Felipe González questions Sánchez's leadership and calls the withdrawal of the Argentine ambassador "opportunistic"

The former president of the Government Felipe González has questioned the leadership of the head of the Executive, Pedro Sánchez, after his letter of reflection, while at the same time calling the withdrawal of the Spanish ambassador in Argentina in response to the statements of the president Javier “opportunistic”. Milei about the president’s wife, Begoña Gómez.

“I wouldn’t have done that,” González said, referring to the withdrawal of ambassador María Jesús Alonso, although he called Milei’s attitude “impolite” and “insulting.” “I would have preferred Pope Francis’ response,” he stressed, in relation to the Pontiff’s words that he called the Argentine president “representative of evil on Earth.”

That said, González recalled that there are tens of thousands of Spaniards in Argentina and that in Spain there are hundreds of thousands of Argentines. “Diplomacy has to serve our fellow citizens and also our companies wherever they are and here we have to serve the Argentines who are there,” he added in an interview this Thursday on the program ‘El Hormiguero’, collected by Europa Press.

“Can a state conflict with Argentina be allowed? Yes, it can be allowed. We can allow everything. How much does it cost the Spanish people? We have to calculate whether we can allow it or not. But to allow it, You can allow everything,” he said.

At the national level, and asked if Sánchez should give explanations for the opening of proceedings against his wife, González has assured that it is the “responsibility” of the leader of the Executive to “give explanations” about everything “what he does”, while at the same time He has asked politicians not to get involved in “family problems”: “They should ask Pedro Sánchez for all the responsibilities they want, not only does he have the right, he has the obligation to do so,” he insisted, later giving his opinion that in politics Yes, there are “red lines”, which are “decency” because when this is lost “there is no red line.”

Previously, the former president has questioned Sánchez’s letter — “I didn’t believe it,” he expressed verbatim — in which he opened a period of reflection to determine his continuity in the Government. “That is not leadership,” he said, later adding that “the person who has the responsibility of making decisions hesitates with his pillow” but does not ask citizens “what to do.” “When you are in the Government to govern, you are there to be there,” he has emphasized.

In line, he recalled that during his time at the head of the PSOE he never had a “unanimous vote in any representative body of the party”, regretting that it is not possible to disagree with Sánchez within the party. He has even cited that the militancy’s vote for a candidate for the European Parliament was not respected in Aragon. “The person who appeared on the list does not have the support of the people,” she stressed.

González has now ironized that the PSOE is the party of militants “for the first time” but, nevertheless, they have “punished” the senator and general secretary of the PSOE of Aragon, Javier Lambán, “because he does what the party said on the 23rd.” of July” with the amnesty law. “We cannot insult intelligence. They say that the policy of forgiveness has worked. Maybe Puigdemont has forgiven us (…) There has been nothing more than the State kneeling in front of a man who escaped from justice,” he concluded. .

In line, González has asked why Spain “has not broken” with Russia, after the invasion of Ukraine, alleging at the same time that “there are many more deaths” due to the “criminality” of the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, than “the “horror” that is being experienced in Gaza, after a “terrible” terrorist attack perpetrated by Hamas.

A conflict that, as he has stated, worries him as well as being “scared” of the reactions of the political leaders in Spain, among whom he has highlighted the leader of Sumar, Yolanda Díaz, “who subtracts more than adds”, he has ironic, for saying that “recognizing the Palestinian State is good” but that “it is not enough, which is from the Jordan to the sea.”

“Who would have told you that? From the Jordan to the sea, it is all of Palestine. Eliminating Israel. Therefore, it means that we must throw, as the Iranians say, the Jews into the sea, like Hitler threw them, who He threw them into the gas chambers. Please clarify to me how a conflict like this is resolved,” he reflected.

CATALUÑA

In another order of things, the former president has maintained that the first secretary of the PSC, Salvador Illa, has reduced the “processism” in Catalonia after his victory in the Catalan elections of May 12, ensuring at the same time that he has transferred it to the whole from Spain.

With the Constitution in hand, the former socialist president recalled that the Magna Carta was voted in Catalonia and he snapped at the former president of the Generalitat and leader of Junts, Carles Puigdemont, and the leader of ERC and acting president of the Generalitat, Pere Aragonès, who should have respect for those Catalans who voted for her then.

“It is not a weapon of aggression, but of harmony, of coexistence, of pact so that we can all live with freedom, so that no one points fingers at us,” González highlighted.

However, despite the criticism leveled at the current drift of the PSOE in relation to its pacts with the Catalan independence parties, the former president has shown his support for Illa to be the next president of the Generalitat and that an “exchange of stickers” does not happen. “in relation to Puigdemont’s support for investing Pedro Sánchez as president of the Government despite having lost the general elections.

“Puigdemont says: ‘you also lost and you governed with my support, therefore, now give me back your support so that Illa is not the one who governs,’ González said, hoping that this option ‘does not happen.’

“On the contrary, I believe that we must support, we really must support Salvador, for the Catalans, for Catalan society, because he also has the style of coexistence that citizens deserve. He dialogues with everyone and cares about people’s real problems, not fantasy,” he added.

In this sense, González has insisted that the first secretary of the PSC be given support from those who agree with what he is doing and those who do not, and has recalled that the “worst period of the PSC” was the “inheritance” of former president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. “Now he is saving the PSC and everyone else, I don’t know what he is going to save us from, because it was a terrifying inheritance,” he said.

IRONIZES ABOUT ZAPATERO’S “EFFORT”

The former president has also ironically commented on Zapatero’s “great effort” in his support for the PSOE in the Galician and Basque elections, questioning that the socialists have ceased to be a real alternative government in these two communities.

Regarding Galicia, González has pointed out that Zapatero’s “effort” in the electoral campaign led to the BNG surpassing the PSOE, leaving it “a sidereal distance away from being an alternative.” “We were always the alternative to the PP in Galicia. Now we are the third force,” he stressed.

It has also spoiled Sánchez’s triumphalist tone with the result in the Basque Country since, as he recalled, the PNV and Bildu have achieved 80% of representation in the regional Parliament compared to 15% for the PSE. “But they say ‘we have the key to the government’. Well, one day you are going to eat the keys with potatoes, because what you have to do is govern,” González responded, while also asking if the Basque socialists are going to be “sometime alternative” or will be “subsidiary of the PNV or Bildu.”