The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, went to the Congress of Deputies this Wednesday at the request of the PP to talk about the supposed “migration emergency that Spain is experiencing” and to report “on the actions” of the Executive in this regard. After a week without a plenary session and after not attending the last one as he was on an official trip outside of Spain, there was great expectation to hear the president on his return to Congress on an issue that has made political headlines in recent months and that caused Even in the summer, the breakdown of the autonomous pacts of PP and Vox.
However, during the almost six hours of debate, little has been said about the migratory pressure in the Canary archipelago, the possible distribution of minors or aid to tackle the situation. One more time, The parties have used a monographic session to bring up very disparate and controversial issues without the intention of reaching agreements and with anger and a harsh tone as dialectical weapons..
The morning started with a double surprise. On the one hand, the image of the first vice president of the Government and Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, arriving at the Lower House in a cast and in a wheelchair, to the point that she had to be helped to take her seat on the bench blue of the hemicycle. The reason is that last weekend, Montero suffered an accident in which he broke a toeaccording to government sources. Despite her obvious mobility difficulties, the vice president did not want to miss the session and chose to answer the questions from the opposition sitting from her seat.
On the other hand, just thirty seconds after Sánchez began his speech, PP deputy Javier José Folch Blanc has suffered a fall when the axis of his seat split in half. Something that forced the session to be interrupted for almost a minute. “You can occupy another seat, if possible,” asked the president of Congress, Francina Armengol, without hiding a smile of certain disbelief at what had happened.
It was not the only time that Sánchez has been interrupted during his first intervention. Half an hour into the speech, the PP bench stood up to receive, without prior notice and with an ovation, its senator Marimar Blanco, sister of Miguel Ángel Blanco. The purpose of this image was to convey a gesture of support from the popular people to the victims of terrorism after their own parliamentary group voted in favor of the reform of a law that will allow the commutation of sentences served abroad and that, consequently , will benefit almost 50 ETA members. In fact, in an unusual way, Marimar Blanco continued the rest of the session sitting to the right of the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo.
The PP bench gives a standing ovation to Mari Mar Blanco
The support of PP and Vox for this legal reform, which they themselves call a “mistake”, has been the talk of the debate. Feijóo has admitted that part of his electorate feels “disappointed” in them for not having realized what the reform presented by the Government entailed, but that “an error, no matter how unjustifiable, is not the same as the moral turpitude of promoting a law knowingly.”
The leftist parties have made blood with this. Pedro Sánchez has asked Feijóo directly if he knows what he votes for in Congress. “Do you know what you are voting for or not? Or do you know what you are voting for or after seeing the reaction in the media do you blame others for your mistakes? What is clear to me is that they don’t know where they are going. And the problem in this country is that there is an opposition that has no one at the wheel,” he told him.
In an attempt to discredit him as leader of the PP, Sánchez has pointed out that Feijóo does not rule his party and that the real “boss” is Isabel Díaz Ayuso. “Why have you changed your mind now? Have you been pressured or is your group more clumsy than it seems? With you you never know where the lie ends and the incompetence begins,” he told him in response to the protests of the popular bench.
Sumar’s spokesperson, Íñigo Errejón, or ERC’s spokesperson, Gabriel Rufián, have also made jokes about it. “The evil slogan of ‘Let Txapote vote for you’ has returned to you, because in the end the ones who voted for Txapote are you,” the Republican leader told them.. “At least I know what I’m voting for,” Sumar responded to an off-color comment from Rafael Hernando (PP).
The president of ERC, Gabriel Rufián
The temperature in Congress did not stop rising while outside the rain intensified. In the plenary session, each parliamentary group sold its donkey. Junts wanted to talk about financing (“If they don’t enter, Mr. Sánchez, there is no credit. They don’t trust”), Bildu responded to the PP for the reform of the Gag Law (“The era in which you imposed censorship is over, accept it now “) and Podemos asked to know the whole truth about the role of King Juan Carlos on February 23. “The emeritus is going to go down in history as the Corrupt,” Belarra predicted. Accusations that the PP deputy, Miguel Tellado, has asked Armengol to remove from the session diary. Néstor Rego, from the BNG, later gave the final touch: “Juan Carlos I is corrupt, a tax fraudster and a coup plotter. And I think we could say much more.”
The migratory crisis was cornered and Armengol has called the deputies to order on two occasions, invoking article 102 of the regulations of the Lower House, to demand that they focus on the object of debate. Although it hasn’t helped much.
The deputy of the Canarian Coalition, Cristina Valido – whose autonomous community is currently the most affected by migratory pressure – has complained precisely in her turn to speak that the rest of the groups have “talked about everything, but little about immigration.” during his interventions.
Abascal, during this Wednesday’s session in Congress
Vox has done it, but in its own way. Abascal has accused Sánchez of “collaborating with Islamists” with the aim of stimulating the “migratory invasion”, while advising him to put the immigrants “in his house, if he is so philanthropic.” And to top it off, the president of Vox has also said that “Women and children do not normally arrive in Spain, but an immense majority of strong men of military age”. Rufián would have liked to respond with these words, but on the two occasions in which the Republican has taken the stand, Abascal was not present. “He’s having lunch, I never catch him. But I’m sure they can pass the message on to him”he said sarcastically.
In the end, when there was most talk about migration in Congress, it was on Tuesday during the minute of silence of their honorable Members for the immigrants who died on the migratory routes, among them those from the shipwreck on September 28 in El Hierro. Paradoxical.
Source: www.huffingtonpost.es
