“ETA is the only thing they have”

The control session in the Senate has been dominated at its start by ETA more than a decade after the final ceasefire that ended with the end of terrorist violence in Euskadi. Feijóo, who has hardened his position in the heat of the statements of Isabel Díaz Ayusohas paraphrased some words from Sánchez himself in 2019, when he said that he had no intention of agreeing with Bildu.

“I borrow his words: ‘I’m not going to agree with Bildu. With Bildu, I repeat, I am not going to agree. If you want, I’ll repeat it again, ”he told her. “Well yes, today more than ever we want to hear it again. Come on, repeat it again, Mr. Sánchez ”, he has ordered.

The leader of the PP has pointed out to Sánchez for being “more cruel with the PP than with Bildu”. “This is you. A more generous president with the executioners than with the victims ”, he added. Feijóo has demanded “that Bildu rectify completely and truly”, that the seven exetarras “formalize before the Electoral Board the resignation from being on the lists” and that it be “extended” to the other convicted persons who do continue in the candidacies

“Or do you think it’s okay for those who pulled the trigger to leave and those who gave them the guns to stay? Everybody knows that they have resigned for electoral expediency; and for yours, Mr. Sánchez ”, he questioned.

Feijóo has concluded that “if Bildu is not decent”, in reference to Sánchez’s words about the lists of the Basque coalition. And he has finished: “It is not decent for you to agree with them either. If indecent is legal, it is in your hands that it is not. Guarantee once and for all that your pact with Bildu is over. You can not blow and slurp. Either break with Bildu or break with decency. You break with Bildu or with decency”.

Sánchez: “ETA ceased to exist”

In Moncloa they had no doubts that the leader of the PP would take advantage of the face-to-face in the Senate to influence ETA as a campaign strategy and that is why the president came to the Upper House with the intention of not dodging the melee and even to go down to the mud that Feijóo chose to play the game. “The PP from the Government negotiated with ETA and you stooped to the infamy of calling them the Basque National Liberation Movement”, Pedro Sánchez has drawn from the newspaper library, who has added: “With Miguel Ángel Blanco recently assassinated, the PP government approached 120 prisoners, he released 311 and Mr. Aznar justified it by saying that taking possession of a seat is always better than taking up arms”.

In his response, Sánchez has insinuated that the PP’s problem is that ETA no longer exists. “Spanish democracy defeated ETA 12 years ago and perhaps it is hard for you to listen to it,” he said, insisting that all this took place under socialist governments. “ETA ceased to exist for the PP and VOX and did so with a socialist president, interior minister and lehendakari, and that is something they cannot bear,” he reproached.

The President of the Government has reviewed the statements of current leaders of the PP such as the national spokesman, Borja Sémper, or the spokesman in the Senate, Javier Maroto, to criticize the “cynicism” of the popular. “It was Mr. Sémper who said shortly after the extinction of ETA that the important thing is that ETA had finished and that the future had to be built as soon as possible, also with Bildu. And ten years ago, the mayor of Vitoria, Mr. Maroto, said that his legs were not shaking for agreeing with Bildu and that he hoped the example would spread ”, he recalled.

In the middle of the scuffle, Pedro Sánchéz even went back to the management of the Atocha attacks by the Government of José María Aznar. “The PP lied in 11M and defamed the victims for a purely electoral interest,” he said, before releasing the last hook to Feijóo. “No one seemed to be able to surpass that infamy but you, with your words today, seem to have decided to equal it.”