In an article on Teresa Ribera’s appearance Tuesday in Brussels, the Politico website asked whether it was a “shit festival” or a “troll festival.” The PP drove to the vice-presidential exam with a dump truck and convinced conservative MPs from other countries to join the stoning. “No other candidate (to join the European Commission) has been treated with such disrespect,” said a Green MEP. Unlike what is usual in these question and answer sessions, there were boos and applause. A rejoicing more typical of the Spanish Congress. The PP exported kicks below the waist to Brussels as an unequivocally national product.
Wednesday was the day of the first appearance of a member of the Government at the Congress dedicated to DANA in Valencia. It was the Minister of Territorial Policy, Ángel Víctor Torres, who was responsible for showing his face, while Pedro Sánchez continued the climate summit abroad and Vice President María Jesús Montero attended the session from his seat. This was part of the government’s strategy in which it insists that management of the disaster belongs to the Valencian government and that the central government is there to help when needed. This is an answer that not even all PSOE members understand.
Alberto Núñez Feijóo decided to boycott the appearance and leave his seat empty. His party said it followed the plenary session from its office. At the start of the session, almost one in four PP seats was unoccupied. His tenants arrived later. Since the boss wasn’t going to come, it seems they were allowed to sleep a little longer. Santiago Abascal arrived an hour late and didn’t stay long, although that’s not new either.
What caught the attention is that all these tensions coming from Brussels were not transferred to Congress. Unlike many other plenary sessions, the PP decided to replace fury with a certain cynicism. In order to demean Torres, it was not just any heavyweight in the group who responded to him, but rather a Valencian deputy who never intervenes in control sessions.
“We tried to keep all this away from the political struggle, but it was not possible,” said César Sánchez. We must have the courage to say this when its leader went to Valencia the day after the tragedy to affirm that the greatest responsibility for the tragedy lay in the central administration organizations (by AEMET and the Hydrographic Confederation de Júcar) with Carlos Mazón one meter behind him. .
Verbal violence was conspicuous by its absence within the PP. There were orders to remain calm. “Citizens do not expect anger or electoral calculations,” Cuca Gamarra later said. What he didn’t have was the courage to defend Mazón and his dysfunctional government. And very harsh words were heard. “The Mazón government is up to its neck in shit,” said Àgueda Micó, of Compromís. “The lives lost are the responsibility of the Valencian Popular Party Government.” In addition, he showed the cover of La Razón on Sunday, the one with the headline: “Feijóo will support Mazón not to give victory to Sánchez.” But there is no electoral calculation, as Gamarra says. No way.
The PP deputies endured these sentences without batting an eyelid. On another occasion they would have jumped like wild beasts. During this plenary session, they dedicated themselves to looking very carefully at their cell phones, as if they were reading something really interesting.
Minister Torres’ position was also to try not to increase the temperature of tension: “You will not find any indication in this intervention.” He gave numerous figures to refute the idea that nothing was done for the Valencians. 36,907 people saved from life-threatening situations. 200,000 liters of water and 20,000 kilos of food distributed by the Armed Forces. 15,000 tonnes of goods removed in the first 24 hours. 2,600 cars and trucks removed from streets and highways. On October 30, 600,000 Valencians were without water. On Tuesday, there were only 1,263 in four municipalities.
During the control session that followed, the PP tightened the screws on Teresa Ribera, who is in Brussels. María Jesús Montero went from saying that “this was not the time for reproaches” to becoming a boiling point in a few seconds and recalling the cases of the Yak-42, the Valencia metro accident, the Prestige and 11M, the poker of great success. from the right. On another occasion they should have called the riot police to control the anger of the PP headquarters. This time it was a very discreet reaction and it only lasted a few seconds.
The party reserved low blows for its leader. Feijóo, who was absent, appeared during the screening session and quickly came out to give a brief press conference. It was about putting all the spotlight on Ribera, due to the unfinished work in the Júcar basin, once again as if Mazón had been cleared of dust and straw. The PP demands that the Government withdraw the candidacy of the Minister of Ecological Transition from the European Commission. Feijóo has completely shaken up what is happening these days in Brussels. “The government must think about the pressure it is putting on the European institutions, by blackmailing them,” he said.
If we talk about blackmail, it is difficult not to include in this definition the warning that Feijóo addressed to Ursula Von der Leyen, the German conservative who aspires to be re-elected as head of the Commission. He warned that the Commission must begin its mandate “without stain”, that is to say without Ribera.
The Von der Leyen government’s negotiations have been a complex task of balancing the interests of conservatives, social democrats and liberals with the aspirations of each European government and the profiles of the commissioners. It is now not possible to vote separately against Ribera. All names go in the same packet. If the right votes against Ribera, the social democrats will vote against the others. This would be a big failure for von der Leyen and would force him to start from scratch in the formation of his government.
The attempt to set fire to the Commission to save Mazón or so that, in the event that its survival is impossible, the PP can demonstrate that it has in return ruined Ribera’s European career, reaches this level. A few days after Donald Trump’s victory in the United States and while everyone agrees on the fact that Europe must be strong and not give in to everything that comes from Washington, the PP believes that its interests are more important.
The Valencia tragedy dealt a heavy blow to the management image of the PP governments, which were the bastions on which Feijóo wanted to build a future electoral victory. This is not just what is happening to Mazón. Two hundred corpses and the European government will not prevent him from achieving his objectives.
