“The PSOE will be the only one responsible to history.” This is how the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, resolved the political storm unleashed this Monday when it became public that his groups in Congress and the Senate, where he has an absolute majority, had neglected that a The law they supported would allow some ETA detainees to benefit from a reduction in sentences already served in other EU countries in Spain. In a statement to journalists, after which he did not admit questions, Feijóo described the “error” of his deputies and senators as “unjustifiable”. But he put all the blame on the government.
The PP is trying to pass off as a “trick” of the Executive what was a normal parliamentary procedure in which it allowed the adoption of a legal reform that could benefit some of the most bloodthirsty terrorists. Among others, Francisco Javier García Gaztelu, “Txapote”, whose name was transformed into an electoral slogan during the 2023 regional and municipal electoral campaign.
“If the PSOE maintains this indignity, it will be the only one responsible to history,” Feijóo said this Tuesday during a visit to a children’s school in Guadalajara. “I appeal to the conscience of all socialists, because they have the time” to request the withdrawal of the bill which, barring an unexpected last-minute twist, will be definitively approved on October 14, after the PP has used its majority. absolute vote in the Senate to postpone the vote for a week.
That’s all they can do after supporting legal reform in both the Interior Committee and the full session of Congress. The PP did not present any amendments and voted in favor of the opinion on the new law. Once it reached the Senate, no reform proposals were presented either, although the absolute majority of Feijóo’s supporters in the Upper House could have, at least, delayed the entry into force of the norm.
Those days are already over and the only thing the PP now aspires to is to get rid of the blame. “The PP wants to paralyze this indecency, but we are aware that only the Government can withdraw this text,” he declared. “We asked the PSOE this morning in the Senate to prevent the release of assassins like those of Miguel Ángel Blanco or Fernando Múgica. I think it’s our obligation and that of every democrat,” he added.
“All socialists have time to avoid lowering their heads so as not to be able to look into the eyes of the families of the ETA assassins,” he said, to emphasize that his people have only “done make a mistake.” “But there is a moral abyss between an error in a parliamentary procedure and the deliberate desire to release from prison the prisoners convicted of assassinations belonging to ETA to keep Mr. Sánchez in government,” he immediately said. added.
“Bildu holds Pedro Sánchez at gunpoint”
At the same time as Feijóo, the parliamentary spokesperson of the PP, Miguel Tellado, appeared before the journalists of the Congress, who insisted on the same ideas as his boss. “The first and last person responsible is a man named Pedro Sánchez. There is a moral chasm between a mistake and the deliberate desire to expel ETA prisoners by doing it undercover,” he said.
Tellado “reiterated the apologies” that Feijóo himself presented on Monday to the AVT, which is not the only association of victims of terrorism, but the closest to the PP. Sources within the PP leadership confirm that Feijóo did not call any other victims’ organizations. This morning, the president of Covite, Consuelo Ordóñez, said: “Everyone is responsible, a new abuse of which we are victims. » The PP, especially its most ultra wing, maintains strong disagreements with Ordóñez.
This Tuesday, Tellado specifically cited Gregorio Ordóñez as one of the victims whose executioner could be released earlier than expected thanks to the application of the new law.
The parliamentary spokesperson “acknowledged the error” (“of course”, he said). And he defended his own: “This group strives daily to present our alternative to the Spanish people. »
The spokesperson explained that his group “acted within the parameters and in the belief that the rest of the groups were on board with the issue.” Tellado recalled that “other groups were victims” of the alleged “deception.” Specifically, Vox and UPN.
Tellado assured that he had “collected information on the treatment” of the law. “If you know how the committee process went, you remember there were amendments from Sumar. [fue precisamente una enmienda de ese grupo la que recogía la modificación] and others from Junts to obtain judicial advantages for Puigdemont. The PP speakers focused on that one and lost sight of others which might seem harmless and which were not,” he explained.
The PP spokesperson, one of Feijóo’s main trusted men for years, chosen by the party leader to lead the parliamentary group, ruled out the “purging of responsibilities” and insisted that his objective was to “describe” the PSOE and see “if it is with the terrorists or the victims.
