Nuances are common victims of the political clashes that have led to the control sessions in Congress and this Wednesday, the intervention of Alberto Núñez Feijóo was no exception. During question time, the PP leader went so far as to directly compare Pedro Sánchez to the dictator Franco and accused him of “persecution and censorship” of journalists. And this in reaction to the government’s inclusion of the European Media Directive in its democratic regeneration plan.
Feijóo’s question to Sánchez was about how the president would approach the start of the political year. “You have already answered how you are going to start the political journey,” the opposition leader said, so that he could answer himself. “With an offensive against judges, journalists and the media. What you call democratic regeneration is actually a censorship plan. He has gone from problems with the truth to problems with those who tell it. His banana conception of power has no end,” Feijóo denounced before ending with a further step. “I insist on censorship and persecution of anyone who dares to criticize him. Nothing like this has been seen since Franco.”
The president did not want to get involved this time and his response always kept a tone that was certainly distant. “We always face the course with more enthusiasm than the previous one because the data supports us,” he said before returning once again to the series of economic and political successes that the Executive usually boasts of on a recurring basis. “Yesterday it was confirmed that for the first time, a vice-president of the European Commission, the Bank of Spain and the INE would increase their growth data for Spain. Wherever we look, the data invite confidence and optimism while we have a bitter opposition ahead of us,” he replied to Feijóo.
But despite the president’s lukewarm response, the opposition leader returned to the fray to speed up the remaining seconds of his second speech. “While you persecute journalists, I propose free childcare, and while you propose campaigns against judges, I promote an ALS law.”
“Change the chip,” Pedro Sánchez replied condescendingly. “For six years they have been saying that Spain is sinking, but Spain is growing more and is not falling apart, it is more united than when you governed in 2017.” And he once again warned the entire Assembly that it would be a good idea for those who predict early elections to sit down and wait. “There are three years left in the legislature, the government is long, so abandon this bitter opposition and give a helping hand in the interest of Spain,” he asked Feijóo.
The other major political point of interest concerns the pro-independence seats. After Junts voted this Tuesday with the PP and Vox to overturn a housing bill after having committed to the parliamentary majority of investiture not to block it, the spokesman of the ERC, Gabriel Rufián, spoke from his seat. “There is a ghost that haunts the Congress, that of the right and the extreme right of the PP, Vox and Junts,” he said.
“You have already lost 35 votes, many of them for this bloc,” Rufián told Pedro Sánchez, recalling last night’s vote as “that miserable vote against rent regulation that affects so many people.” “You say they won’t dare, they can’t follow those who hit the Catalans on 1-O and those who deny the Catalan nation,” Esquerra’s spokesman warned the president about the possibility of Junts consolidating itself as another right-wing opposition group. “They are completely unaware of the capacity, the enormous media capacity to whitewash these people,” he argued, concluding: “What will you do? And don’t tell me what will happen in the Legislative Assembly. What would you think of a parachutist at 10,000 meters who claims to be able to parachute? Do you think he was a liar or an imbecile?”
In his response, Sánchez defended a “normalization” in Catalonia “with risky and difficult to explain decisions.” The president assured that his government is committed to “updating regional financing, where there is an agreement between the PSC and the ERC that advances federalism and co-responsibility,” while defending that “it makes no sense to transfer money to the autonomous communities” that then “they obtain it through tax gifts to the richest.”
“There is a lot of work to do,” said Sánchez, who wanted to “value the work of the ERC.” “The Spanish government has the ambition to continue,” he concluded.
