<h6><strong>Eduardo González</strong></h6> <h4><strong>The President of the Government and Secretary General of the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers' Party), Pedro Sánchez, announced this Monday the creation of a transition management team led by the party's president, Cristina Narbona, with the mission of leading the party until the Federal Committee meeting on July 5. He assured that he will appear "in Congress, at his own request, on the first available date" to explain the Koldo case. He also again ruled out early elections and challenged the PP and Vox to present a motion of no confidence against him and to "explain what model of country they have for Spain."</strong></h4> Sánchez appeared this Monday at the PSOE headquarters in Ferraz (Madrid) at the end of a meeting of the party's Federal Executive Committee lasting more than four hours. "The audio recordings we learned last week disgust us. "Their lack of exemplary conduct, their vulgarity in their expressions, and the machismo they project are absolutely incompatible with the socialist values of this organization. They sadden and outrage us; this has been a unanimous sentiment on the part of the Executive Committee," Sánchez declared at the beginning of the press conference. "We have made great progress in these seven years. Laws have been toughened, transparency laws have been expanded, and what was previously covered up, obstructed, or protected as part of normality is now pursued and punished as unforgivable. We are very aware that there is still work to be done." Although they may never disappear completely, my job is to make them disappear completely,” he continued. “We are not going to be like the People’s Party or Vox,” he asserted. “We are not going to cover up corruption in our ranks, we are not going to create patriotic police forces, we are not going to destroy evidence with hammer blows or have a paid-for headquarters in secret. We are going to stand up and act decisively. Obviously, we are not perfect, but we are uncompromising when corruption affects us,” he declared. According to Sánchez, “the PSOE is a clean organization” and the Santos Cerdán case has been the “only case of corruption” in the party since he arrived. <h5><strong>Decisions</strong></h5> Next, Sánchez explained the measures adopted by the Executive Committee. The first, he reported, is the decision to close the disciplinary proceedings opened fifteen months ago against former Organization Secretary and former minister José Luis Ábalos for his involvement in the Koldo case and, consequently, his expulsion from the party. He also announced the launch of a "new external audit—and I say 'new' because" the PSOE has the "highest levels of transparency in our country," he stated. "Since 2020, there have been external audits without any legal obligation, and today we have approved the 2024 audit to be submitted to the Court of Auditors," he stated. Furthermore, he stated, the Executive Committee also ordered this Monday the "PSOE management to triple-check our accounts in the coming months." According to Pedro Sánchez, "the PSOE is the only party that applies an external and independent audit as if it were a company." “There is no indication of alleged irregular financing of the PSOE in the UCO report. The fees paid by senior officials are not irregular financing. Public officials, myself included, are contributing with our own resources,” he added. The other major decision this Monday, he announced, is the launch of a provisional management team that will cover the functions of the party's Organization Secretariat and will be made up of PSOE president Cristina Narbona, party manager Ana María Fuentes, and two members of the Executive Committee, Montse Mínguez and Borja Cabezón. This team will perform its functions until the next Federal Committee, convened for July 5 in Madrid. Separately, Pedro Sánchez announced that he will appear “in Congress, at his own request, on the first available date, to answer questions from the parliamentary groups.” “We have asked the Socialist Parliamentary Group for a Commission of Inquiry that will allow the members of the Chamber to learn the truth about the Koldo case,” he stated. He also announced that he will meet with the investiture partners "who wish to do so." <h5><strong>There will be no early elections</strong></h5> Sánchez again ruled out calling early elections because Spain's progress is positive and he will not "break stability" by placing himself in the hands of "the worst opposition Spain has ever had in democracy." "We will not allow the corruption of a few to jeopardize the country's good direction," he warned. "Handing over the reins of the country to a coalition of the PP and Vox, with 30 corruption cases, would be tremendously irresponsible," he added. “If the PP and Vox are so convinced that the government has lost its parliamentary majority, what they need to do is present a motion of censure and explain what kind of country they have for Spain, and they should do it as soon as possible because after the summer, perhaps, the PP's pending resolutions will begin to follow one another and we will see who the real criminals are,” declared Sánchez, who also urged both conservative parties to “explain these cases of corruption and demand from themselves what we demand from ourselves or what is demanded of us.” “I have always respected the citizens' spheres of decision and choice, to elect their mayor, their mayoral president, their president,” but “there will not be a super election Sunday, there never has been,” he asserted, regarding the possibility of holding early general elections alongside municipal and regional elections. “We will continue governing as long as the democratic majority so desires. We are a solid democracy, one of the strongest in the world,” he added. <h5><strong>Santos Cerdán</strong></h5> Meanwhile, the current Secretary of Organization, Santos Cerdán—whose resignation last Thursday sparked the current crisis within the PSOE—resigned from the party this Monday and handed in his seat as a deputy, thereby losing his privileged status. Cerdán is named in a report by the Civil Guard's UCO (Union of Civil Guards) as the facilitator of the illegal kickbacks received by José Luis Ábalos and Koldo García for the awarding of public works contracts. This is the second press conference held by Pedro Sánchez since the scandal broke. The first took place last Thursday, the same day Santos Cerdán resigned. In that appearance, Sánchez apologized to the public, announced an external audit to certify that there is no illegal party financing, a restructuring of the PSOE's Federal Executive Committee, and assured that there will be no early elections. <h5><strong>Borja Sémper (PP)</strong></h5> Following Pedro Sánchez's appearance, the PP's national spokesperson, Borja Sémper, criticized the Prime Minister for insulting everyone, especially the PP, and warned that the "only way to apologize" is to call early elections to "give the Spanish people a voice." "The best way to combat corruption is for Pedro Sánchez to resign," he declared. "Any normal person today in Pedro Sánchez's situation would have their head buried in the sand, they would be ashamed," added Sémper, who stated that Sánchez should appear in Congress this week and that the Popular Party (PP) will request this at the Congressional Bureau. "Today, a motion of censure is a breath of fresh air for Sánchezism, and the PP is not going to give Sánchezism a breath of fresh air," he continued. "This policy of challenges is childish and pernicious. Spanish politics cannot operate on these gamblers' terms. It cannot be. He must assume his responsibility, at least at the end of his political career," he concluded. <h5><strong>Díaz, Podemos, Vox</strong></h5> Following the PSOE Executive Committee meeting, Pedro Sánchez met at the Moncloa Complex with Yolanda Díaz, Second Vice President and leader of Sumar, to kick off his round of meetings with his investiture partners to address the PSOE crisis. At the end of the meeting, Díaz informed the press that she had presented several proposals to Sánchez: a "guarantee that the case we have learned about will not spread to the entire PSOE," the "complete cleanup of all corners of power that may have been implicated," and an "end to corruption and the impunity of corruptors with two key and immediate measures": an end to the privilege of special jurisdiction and legislation to ensure that no company that has participated in corrupt practices "can ever again hold a contract in the public administration." Separately, she continued, Díaz and Sánchez agreed to "convene the monitoring committee for the coalition agreement as a matter of urgency," so that Sumar voters do not approach the 2027 elections "fearful and uncertain." "The PSOE cannot act as if nothing happened because what has happened is very serious," warned the vice president, who considered Sánchez's press appearance "insufficient." Meanwhile, Podemos has already announced that it will not attend the meeting with the President of the Government because it does not want to participate in a "whitewashing of a corrupt party" and has asserted that Sánchez is "delegitimized" to govern. For his part, Santiago Abascal of Vox has asked for the support of deputies from other parties to present a motion of censure that would allow for an early election, given the "inaction" of the PP. <h5><strong>Brussels</strong></h5> On the other hand, the controversy surrounding the alleged bribes taken by José Luis Ábalos and Santos Cerdán from public funds has also erupted in Brussels, due to the fact that part of the works affected by the corruption scheme were also allegedly financed with European funds. The European Commission's zero tolerance for corruption cases has led the agency to open an investigation to determine whether part of the public money allegedly taken by the two socialists also belonged to European taxpayers, as reported this morning by the newspaper El Mundo. One case in which this diversion of public funds that came directly from Brussels may have occurred was the Adif works for the AVE (High Speed Rail) high-speed train in Murcia, awarded to a joint venture led by Acciona for €300 million, with aid from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). Another Adif project for works in San Feliu de Llobregat could also be affected by illicit activities, as it was awarded to Acciona for €51 million, part of which was financed by Next Generation funds. Thus, everything indicates that the government would have to withdraw European funds from programs suspected of corruption, something similar to what happened with the mask case. Despite this, the withdrawal of aid for these projects still allows the money to be used for other projects, but these must be new alternatives, since otherwise, Spain would have to return the subsidy to Brussels.
