The Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected “roundly the unfounded terms of the statement issued by the Office of the President of the Argentine Republic” in its response to Javier Milei, who in a presidential note issued in response to statements by Transport Minister Óscar Puente, directly attacked Pedro Sánchez.
The controversy also moved to Spanish politics, and the PP asked the president of the Spanish Government to dismiss Minister Óscar Puente for his words about the controversial leader.
In the text issued by the Argentine president’s office, Milei accused the Spanish president of “putting at risk” the unity of Spain “by making an agreement with the separatists” and also criticized the fact that the Spanish Government has endangered “the security of Spanish women” allowing “illegal immigration” and applying “socialist policies that only bring poverty and death”.
The text reminded Sánchez that he has “more important problems to deal with, such as the accusations of corruption that point to his wife, an affair that even led him to evaluate his resignation”.
With this statement, Argentine diplomacy responded to the statements made by Minister Puente on Friday in a talk with students in Salamanca, in which he alluded to Milei’s possible “substance intake” during his campaign for the presidency “The Office of the President repudiates the slander and insults formulated by the Minister of Transport”, the statement began, before charging the leader of the PSOE and telling him that “for the good of the Kingdom of Spain, we hope that justice will act with speed to clear up this corruption scandal that directly affects the stability of your nation and, therefore, relations with our country”.
The Spanish Government “roundly” rejected the “unfounded terms” of the presidential office and in its response added that “they will continue to maintain and strengthen their relations of friendship and collaboration with the Argentine people”. Sánchez also did not want to add more fuel to the fire and did not make any reference to the open crisis with the president of Argentina in his public interventions throughout the day yesterday.
But the diplomatic crisis had an impact on the electoral campaign. The president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, called for the dismissal of the Minister of Transport. “Mr. Puente should resign or be impeached, but he will neither resign nor be impeached because Puente and Sánchez enjoy the mud they are trying to drag Spain into. They ask not to be insulted and they insult everyone”, said Feijóo. “They boast of international relevance and have just created a political crisis with a sister country like Argentina”, added the popular leader.
It didn’t take long for the answers from some members of the Spanish Government to arrive. Minister Puente responded to Feijóo through the X social network: “Between supporting his Government or Milei’s, I would choose Milei, it didn’t matter.” And he added that the popular leader “asks that they make a place for him with Abascal” in the meeting organized by Vox on May 18, in which the president of Argentina will participate, and that “it is already impossible to distinguish him from the extreme right”. For her part, the second vice-president and Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, accused the popular leader of “taking Milei’s side” and his Government “of recession and massive impoverishment”.
