The European People's Party (EPP) has launched the electoral machinery for next year's European elections in Barcelona, where this Monday it organized an economic conference that in the end focused on questioning the amnesty law that has already been passed. is processed in Congress, considered by the popular Europeans, hand in hand with the Spanish, an attack on the rule of law because it represents, from their point of view, a violation of the separation of powers.
With the title "Road to recovery", this economic day has served the PP of Alberto Núñez Feijóo to show its harmony with the popular European family of the EPP, led by the German Manfred Weber, who has moved to the Catalan capital to express his unequivocal support for Feijóo's opposition strategy, which involves internationalizing and raising his denunciation of the Spanish political situation to the European institutions.
Weber has spoken of the "difficult challenges" that Europe faces in economic matters and has stressed the importance of European values, which, in his opinion, are in question in Spain, because the socialist Government has "violated" the State of law from the PSOE agreement with Junts and the parliamentary push for an amnesty law and commissions in Congress to "supervise" judicial work. In this sense, the president of the EPP has referred to the demonstrations in Madrid and the numerous complaints that civil society organizations have sent to Brussels to take action on the matter, which have resulted in last week's debate in the European Chamber.
Feijóo, for his part, thanked Manfred Weber for his "commitment to Spain" and evoked the figure of another German, Konrad Adenauer, one of the founding fathers of the European Union. A memory that he considers appropriate at a time when he believes that a wall is being built, like the one that existed in Berlin, but of a political nature, in Spain: "Where democracy is threatened, that threat affects all democracies," has stressed the president of the PP, for whom the Government of Spain is moving away from European values.
In front of this metaphorical wall, the leader of the PP intends to build bridges, as he has stated. "Spanish society is not divided, the tension that Spain suffers and that is already echoed in the institutions and in European public opinion is caused by an ideological change: the mutation of Spanish social democracy," described Feijóo, who sees the PSOE in "extremist positions", which he considers an "anomaly" in Europe. "The Government of Spain has been bought in exchange for an amnesty and an independence referendum," he questioned. And this, he has warned, "is not an internal matter" of Spain.
"The investiture was decided by a Catalan politician who has a European order in force," recalled Feijóo, who has also questioned Sánchez's support for the recognition of Palestine: "It has been adopted outside of our European partners." The president of the PP has denounced, in this sense, that the terrorist organization Hamas has celebrated the position of the Spanish Government: "It is a serious mistake by Spanish diplomacy," he has declared.
"The EU cannot normalize in Spain what it does not admit in other countries," said Feijóo, for whom the pact signed between the PSOE and Junts, which provides for an "international mediator" to supervise compliance with the agreement in monthly meetings, is attentive. against the "rule of law" on which Europe is based.
Fundamentally, the PP's aspiration is that the economic recovery funds serve for the European Union to impose conditions on the Spanish Government, since, in the opinion of the popular ones, there is a "violation" of rights that, as has happened in Hungary or Poland, could lead to the freezing of these resources by the European Commission.
In addition to Feijóo and Weber, representatives of the EPP participated in the conference, including Antonio Tajani, president of Forza Italia and Foreign Minister of the Italian Government, who has been against the recognition of Palestine without a prior agreement with Israel, and some heavyweights of the PP, such as MEP Dolors Montserrat; the president of Aragon, Jorge Azcón; the deputy in Congress Esteban González Pons and the mayors of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, and Badalona, Xavier García Albiol.
"No one is going to take away from the Spaniards the freedom and democracy that our parents worked so hard to achieve. Spain is a great nation, where European values have taken root forever, which is why Europe is risking so much in the face of a deeply anti-European amnesty." , Montserrat began by saying in her capacity as host. "We ask Europe to listen to judges and prosecutors," continued the MEP, who has charged against "a lawfare pact" (in reference to the one signed by the PSOE and Junts) that, in her opinion, ends judicial independence and the separation of powers.
"Spain is tending towards Poland if Europe does not prevent it," exclaimed González Pons, who led the PP delegation in the European Parliament until the last general elections, in which he ran as a candidate for Congress for Valencia. And, in this sense, he has stated that "next year's European elections will be a plebiscite." "The amnesty is an outrage that makes Spain detach itself from the rule of law in the European Union," has been supported by Martínez-Almeida, for whom Pedro Sánchez's objective in this legislature is to "gag and kidnap the judiciary."
On the other hand, representatives from the economic and business world have also participated, such as the presidents of Foment del Treball, Josep Sánchez Llibre, and the employers' association of small and medium-sized companies in Catalonia, Pymec, Antoni Cañete. "The pact that worries us the most is that of the PSOE with Sumar, because it fundamentally goes against the businessmen," said Sánchez Llibre, who, in a day theoretically of an economic nature, has not gone into assessing the issue of amnesty, although he has requested, yes, that the PP seek "maximum complicity" with the PNV and Junts due to their "coincidences" in economic matters, which would contribute to improving the "competitiveness" of Spanish companies.
"We need more Europe, but more Europe in the right direction," stressed Cañate, for whom the Next Generation funds cannot ignore the fact that SMEs "are the economic engine of Europe." For the president of Pymec, the excessive bureaucracy to receive these funds makes it difficult for European resources to reach small and medium-sized businesses.
