“Veiled pact between Bildu and the government. » “Lower your heads so as not to look in the eyes of the families of those murdered by ETA.” “Deliberate desire to release from prison prisoners convicted of murders belonging to ETA. These are three sentences from a brief speech given Tuesday by Alberto Núñez Feijóo during a visit to a children’s school in Guadalajara where he had initially planned to talk about conciliation. Finally, it is another act without asking questions of journalists that the PP used to cling to its favorite joker, the defunct terrorist organization, to scare away the growing internal noise in the face of the “unjustifiable error”, according to Feijóo’s words, to support legal reform which, ultimately, could benefit certain prisoners convicted of murder.
The PP went on the offensive to rid itself of the political and “moral” responsibility for not having seen, during the months of parliamentary treatment, the amendment to the law which would equalize all Spanish prisoners having served sentences in the EU countries. Until now, those convicted before 2010 were excluded from a standard of European origin. The norm had passed all the stages, first in Congress, then in the Senate, but in the PP, at least the majority of the party, discovered through the press what the reform entailed. And when there was no longer any room not to prevent him, but to position ourselves against him. The PP voted in favor of the reform in the Justice Commission of the Congress, as well as in the plenary session, where it even went so far as to criticize the government for the slowness of its treatment. When the law reached the Senate, no one presented amendments. Despite the latest move by the Upper House to postpone the final date, October 14, the standard will leave the Senate to the State Gazette to come into force.
“The PP can do nothing to overthrow him,” they deplore at the national headquarters of the PP, rue Génova in Madrid. “We could not avoid it,” add the same sources, in a climate of general agitation within the party which led the leadership to communicate by telephone message with all the activists: massive SMS messages with explanatory videos where it is emphasized that only Sánchez and Bildu will be responsible for the release of ETA members (after calculating the years in prison that some terrorists have served outside Spain).
And if it is true that the process is without return, the fact that it did not give rise to a political battle, that it passed through different hands without anyone appreciating it and the reproaches of certain associations of victims agitated the internal life of the PP. A lot.
Because the “unjustified error” does not attack the ideological base of the PP. At least in public, no one doubts that his intention was not to let an amendment pass that could benefit ETA prisoners. The fiasco is a modification of one of Feijóo’s flags: management efficiency.
And in the PP, knives are already flying in search of those responsible. “Small game”, in the words of one manager. But the reality is that we are trying to shift blame. Or at least limit them. Let them not degenerate.
Because at the top of the decision-making process there are important names like that of the parliamentary spokesperson, Miguel Tellado, one of the most trusted people in Feijóo. His right arm within the PP of Galicia during his last years and responsible for controlling the territories during the first part of his mandate in Madrid. After 23 days, he assumed the mission of keeping the parliamentary group firm.
Tellado chose Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo as deputy spokesperson, also a member of the Justice Commission where the fiasco was forged and who, week after week, attacks the government in control sessions due to the connivance of the PSOE with EH Bildu. Finally, the general secretary, Cuca Gamarra, who is also part of the same commission and, due to her position, is one of the main leaders of the party.
In the PP, at least officially, there will be no witch hunt. Leadership sources assured this Tuesday that “no decision will be taken” on specific people. “It is a collective and shared responsibility,” add the same sources.
ETA, ETA, ETA
It is a message staged by the national spokesperson, Borja Sémper, who spoke of a “generalized error”. The leader sang a “mea culpa” on Monday which, 24 hours later, disappeared from the PP’s arguments. And he did not mention ETA, although he did mention Bildu, but to dishonor Sánchez for agreeing with them on the reform of the “gag law”.
On Tuesday morning, Tellado moved up his congressional appearance, usually into the afternoon, to preempt his own leader. The tone was already completely different. “We reiterate our apologies to the victims that President Feijóo transferred yesterday to the president of the AVT,” he said in a slight assumption of responsibility. And immediately, he went on the attack.
Tellado cited Miguel Ángel Blanco, Alberto Jiménez-Becerril and Gregorio Ordóñez. Three of the ETA victims whose deaths were the cruelest for the PP. Three of his “moral references”, as the spokesperson called them. He spoke of “disgust” and “a trap” on the part of the government, when the reality is that neither he nor any of his deputies read the entire nine pages of the presentation which contained the amendment.
“The government committed fraud by using the reform to grant prison benefits to ETA detainees,” he said. “The first and last person responsible is a man named Pedro Sánchez,” he added. And he decided: “Bildu is holding Sánchez at gunpoint. »
Tellado explained that he asked the group what had happened and claimed that his deputies were busy with Junts’ amendments and were not paying attention to Sumar’s. The total number of amendments did not reach forty.
The spokesperson did not stop there. Tellado once again displayed the qualities that Feijóo valued to place him as opposition spokesperson in Congress: “There is a moral chasm between an error in a parliamentary procedure and the deliberate desire of a government to release prison for ETA prisoners. this in secret.
Feijóo recovered this phrase in his speech, in which he also said: “If the PSOE maintains this indignity, it will be the only one responsible to history.” This is the end of this announced moderation strategy.
After setting the course, the rest of the group did not hesitate to follow the same path. During the afternoon debate, there was no intervention from the PP that did not mention the attacks against the Government for changing the law.
The most expressive was the Galician Jaime de Olano, called to order several times by the presidency of the Congress. In a brief speech on the definitive banning of associations that carry out Francoist propaganda, Olano declared: “We are absolutely free to condemn all dictatorships. You are not free, you are cowards. Be brave not only with dead dictators, but be brave with the living. “We did not demonstrate last Sunday to encourage terrorists like Hamas.”
And he added: “What kind of moral dump has Sánchez transformed the PSOE into? », to demand that the government withdraw the bill before it is finally approved. “It is in your power to ensure that this ignominy does not happen, it is in your power to withdraw this cheating law without amendment,” he said. His last sentence was another statement of intent: “They must choose between being with the victims and with the murderers.” Between being in dignity and ignominy. Between Sánchez and dignity, Sánchez will choose; “between the victims and ETA, they will choose ETA.”
The same thing happened outside Congress. And Isabel Díaz Ayuso was, as always, on the front line. Early in the morning, he declared that “ETA is stronger than ever.” His right-hand man in Madrid, Alfonso Serrano, ran to take a photo with Mari Mar Blanco, Miguel Ángel Blanco’s sister. But among her attacks against the government, the President of Madrid launched another by describing the failure to detect the amendment as “a very serious error on the part of the opposition”. The leader of the opposition is Feijóo.
Government-PP call
For the Government, reform is not a dish in good taste either. The socialists have so far found three ways to avoid speaking openly about the impact that the validation of sentences abroad for all types of crimes has on the sentences of almost fifty ETA detainees: that it is a European directive, that it was voted unanimously by Congress and that it is in any case an initiative of Sumar.
Privately, it is openly assumed that this reform which assimilates those convicted of ETA terrorism to the rest of the detainees is part of the end of the exceptional prison policy carried out by the executive of Pedro Sánchez over the last six years. Exactly the same as what happened with the dispersal of prisoners. Even if in public, for the moment, socialists prefer to divert attention from the substance.
“This is a transposition in our country of European regulations that have already been approved by the PP in Europe,” defended Pilar Alegría during the press conference after the Council of Ministers this Tuesday. The spokesperson also underlined that the text which will now see the light of day in Parliament was “debated, processed, voted on in presentation, in committee and in plenary unanimously”. And he denied that the meaning of the vote of the PP, which supported the reform, was due to “any oversight or error”.
“ETA ended thirteen years ago, it disappeared, it was a victory for all of Spanish society and democracy. On behalf of the Government and all Spaniards, I demand that the PP stop using in a partisan and obscene way what has caused so much damage to the Spanish people. It’s scandalous. I demand that the PP leaves him now,” shouted the minister, who insisted calling him “unworthy” because “he uses terrorism to cover his emptiness of proposals, projects and leadership.”
In addition, sources from the Ministry of Justice confirmed that Félix Bolaños personally called by telephone the general secretary of the PP, Cuca Gamarra, in response to his message on the parliamentary treatment of the law of commutation of sentences abroad. From the department of Bolaños, it is claimed that the minister made a mistake by calling his interlocutor about the “unexpected change of opinion” of his party regarding this rule after the information from El Confidencial which revealed the amendment .
According to these same sources, Bolaños informed Gamarra that the “sudden” change of opinion is difficult to explain since the norm “serves to apply European law in Spain” and “in Congress, the PP voted in favor of the law like the rest of the groups and, in the Senate, it did not present any amendments. In addition, he recalled that the National Court issued a preliminary ruling due to doubts about whether the current legislation – and which is amended with this law – is adapted to Community law.
