The leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, gave a speech full of darts to the PNV on Tuesday that stung among the jeltzales, and his voice in Congress, Aitor Esteban, was waiting for the popular leader right at that point. The veteran spokesman for the Basque nationalists has used himself harshly to denounce Feijóo's message this Tuesday and warn him that down this path it will be impossible to build bridges and "find common spaces." “Your loneliness from him is greater today than yesterday. We do not know who Feijóo is, but what we do know is that he is not who he says he is,” he stated.
In a brief intervention of just five minutes, Esteban did not hold back anything and wanted to mark the ground for the Galician leader for future interventions. The vocation to build bridges and maintain a normalized dialogue that both parties have expressed has no signs of prospering with interventions like Tuesday's, spokesperson Jeltzale has come to underline.
Aitor Esteban has begun by explaining, once again, the motivation for his refusal to even enter into negotiations with the PP. “His only traveling companion is Vox, a far-right formation that wants to end the autonomies, with parties like mine, that does not believe in climate change and that denies sexist violence,” he indicated.
“If the PNV has not entered into negotiations with its party, and we have been honest and sincere from day one, it has been because we have principles. Principles that coincide with European values and concerns against authoritarianism. “These principles and values prevent us from being in the same equation as Vox,” he added.
From there, Aitor Esteban criticized the "enraged" way in which, in his opinion, the PP responded to his refusal.
“He gave an aggressive, defiant, even arrogant speech, in which he repeatedly confused sarcasm with provocation. He does not want to build bridges with anyone, not even with the PNV from whom he claimed the votes until the day before yesterday only to spend a day later enraged and attacking because of our refusal. We did not know Mr. Núñez Feijóo, but thanks to the investiture debate we are already getting to know him,” he noted.
Esteban added that his speech sounded “more like a challenge than a conciliation.” “It sounded like here I am. There you are and for the moment there you are going to stay. Between his party and ours there is a very deep abyss,” he indicated.
The spokesperson for EH Bildu, Oskar Matute, for his part, has sought a speech with an epic point, underlining the value of their votes to “fight the extreme right.”
Matute has used some verses by the writer and bertsolari Jon Maia to weave his speeches, continually appealing to the understanding between PP and Vox, “nail and flesh in the Balearic Islands, Andalusia, Extremadura, Murcia, Aragón, País Valencià and Castilla y León” .
“In the last 30 years, even the conservative parties have agreed to separate the extreme right with a cordon sanitaire. In a democratic system many things can be debated, but fundamental rights are not a matter of debate or transaction. Xenophobia is not a matter of debate. Misogyny is not a matter of debate. LGTBIphobia is not a matter of debate,” she indicated.
Matute has denounced that “the PP program is to abolish social rights and repeal advances,” and has listed social measures approved by his party: “The social shield, the increase in the minimum wage, the revaluation of pensions, the law protection for ryders, the euthanasia law, the ecological transition law, the ERTEs, the decriminalization of strikes or the repeal of dismissal for medical sick leave.”
“They have not wanted to put a cordon sanitaire around the extreme right, and today Congress is putting a cordon sanitaire around them,” he concluded.
