The president of the Congress of Deputies, the socialist Francine Armengoluses as his place of residence the official palace reserved for the third authority of the State. OKDIARIO had already been able to confirm this fact on September 15, 2023, exclusively revealing images of the socialist leader leaving this house. This palace has an area of 1,092.80 square metersaccording to data provided by the Lower House. A national heritage property, it is located in the Retiro district, 700 meters on foot Congress. The house consists of three floors and a garage in the basement, as well as an elevator, office, living rooms, bedrooms, gym and sauna. To this must be added the costs of water, electricity, gas, maintenance and security.
The former Congress president, also a socialist Meritxell Batetdid not use this official residence when he left office, as he was renting an apartment in Madrid during the last term. This mansion has not been used as an official residence continuously since Patxi Lopez settled there during his brief tenure as Congress President. The current spokesperson for the PSOE in the House held the position of third state authority between January 13, 2018 and July 18, 2016. The socialist leader actually used this residence, which sparked a lively controversy, notably because his predecessor in power, Jesus Posada (PP), did not use this accommodation at State expense and chose to reside in an apartment he owned located in Madrid.
The PP, at the time, denounced this situation by estimating that Patxi López had a sufficient salary as president of Congress to rent a “decent” house, located far from the privileges and sumptuousness of the palace that the Lower House pays for with the money of all taxpayers and that Francina Armengol now uses.
Patxi López, who lived in a rented apartment in Madrid’s Chueca neighborhood, argued “security reasons” to justify the use of the large fund located 700 meters from the Lower House. This contrasts with the attitude of other presidents like Jesús Posada, Ana Pasteur (PP) or the socialist Meritxell Batet, who served as the third state authority with the same security in their private homes. In the case of the first two, in apartments which they own, and in Batet, for rent, as parliamentary sources confirmed to OKDIARIO.
Francina Armengol took over the residential use of this sumptuous estate seven years later. Her annual salary as president of the Congress and PSOE deputy for the Balearic Islands is 214,444.86 euros in 14 installments. In her declaration of assets and income on the occasion of the new legislature, the former president of the Government of the Balearic Islands indicates that she had an annual salary of 71,502.62 euros and what he charged 23,735.71 euros in terms of diets. In this statement he also included an apartment in the Balearic Islands acquired in 2002, a “used” Jeep Gran Cherokee from 2012 and a balance of 88,009.88 euros including here a “current account deposit, insurance and a retirement plan”.
A troubled mandate
The socialist leader became president of Congress in August 2023 thanks to a pact between the PSOE and its separatist partners. His mandate was since then, convulsed in the Carrera de San Jerónimo, starting with the accelerated imposition of co-official languages, without consensus and with the hiring of temporary translators even before the reform of the regulations was approved.
The cost of imposing the use of co-official languages in the House is almost 800,000 euros per year for Spanish taxpayers. Francina Armengol defended the payment of this sum, celebrating that it could have been made “possible” and that it had been “normalized”. “It happens to me myself, I think and feel in Catalan and I very much appreciate that in the house of our democracy ideas can be defended in my language,” she said during several public events at which she participated. During her mandate as president of the Balearic Islands, she excluded Spanish from the entire public sphere and imposed Catalan during the two terms in which she led the Executive.
Armengol has also been the protagonist of several controversies in the chamber, such as the censorship that he usually practices with the deputies of the PP and Vox by not granting them the floor to defend themselves from their seats against the allusions made by the rest of the gone. The last major controversy of the former president of the Balearic Islands occurred on June 7, when she asked to vote for the PSOE for the European elections during her appearance before the Senate commission of inquiry into the ramifications of there Koldo affair.
“My greatest wish is that on Sunday many people participate in the elections and make it clear that this is not the right way to do politics”, declared Francina Armengol in her last intervention in this commission, carrying out an inappropriate act of what is the third authority of the State, because the electoral law prohibits the use of “Public authorities” to campaign. This intervention took place two days before the European elections. The former president of the Balearic Islands appeared before this Senate committee to explain why she had acquired defective medical equipment from the country’s main company. Koldo Field when she was president of the Balearic Islands during the pandemic.
