The appointment of Santiago Abascal as president of Patriotas por Europa, the formation of the new European group born after the division in Brussels of the traditional far-right families, will serve the leader of Vox to try to strengthen his leadership and gain momentum. magnitude in the face of the new political scene that is opening in the world after the victory in the United States of the Republican Donald Trump, one of the idols of the European and Latin American extreme right, alongside the Argentinian Javier Milei.
The leaders of Patriotas, whose main figures are the Hungarian Viktor Orbán and the French Marine Le Pen, have already warned that they want to become “fundamental political actors on the European scene”, to “take up the challenge of consolidating an alternative majority to the traditional coalition between socialists and popularists” in the European Parliament. And Abascal, although he does not have a seat in Brussels, has offered to defend these challenges in his new position as party president. On the very day of his appointment, he pledged to “promote a frontal and total response to globalism, and to ensure that the Europe of the homelands is once again great, prosperous, secure and free”, in the wake of Donald Trump and his promise. doing “good for America once again” which brought him back to the White House.
“So far only the ‘bad guys’ have worked together, we have a duty to propose a global and comprehensive response to globalism. The “good” ones must be united,” he declared that day. The “good guys” for the leader of Vox are the leaders of the far right, like him, whom he has constantly called to form “a big family” of the far right. This could not be the case and Vox abandoned the group of reformists and conservatives which included the formation of the Italian Georgia Meloni, with whom it distanced itself, to join the new party, much more radical, promoted by the Hungarian Prime Minister and Matteo Salvini and who was joined shortly after by the Frenchwoman Marine Le Pen after the French elections.
The “bad guys” for Abascal are obviously all the leaders of the “criminal left”, who “impose their 2030 agenda”, which he and his co-religionists consider “deadly” for the future of European citizens. As he continues to warn, the continent suffers from “the permanent, growing and increasingly aggressive threat to the sovereignty of our nations” from “bureaucrats and globalists.” Leaders who, for the far right, only seek to “impose perverse, liberticidal and ruinous ideologies, from ‘woke’ ideology, which destroys minds, to climate fanaticism and green dictatorship which destroy our industries and our countryside and impoverish our people. “.
Despite the fact that the left-wing parties are its main and great enemies, Vox’s relations with the conservatives have deteriorated over time, both in Spain and in Brussels, as we have seen these days with the DANA crisis and the appointment of Teresa Ribera. as vice-president of the European Commission.
Abascal has continued to accuse the PP of being “accomplice of the PSOE” for having voted with it on numerous resolutions of the European Parliament and for having agreed here with the government of Pedro Sánchez on the “distribution of institutions” . The leader of Vox continues to emphasize that in Congress they do not act “like a real opposition”. “There’s only Vox left,” he repeats insistently.
In the European Parliament, they also had to see how the group to which Feijóo belongs (PPE) imposed a sanitary cordon on them because they considered Orbán to be a “radical extreme right and a friend of Putin”. The first consequence of this European health cordon was to exclude them from the distribution of committee chairs, a decision denounced by Patriots for Europe before the General Court of the EU (TGUE). But in daily parliamentary life, this veto ended up being lifted. The EPP negotiated with the ultras a resolution on Venezuela due to the refusal of the socialists and liberals to include the recognition of the opposition Edmundo González as elected president. It was the first time in plenary that the EPP made use of its new alternative majority. Others would come later.
This sanitary cordon on the far right has, however, never been placed by the PP in Spain on Vox, a party which until recently governed in coalition with the PP in several autonomies. The refusal of Abascal’s party to accept the immigrant quotas requested by the Sánchez Executive, which Feijóo ultimately accepted, caused these pacts to explode and Abascal ordered him to abandon all the positions he held in several communities governed by conservatives, while maintaining the positions he had held. closed in town halls, including that of Valencia.
Relief at not being part of the government of the Generalitat
Within the party, they now consider the internal crisis they experienced after the breakdown of these pacts, which led to a series of deaths and resignations, to be over, and they are very satisfied with the role they play in the party. from Valencia. tragedy where they can afford to violently attack not only the management of the government of Pedro Sánchez before the DANA, but also that of Carlos Mazón himself with whom they are however more lukewarm given that they continue to co-govern with the PP in the city Council.
In Mazón’s government, Vox held a vice presidency that included the Ministry of Culture and Sports and was also in charge of the areas of Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, as well as Justice and of Interior, which included emergency management despite being a climate advocate and having no prior experience in the matter. The most important step of the former far-right councilor at the head of this department was the dismantling of the Valencian Emergency Unit (UVE), created by the previous PSPV-PSOE and the Compromís government to coordinate disasters. Mazón himself worked hard to “sell” this political success as it ended in “a beach bar” which, they claim, was never put into operation. Mazón did not wait for Vox to announce his resignation and fired the administrators beforehand.
At Vox headquarters, they are now happy not to be part of the autonomous government because they believe that this would have served as an alibi to offload on them a good part of the responsibilities for the disastrous management of DANA. So he feels some relief. “If we had been in autonomous government, a lot of eyes would have been on us. The deterioration would have been brutal,” admit training sources.
On the day of Mazón’s appearance at the Corts, they described his management as “negligent” but did not demand his resignation, although they announced the request for a commission of inquiry to clarify the facts and settle, where applicable, political and/or criminal responsibilities. . They also did not support the motion of censure proposed by Compromís.
Since DANA devastated several municipalities in Valencia, the leaders of Vox have preferred to direct all their heavy artillery against the central government, even announcing a criminal complaint against Pedro Sánchez and several ministers for “reckless homicide” and “omission of the duty of relief “. and They also directed their attacks against the vice-president and Minister of Ecological Transition Teresa Ribera, whose resignation they demanded. His wishes did not materialize, nor did the requests addressed to the PP to block his appointment. Today, they believe that the one who was worst off from all these failed maneuvers against Ribera is Feijóo, to whom they do not hesitate to reproach the little influence he has within the European Popular Group chaired by by Manfred Weber.
A new role in Europe
The Vox leadership believes that with Abascal at the head of Patriotas por Europa, the party will play a leading role in European politics and that its “friendship” with Trump will benefit and revitalize the party also in our country, while Feijóo will appear as an increasingly “weak” party. and isolated leader. The conservative leader’s desperate offer to now present a motion of censure against the government with the support of Sánchez’s own partners was rejected by Abascal who asked him this Friday “not to deceive the Spaniards”, knowing that this is impossible . prosper.
“I am not against the presentation of a motion of censure, but I believe that we must not confuse the Spanish people about the possibility that the separatist parties, who enjoy a weak government and want a weak government in Spain , can come and support a motion of this type,” declared the leader of Vox in an interview on the COPE network.
Vox has always been supportive of these types of initiatives aimed at undermining government. In fact, the party presented two motions of censure during Sánchez’s two terms, but neither gained the support of the PP. Furthermore, the far-right party refuses to include any type of transfer of votes to nationalist or independence parties, such as the PNV or Junts, which are essential. for it to prosper.
