The Spanish electoral battle is played, in part, on the European scene, and the leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has decided to claim his share of this space to counteract the international image of Pedro Sánchez and lean on the popular European family to make speaker of his criticism of the government’s management.
Asked about the tone of the comments with which some members of the PP have referred, for example, to the endorsement of the European Commission to the pension reform that the Government is preparing or the doubts that they project about the European supervision of the recovery fund, Feijóo avoided commenting on the matter and charged Sánchez. “The president of the Commission has limited responsibility”, but “the next government is going to find itself with the effects of five years of populism by the current government, and that is unethical neither for the Spanish nor for the EU”, he said. .
However, the spokesperson for Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, explained that, as it is a meeting between members of the same political group, they do not report on the conversations held.
In any case, Feijóo praised the pension reform approved by decree in France and praised Emmanuel Macron for not giving in to the protests it has provoked and doing “the opposite” of the Spanish government. In other words, promoting changes in favor of “sustainability” and assuming “social tension”, and not limiting yourself to “a patch” until 2025. “One of the two is wrong, and it gives me the feeling that we are making a mistake postponing an essential debate to create employment and ensure the work of the more than three million unemployed in Spain and, of course, current and future pensions”, said the leader of the PP shortly before his meeting with the European commissioner of Economy, Paolo Gentiloni, with whom Minister José Luis Escrivá has agreed on the pension reform. Escrivá, also passing through Brussels, called Feijóo’s comments “frivolity, insolvency and lack of patriotism”, who, in his opinion, had a “rapture of sincerity” when supporting the cut in rights and benefits approved in France.
PP sources are confident that the contacts with Von der Leyen will soon result in a stricter attitude on the part of the President of the Commission towards the Spanish Government, which has received the endorsement of its three requests for aid from the EU recovery fund , valued at 37,000 million, according to the opposition, because the supervision of Spanish economic reforms by the EC has been more lax than desirable. “We are going to see changes,” say party sources.
But beyond the manifestly good personal harmony of Von der Leyen with Sánchez, neither the PP nor the popular Europeans hide their discomfort at the political support – in their opinion, excessive – that the president of the Commission is giving the Spanish Government for its rapid deployment of the recovery plan, and the head of the opposition was interested in clarifying various issues with her.
“The relationship with the president of the Commission is a correct relationship and that every day deepens trust and friendship,” said Feijóo. “Proof of this,” he said, is that, although his plane broke down and he was late, he waited for him to have dinner. It was half past eight when they sat down at the table, late by European standards. “This proves the interest in knowing, connecting and deepening the relationship with the president.”
Even so, Feijóo did not guarantee that the PP will give its support to the German leader so that she is the candidate to run for another term as president of the Commission. A part of the European conservative family is inclined to support the Maltese Roberta Metsola, current president of the European Parliament, and Feijóo does not plan to position herself until after the general elections.
Yesterday, the leader of the PP also met with the vice president of the European Commission, the Greek conservative Margaritis Schinas, whom he defined as a “friend”, the commissioners for the Internal Market and the Economy, Thierry Breton and Paolo Gentiloni, members of the families European liberal and socialist, in addition to the Prime Minister of Latvia, Arturs Krisjanis, a member of the EPP, to whom he guaranteed that his party, unlike the Sánchez government, has “a clear commitment” to the defense of the Baltic country.
Gentiloni asked for a “constructive” opposition and stressed that Spain has been a “pioneer” in the implementation of the anti-crisis fund of the European Union.
