Esteban González Pons (Valencia, 1964) is part of the “hard core” of Alberto Núñez Feijóo. This Valencian, with an extensive political career and a good knowledge of European politics as an MEP, is the man who advises the president of the PP on foreign policy.
Feijóo proposed a pact to Sánchez to govern the most voted list of the 23-J. But this offer has not been made by the PP for the autonomies.
Perhaps for those of us who aspire for the government of the most voted list to extend to all areas, starting with a pact on a national scale would be a start.
Was it an excuse to justify a future pact with Vox?
No. Sánchez does not believe that he can win, because if he believed so he would have immediately accepted that offer that would allow him to govern without Esquerra and without Bildu. The will of the PP is to govern alone, we do not aspire to form a coalition, but to avoid it, and after the elections the first option of the PP is the abstention of the PSOE and that we will only consider other scenarios if the PSOE denies it
On 28-M a campaign was set up criticizing the pacts with Bildu or the law of only yes is yes. Do these frameworks remain or have the pacts with Vox altered them?
I think that the framework of the regional and municipal campaign was Sanchism, and that the framework of 23-J is also that. Any frame that wanted to be imposed is Sánchez himself who has destroyed it. His narcissism means that only he is talked about.
Why hasn’t there been a general PP criterion with the pacts with Vox after 28-M?
The PP tries to form in each place the government that is possible to form and that most resembles the needs of each territory. In Valencia and Extremadura we don’t have more votes than the left, and we needed to form a coalition. In Murcia, the Balearic Islands or Aragon we have more votes than the left-wing opposition and we believe that it is justified to govern alone.
What do you think when Vox denies gender violence, equality policies or the LGTBI group?
I do not get it. Because Vox is a party that emerged from the patriotic wound, a reaction to the growth of the extreme left and to Catalan independence, but every time it talks less about the unity of Spain and more about domestic violence and flags with the Rainbow. I think that the reason with which they justified their entry into the political map has escaped their hands.
The leader of the CDU, Friedrich Merz, says in an interview with this newspaper that he does not plan to make an agreement with the ultra-right.
They are lucky that the Greens agreed with the CDU and the Socialists let them govern; so we could also say the same. The PP has the problem that the PSOE does not intend to abstain and says that we cannot govern with Vox, so the PP cannot govern if it does not have an absolute majority?
Would a Feijóo government substantially change the policy with Morocco?
We will return to the relationship with Morocco that we had before the famous letter that no one knows why it was written, or who wrote it, or for what purpose. We will return to a policy with Morocco in accordance with the resolution of the UN Security Council and agreed upon in the Spanish Parliament, and we will restore relations with Algeria.
Would the decision be consulted with the US?
Spanish policy towards Morocco is Spanish and only needs to be consulted with the Spanish Parliament. Although I do not think that the turn that Pedro Sánchez has made with foreign policy with Morocco has to do with Biden, but with the theft of information from his mobile phone by Pegasus.
Have they started contacts with Algeria?
No. We are an opposition party that respects the Government’s initiative, but when we are in government our relationship with Morocco must be privileged, special, of sister countries, but without ceasing to have a normalized relationship with Algeria.
José Manuel Albares said in an interview in this newspaper that the PP only conceives the policy with Latin America with the countries with which they have an ideological affinity.
Albares makes the Spanish foreign policy that a Moroccan minister would make if we allowed him to have an office in Madrid. We have a very fluid relationship, I even had close contacts with Lula’s executive in anticipation of the change of government in Spain. The strangest thing is that Albares is not by my side defending the Venezuelan opposition and pointing out the Maduro government as a persecutor of freedom that must be tried in the International Criminal Court.
What do you think when Vox asks to outlaw Bildu or Esquerra Republicana?
I don’t share it, at all. Criminals convicted of terrorism, as long as they do not repent and cooperate to solve crimes and ask for forgiveness, should not be candidates. This does not mean that all ideas do not have the right to be defended.
What would Feijóo’s policy be like with Catalonia?
Feijóo, with a strong autonomist sensibility, is a great opportunity for those of us who believe in an integrated Catalonia without renouncing its personality. Feijóo offers Catalanism to return to constitutionalism, since in 1978 it also had Catalan paternity.
Are the bridges that were dynamited under the government of Mariano Rajoy and the main Catalan political actors being rebuilt?
We are rebuilding many bridges with Catalonia, we are talking to many people, we are offering ourselves as a solution to Catalonia, because we are a solution, and our attitude at Barcelona City Council confirms this.
