Eduardo González
The PP candidate for the Presidency of the Government, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, assured yesterday during the first day of the investiture debate that, if he governs, he will promote a commission of inquiry in the Congress on “the change of position” of Spain regarding Western Sahara and “reactivate” the leadership of the Spanish Presidency of the EU in the negotiation of the Pact on Migration and Asylum “as a priority for the remainder of the year”.
“We have been three months without exercising with full powers the Spanish rotating Presidency of the Council of the European Union that corresponds to us until December, and we all know why,” said Feijóo during his long investiture speech, in which he barely devoted a minute and a half to foreign policy issues.
“The irresponsibility has not only been to waste this opportunity in terms of the image we should be projecting,” he continued. “Moreover, we are depriving this House of being properly informed of key issues for our future, such as the Migration and Asylum Pact that is being negotiated,” criticized the PP candidate.
This is “a debate of the first magnitude for Spain, first interested in finding the balance between solidarity and border control, even more so in view of what happened in recent weeks in Lampedusa and what happens practically every day in the Canary Islands or in the south,” he said. “That is why”, he announced, “one of my first proposals in this House includes reactivating the direction of the Spanish Presidency with this issue as a priority for the remainder of the year”.
Likewise, the president of the PP demanded that “this House be informed with due prudence of the present and past decisions on foreign policy” and announced, in this sense, that “the Parliament will know the reasons for the change of position on Western Sahara with a committee of inquiry as decided by the Members of Parliament”. “I am convinced that the deputies of Sumar would vote in favor, have no doubt”, he concluded.
Rest of the speech
In the rest of his speech, the Galician leader lashed out against the amnesty proposal and the possible pacts of Pedro Sánchez with the pro-independence parties and assured that, although he has within his reach “the votes to be president of the Government”, he is not willing to “pay the price they ask me to be it”. “(Carles) Puigdemont (former president of the Generalitat and currently persecuted by justice for his role in the independence process) wants a president allied in his personal and partisan endeavor,” he said. “He doesn’t care if he is from the PP or the PSOE. He has offered us both exactly the same thing. The only difference, therefore, can only lie in the integrity of the two possible candidates,” he added.
Likewise, Feijóo presented “six pacts of State” to govern (institutional, for the economy, for families, for the Welfare State, for water and territorial) and assured that his objective is to offer a Government capable of assuming three points “as difficult as they are demanding: to leave behind blocks and blockades, to guarantee the stability of the country and to tackle a program of reforms through great agreements in the whole and community by community”.
“I do not intend to govern alone”, assured the PP candidate, who took the opportunity to thank the 33 deputies of Vox for their “responsible and generous support” because, “with all our discrepancies, and despite being the third electoral force in the country, they have not conditioned it to their presence in the Government”.
