. Tellado proposed, during the meeting of spokespersons on Wednesday 30, to support the call for another extraordinary plenary session.
“You will validate the decree, by God, let’s do things right“, he came to implore. Patxi Lopezspokesperson for the PSOE, and Aïna Vidalat Sumar, they refused. “It is one thing to control the government and another to legislate”; inside sources explain what López argued. “We, the deputies, are not going to look for mud,” Vidal added.
The next day, voices from the Government recognized the error… but things are moving forward.
The last stage of Armengol
Because this same Thursday, October 31, while a minister admitted that things had not been well calibrated, the President of Congress, already exceeding a hundred deaths, convened this Tuesday and Wednesday the examination hearings for future advisors to the Advisory Commission on Appointments. It was his responsibility to take this final step so quickly or not, because She herself chairs the aforementioned commission..
In addition, he could still have withdrawn this Monday, after the incidents of Sunday in Paiporta with the attacks against Sánchez, Carlos Mazon and to kings. But sources close to her reported that the Congress president had suspended official travel this Tuesday at the G20 Parliamentary Summit in Brazil. Without explaining that it was because of DANA, even if it was understood.
The information has arrived only 27 minutes later after learning that the Senate had suspended the plenary session of the week on the proposal of the PP and with the unanimous agreement of the groups.
However, Congress Yes, this will continue with the change process at RTVE. Because Armengol’s note adds that he will chair the board of directors at 9:30 a.m. and that he has convened the council of spokespersons for Thursday 7 at 12:00 p.m. And although the statement on exams for future directors said nothing, when questioned by this newspaper, its spokesperson explained that “The commissions which depend on bureaucratic deadlines are maintained”.
These same bureaucratic delays which she herself had marked last Thursday.
Thus, the first eight candidates for Congress for the post of RTVE advisors, a position for which they will receive a little more than 100,000 euros each over the next six years, will sit this Tuesday before their honorable deputies. At 10:00 a.m. Miquel Calçada and Olivellapseudonym Mikimotoa Catalan independence activist proposed by Junts per Catalunya, will be the first to appear before the Advisory Commission on Appointments.
An hour later it will be Esther de la Mata Ahedocurrent press chief of the Minister of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with Justice, Felix Bolanos. At noon, it will be the turn of Mercedes by Pablos Candonformer director of Canal Sur Radio from 1996 to 2000, with the PSOE governing Andalusia. At 1 p.m. the singer-songwriter and former socialist councilor of Madrid will be present Rosa León Condé.
And after eating, at 3:00 p.m. you will take the exam. José Pablo López Sánchezcalled to be the next president of RTVE, that is to say the Former Content Director Fired Amid Signing Controversy David Broncanowhich he sponsored and which triggered all the current instability. An hour later, Maria Teresa Martín del Cazlinked to CCOO and proposed by Sumar, will precede the last of the calls this Tuesday, Mariano Muniesa de Cavedacollaborator of Canal Red, the TV of Pablo Iglesias.
