He retraced the steps of the dirtiest politics, held in the Senate, where he lashed out at the hardships of corruption. The PP thus summoned with its power of seats the first vice presidents, María Jesús Montero, and third, Sara Aagesen, to demand political responsibilities for and managed to approve with its absolute majority, UPN and Vox another investigation commission on that matter, the fifth in that Chamber. Montero defended himself with the fact that the investigations are under summary secrecy so as not to provide any clarification and attacked the entire PP corruption archive.
The PP has no intention of letting go of the scandals that affect the Government and the PSOE in the remainder of the legislature. On the contrary. January is in theory a parliamentary non-working month, although the opposition usually calls plenary sessions, in Congress or the Senate, on urgent and current issues. The Popular Party now has an absolute majority in the Upper House and that is where they go when they try to precipitate a complicated appearance for the Executive.
In December, the UCO of the Civil Guard carried out a police operation with searches, requests for information and arrests related to, and, promoted by the Central Court of Instruction Number 6 of the National Court, on possible crimes of fraud, document falsification, embezzlement, influence peddling and prevarication.
Unapero that did not hold back the PP from forcing the request for a plenary session in the Senate to create one there in that Chamber. The plenary session, held this Thursday for more than seven hours, ended as planned with the ratification of that commission with 146 votes in favor of the right, despite the impotent rejection of the 86 parliamentarians of the PSOE and its partners, after an eternal debate that endlessly repeated the arguments that both sides abuse.
The first vice president knew what she was coming to. , did not spare any minutes in his intervention, which in reality was summarized in that he could not provide explanations to that case because it is under summary secrecy and he understands that it is based on actions of his former collaborator two years after leaving the position for which he had nominated him. The number two of the Executive did want to interpret the objective of the PP call: she maintains that the popular ones are carrying out on her the same obsessive strategy of personal dehumanization that they have been practicing against Pedro Sánchez to destroy him as a rival because they are afraid of her as an electoral candidate for the Junta de Andalucía.
Montero, as the senators from the groups that support the Executive later confirmed, regretted that on this destructive path the PP has no shame in discrediting and turning institutions such as the Senate, in theory a territorial chamber, into a circus. Most of Montero’s speech, from then on, was dedicated to recovering all the scandals and cases of corruption that have accumulated to the PP in all types of areas, with dozens of convictions and millions of euros wasted, and without ignoring practically any of them. The meaning of this tactic for Montero was to compare and contrast that the PSOE, when it suffers from a problem of this type, does act firmly and forcefully and the PP protects and covers up.
About the possible Montero did not reveal anything. He assured that what is being investigated is still unknown and called on the PP spokesperson, Alicia García, to clarify what specific irregularities she later referred to in case she had any privileged information. Montero argued that Vicente Fernández had enough resume for the position and launched the suggestion that his associates later worked or collaborated for the Andalusian Government of the popular Juan Manuel Moreno.
The Government’s economic manager informed the PP and the Chamber that Bartolomé Lora, the former vice president of the SEPI with Fernández, before and after, even in the 514 days that the organization was without a president during the pandemic and in which million-dollar extraordinary loans were granted, exercised that function since the governments of Mariano Rajoy. Montero did praise the work of SEPI during his mandate, with record business figures (6,355 million, 7.5% more), 747 million in exports, 14,000 million in securities, three years in a row of profits, 324 million in investments and 87,100 people employed.
As Montero knew that the PP was going to focus its suspicions on the loans that SEPI gave to Air Europa or Plus Ultra during the pandemic, he anticipated that of the total of 28 companies rescued in those dramatic months, 10 have already fully canceled the loans, with 1,710 million recovered.
The right in the Senate, UPN, Vox and PP, did not believe anything of Montero’s words and raised the piston of the accusations of corruption to limits that were not easy to refute, as when the ultra senator, Ángel Gordillo, concluded: “We are governed by a mafia, you can hear it on the street.”
The senators of the usual partner parties of the Executive shared the opinion of Montero, and of the PSOE spokesman in the Senate, Juan Espadas, that the only thing that interested the PP was to undermine the Government more, but they also demanded more and more forceful explanations. Some, like the Junts senator, did not even touch on the topic of the debate and advanced that they will not support any new financing system that is not a concert for Catalonia.
The debate was scheduled for a duel between Montero and the PP’s titular spokesperson, Alicia García, and everything else was garrisons. And García did not disappoint as expected. What the popular senator wanted was to target the president and leader of the PSOE and that is what she did: “Sánchez surrounded himself with useful people to commit crimes, loot and rob all Spaniards.” And he disregarded Montero as the exporter there of the model of fraud and bribery of the ERE of Andalusia to all of Spain. The PP senator identified Fernández as Montero’s trusted person in the SEPI and the SEPI as “the ATM to pay favors from Sanchismo.”
Having already launched the debate, Montero already focused his reply on refreshing García about the dozens of convicted, accused and investigated members of the PP as the most corrupt party at the national, regional and even local level and he distanced himself from his former collaborator to the point of raising an ethical question for all political leaders: “The responsibility of those of us who make appointments lasts up to what period?”
After Montero, the one examined by the PP in the Senate was the third vice president of Ecological Transition, Sara Aagesen. The debate was repeated with less fury and interest. The vice president repeated the theory of zero tolerance against corruption and .
The PP spokesperson announced as a big surprise that in the new investigative commission created by her party they will once again summon Montero to answer in the Senate what was not mentioned in the Senate this Thursday. The popular Alejo Miranda added: “Corruption in the Government is unfathomable and we already know that X is Sánchez and now we will know who Z is”, in reference to former president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, who will also be cited.
