Today the Congress of Deputies holds the first monitoring session after the DANA tragedy with more than notable absences from the Government side. The most striking of all will be that of the President of the Executive himself, Pedro Sánchez, who has been participating in the Climate Summit in Azerbaijan since last Tuesday. The Vice-President and Minister of Ecological Transition Teresa Ribera will also not be present, neither in Congress nor in the Senate, whose department is more linked to the management and prevention which did not take place, of the floods caused by the drop of cold.
Like Sánchez, Ribera is outside Spain. In this case, with the aim of passing her first exam at the European Parliament to become vice-president of the European Commission. The PP insisted that the head of the Ecological Transition appear this week at the plenary session of the Upper House, but the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, will do it in his place.
It should be noted that this would be the first time that Sánchez would be held accountable in a monitoring session after the DANA of October 29, since the only appearances of the president have been to announce the measures and aid that the government will take to trying to mitigate the effects of DANA, and the visit of the Kings and Mazón to Paiporta, which ended with the early abandonment of Sánchez and the cancellation of the rest of the visits to other municipalities.
Sánchez’s last appearance took place last Tuesday at COP29, during which he warned that “climate change kills” and that is why he participated in the summit, “to avoid another tragedy like that of Valencia. On the other hand, Ribera has not yet appeared at a public event since DANA and is the target of criticism from the party led by Núñez Feijóo. The popular accuse the minister of not having informed or acted in time with the government of the Generalitat Valenciana.
Given the great absences that the Control Session will have, the Popular Party has “forced” the appearance of Robles and Ángel Víctor Torres, Minister of Territorial Policy, so that they report, with special enthusiasm in the first, of their management of DANA in the different Autonomous Communities.
Although Torres only has the function of coordinating the different autonomies, Robles has a key role in reducing the impact of DANA both on the population and in the different municipalities affected, since she was responsible for giving order to the army to move and coordinate the various action tasks after the torrential rains.
In this way, political parties will be able to hold the government accountable for the tragedy that occurred in Valencia and other regions such as Castilla-La Mancha.
