“No effective measures are expected. Neither now nor in the future. This is how the PP leadership settles questions about possible political responsibilities in the face of the “widespread” and “unjustified” error that led the party to support a legal reform that, ultimately, could benefit the ETA prisoners who can accumulate sentences served in other EU countries. There will be no dismissals and no resignations will be accepted. Alberto Núñez Feijóo ordered to emphasize that everything happened because of a “deception”, a “trap” of the government. Even if this version is starting to have some holes.
Feijóo landed in Madrid more than two years ago with the team of faithful who had accompanied him during his years in Galicia, both in the party and in the government. Among them, his right-hand man from the PPdG, Miguel Tellado, who assumed the role of main plumber to shorten the territories, key in the defenestration of Pablo Casado.
After 23D, he took on a new role: controlling the parliamentary group, which also constituted a hole in the leadership of his predecessor in power. Tellado has placed himself at the head of an increasingly virulent opposition to Pedro Sánchez, and constitutes the link between the leadership and the most ultra wing. Her relationship is very fluid with Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo, deputy spokesperson, and with Isabel Díaz Ayuso’s closest team in Madrid.
But this week, their agitation intensified. All this because of the reform that, according to the official version, the government “infiltrated” using as a “trick” an amendment by Sumar to a law passed for months by the Justice Commission, the plenary of Congress and the Senate. In the First Chamber, the PP is the majority force with 137 deputies. In the second, he has an absolute majority.
The head of the parliamentary group is Tellado himself. The teams ultimately depend on him, and it is he who determines the distribution of work and the flow of information with the national headquarters, where the PP also has different working groups which generally operate in parallel with that of the Congress or the Senate.
Alongside Tellado, another member of the “Galicians”, as they are called within the PP itself, is Álvaro Pérez, deputy and parliamentary coordinator. The group formed during Feijóo’s years at the head of the Xunta is completed by Mar Sánchez, the party’s highest communications official, and Marta Varela, the leader’s chief of staff. All have records in Congress and exercise leadership and direction in activities.
Last Monday, when the fiasco of the so-called unawareness of the existence of the amendment was revealed, the PP came to denounce the government. But its national spokesperson, Borja Sémper, assured that it was a “general error of the entire Congress”.
The next day the storm broke out within the PP, but not so much at the government level, because in their own ranks they could not believe what had happened. Much less among the victims of terrorism. Feijóo made a brief statement, without asking questions, in which he declared that “the PSOE will be the only one responsible to history.” The leader of the PP hid from journalists all week: he entered and left the Congress through unusual doors, he did not answer the questions asked of him and he even sent a statement video from Warsaw, Poland to find space on television for the latest revelations of the “Koldo affair” without having to appear in front of the informants.
Tellado went much further than his boss. Beyond anyone. “Bildu is holding Pedro Sánchez at gunpoint,” he said in the congressional press room. He answered questions, few in number, he said “accept the mistake” and defended the work of the parliamentary group that he leads. In the press room, a silent Cayetana Álvarez de Toledo who, after her appearance, avoided any dialogue with journalists.
By then, knives had begun to fly within the PP, with a concatenation of leaks about direct responsibility for the decision. An exchange of accusations between the teams led in Congress by Álvarez de Toledo and Cuca Gamarra, the “number two” of the party. Although the Deputy Secretary for Institutional Affairs, Esteban González Pons, on whom justice-related issues depend, was also shot dead. Names like Ana Belén Vázquez or María Jesús Moro were mentioned.
The same afternoon, Tellado assured on Onda Cero that the deputies who had directly participated in the presentation of the law to the Justice Commission had made their positions available to the group, and that he had rejected their resignation. A few minutes earlier, Vox had made a similar statement since the ultra party had also supported the amendment in the final vote.
The spokesperson thus short-circuited any possibility of transferring responsibilities to him and to the work system he put in place. And on Wednesday, the PP went on the offensive. During the plenary session in which Pedro Sánchez appeared to speak about immigration precisely at the request of the opposition, Feijóo barely mentioned the subject. In the middle of the president’s speech, the senator and deputy of the Assembly of Madrid Marimar Blanco, sister of Miguel Ángel Blanco, entered the room. He interrupted the speaker and sat to the right of the PP leader to applause from the right-wing bank.
Tellado then released a poster with images of socialist activists murdered by ETA. And, among other things, they evoked the memory of Gregorio Ordóñez. The victims’ response was not long in coming and they unleashed their fury against the PP spokesperson for having used the memory of their loved ones in a partisan manner. Among them, Gregorio Ordóñez’s own sister.
After the performance, sources in Genoa decided that Tellado was untouchable for Feijóo.
Two versions, one vote
The noise unleashed by Feijóo’s leadership did not prevent the initial version of the government’s “deception” from weakening as the days passed. Tellado avoided responsibility Tuesday by emphasizing that they had “acted within the parameters and in the belief that the rest of the groups respected the issue.” A lie since, literally, the law expressly concerns “the exchange of information on criminal records and the examination of criminal judicial decisions in the European Union”,
But the day before, MP Ana Belén Vázquez, rapporteur of said law (i.e. the person directly responsible for drafting and negotiating parliamentary documents), had already reported a different version in a Cuatro broadcast. Yes, they knew the content of the amendment. So much so that they took a position against this proposal during preliminary meetings, although they ultimately voted in favor of the opinion that included it.
This part of the story is confirmed by other parliamentary sources consulted by elDiario.es. One of the spokespersons for the standard claims to have himself spoken with representatives of the PP about the amendment, which, moreover, corrected a previous modification made by the PP itself in 2014. Others ‘said in public. The president of the PNV, Andoni Ortúzar, declared this Friday: “The PP knew it. Their lawyers may be what they are, but they are not stupid.
The Orense representative explained in the television program that he then supported the legal reform because it stems from a European directive in favor of which the PP had voted in full in Brussels. Among others, for example, the former leader of the party in the Basque Country, Carlos Iturgaiz.
That is to say, since Monday, some in the PP have been emphasizing that they were aware of the amendment. At Cuatro, Vázquez said what they didn’t know was that it could affect ETA prisoners. Something that the deputy corroborated in a conversation with elDiario.es. “We learned about it from El Confidencial,” he said of the verification call launched by the media outlet that first published the information.
Vázquez assures that no one, internally, warned of the possibility that the rule could benefit the imprisoned members of ETA, although she herself stressed to Cuatro that the reform came to fill a hole already filled in the entire Europe and in Spain what the judges were doing at the request of the detainees’ lawyers and, precisely, on the orders of the community justice system.
This is the case of Francisco Javier García Gaztelu, “Txapote”. The veteran ETA leader has one of the terrorist group’s bloodiest records and is serving time for the murder of Miguel Ángel Blanco. Although his name has been used all week against the government, it is in reality the National Court which has already accumulated sanctions against him. In the PP, they know it, but no leader or spokesperson has spoken about it.
