Brussels does not want to be dragged down by the political struggle between the PP and the PSOE for Doñana, but it will not remain silent when its impartiality is questioned, as the popular Europeans did on Wednesday, who accused the European Commission of ‘to favor Pedro Sánchez.
“President Von der Leyen has confidence in all the members of her school of commissioners”, said yesterday her spokesman, Eric Mamer, when the press asked him after the leader of the ranks of the PP in the Eurochamber, Dolors Montserrat, and the leader of the European People’s Party (EPP), Manfred Weber, accused the European Commissioner for the Environment, Virginijus SinkeviÄius, of “campaigning” in favor of Sánchez for his criticism of the proposed law being debated by Parliament andalusian
“We never react to statements by political leaders, but what we can say is that, here, the European Commission has the role of managing the file on the basis of Community legislation and the judgments of the Court of Justice, and it strictly adheres to the its institutional role”, emphasized Mamer, who recalled that in 2021 the European judges condemned Spain for not protecting Doñana and ordered measures to be taken in defense of this fragile ecosystem.
The opposition of Brussels to the proposed law put forward by the PP and Vox in the Andalusian Parliament came to light in March following a letter from the community services of the Environment to the Government in which it warned that the plan goes “in the direction of contrary” to the 2021 court ruling and warned that it will not hesitate to use all the means at its disposal to ensure that Spain complies with it. This Monday, Commissioner SinkeviÄius referred to this warning in a lengthy statement published after his meeting with the Andalusian Minister for the Environment, Ramón Fernández-Pacheco, in which he reaffirmed that they are “deeply concerned” by the proposed law, because it would “degrade” the protected wetlands and could have “disastrous effects”.
For his part, the community spokesman for the Environment, Adalbert Jahnz, stressed that the file on Doñana “is a legal process” that the Commission manages as an “impartial guardian of the treaties”.
The popular people now present these statements as a show of partiality in favor of the Sánchez Government. It is not the first time that Brussels has been accused of making “partisan moves” in favor of Sánchez. Both in Spain and on the European scene, the PP has resorted to this line of attack, questioning the positive assessments that the European Commission has made of the Government’s reforms and investments, which have earned it the disbursement of more than 30,000 million of euros in aid.
For Iratxe GarcÃa, leader of the ranks of the European socialists in the Eurochamber, the attacks of the popular Europeans on the Commission reflect the “disorientation” of Weber, who is both president of the EPP and leader of its European parliamentary group. “They demonstrate the absolute loss of direction of the EPP, but more specifically of Manfred Weber, who goes hand in hand with Mr. Feijóo’s PP and seems to have added to his strategy of being out of everything and not contributing in nothing.
From the Congress of Deputies and after obtaining the support of the Chamber for the Housing law, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, demanded yesterday from the PP not to damage the image of Spain in Europe and ordered it to stop delegitimizing an institution as important as the European Commission. “It is of extraordinary gravity. We are faced with a drifting opposition… Enough is enough”, stressed the head of the Executive, after lamenting that the PP wants to “boycott” all the laws approved by the coalition Government and intend “to skip the rulings of the European courts on Doñana”.
