The president of the government, Pedro Sánchez, and the leader of the opposition, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, exchanged accusations of corruption in the control session on Wednesday. Feijóo lashed out at the latest revelations on the Cerdán case, asking the president if “to carry something forward we need to reserve a bite of 2%”. For his part, Sánchez mentioned the PP’s “zero response” to corruption cases, in reference to Tuesday’s arrests of PP leaders in Almería, and criticized corruption which, in his opinion, involves the privatization of public services in some autonomous communities.
The review session comes after the last UCO report was handed over to the Supreme Court judge who instructs the The Cerdan caseinvolving the former secretaries of the Socialist Organization Santos Cerdán and José Luis Ábalos in a corrupt plot linked to the manipulation of public works contracts, and after the arrest of the PP leader in Almería, his number two and the popular mayor of Fines.
In his question to the head of the executive, Feijóo reproached Sánchez for the lack of general state budgets: “If this legislature can do without general state budgets, I understand that the next one will also be able to do so. For how many years do you think we can continue like this?” This was used to refer to the bribes that Santos Cerdán allegedly obtained for having manipulated public works, as emerges from the latest UCO report: “I ask you, to obtain something, do we have to reserve a 2% bribe for the PSOE?”, blurted out the leader of the popular party.
“Mr Feijóo: zero tolerance towards corruption, not zero responses to corruption, as is done when these cases concern us”, replied the President of the Government to the applause of the socialist bench of the Congress. “Spain has current budgets and, among other things, they are suitable for the Spanish economy and society,” Sánchez said referring to this Tuesday’s Council of Ministers, which raised the spending ceiling by 8.5% to 212 billion by 2026, “which will allow us to lay the foundations for much more expansive social budgets,” underlined the Chief Executive.
“Where there is no spending ceiling is in Ferraz (in reference to the street where the PSOE headquarters is located). They govern without Parliament, they take charge of state institutions and they judge. Do you know why? Because you need to protect yourself when you are in power”, Feijóo reproached him in turn. “Your mate in the primaries, Mr. Cerdán, started stealing in Navarra and continued in Spain as soon as he arrived in Moncloa. His motion of censure was not against corruption, it was for the corruption of his group. Do what you want with your party, Mr. Sánchez, but you will not turn Spain into a sewer,” reproached Feijóo Sánchez to the applause of the Popular Parliamentary Group.
Junts’ spokesperson in Congress, Míriam Nogueras, also asked about the Budgets, telling the President of the Government that if she believes that the Catalans have had enough of “four details that she gives to Catalonia” and reminded him that she will not have the votes to approve the Budgets without an agreement with PP and Vox, to which Sánchez replied that she believes that Catalonia has improved during this legislature: “I believe that, in objective terms, Catalonia today is better than two years ago and much better than seven years ago, also thanks to the contribution of his parliamentary group”, stated the president.
