The Diplomat
The Government has denied again to the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the authorization to visit the Spanish soldiers deployed in Latvia, according to a letter sent by the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, to the deputy institutional secretary of the PP, Esteban González Pons.
González Pons sent last Monday to Robles a letter in which he asked the Ministry of Defense to set a date on which Núñez Feijóo could visit the Spanish troops participating in the NATO mission in the Baltic country.
The letter from the PP leader was sent after the Government argued in February that the visit could not take place because it coincided with NATO maneuvers, and after another letter sent by Marta Varela, Núñez Feijó’s chief of staff, went unanswered.
Now, Robles has responded to the request of González Pons, not granting the requested authorization and proposing to the People’s Party to hold a “wide meeting” with the Spanish contingent now in Latvia once it returns to Spain.
The minister points out that this will allow the PP to know the mission “in depth and without time limitation or the haste of a punctual visit and conditioned by the own dynamics of an area of operations”. She added that she would be “delighted” to be able to accompany the representatives of the PP at this meeting.
In the letter, the minister says to the leaders of the PP that she is pleased to know that they want to transmit their gratitude to the members of the Armed Forces”, and adds, addressing González Pons: “I want to suppose that your interest is extensive to all the missions that our Armed Forces do abroad and in Spain”.
The PP has reacted to Robles’ letter by expressing its rejection and reproaching the Government for its decision, which they consider hides a “partisan” interest that prevents Feijóo from being able to exhibit the profile of a “statesman” abroad, especially in the middle of the electoral race.
“The Armed Forces -underlined PP sources- do not belong to the Government, but to all Spaniards, so it does not seem reasonable to prevent the leader of the opposition from simply going to recognize and thank the work of the troops of our country, since the partisan thing to do would be to prohibit it.”
In his Twitter account, Gonzalez Pons pointed out that NATO sees “pertinent” the visit and also indicated: “The Prime Minister of Latvia when we told him that we could not go because our government did not authorize the leader of the opposition to visit the Spanish troops was surprised and answered us that precisely in Latvia he always authorizes the leader of the opposition to visit his troops displaced outside the country”.
