Genoa assumes that it will not penalize it electorally: it sees its chances in Huelva propped up and rules out that the framework of environmentalism imposed in Moncloa will reduce support
The Spanish political brawl is heard again in Brussels. It has been like this throughout the legislature. The Government has constantly accused the PP of using the EU as a second chamber to make opposition and of transferring its criticism to the European level with the purpose of wearing down Pedro Sánchez. To the point that in the European Commission, they say in Moncloa, there is a certain weariness with this attitude. But now, in the midst of the conflict over the bill that expands the irrigated hectares in the northern crown of the Doñana National Park, it is the Executive who benefits from the intervention of Brussels.
The third vice president and Minister of Ecological Transition, Teresa Ribera, demanded “sanity” on Thursday from the PP after the leader of the European popular groups, Manfred Weber (who maintains a special relationship with the Spanish PP and a great friendship with Esteban González Pons), accused Brussels of “partisan” and of “campaigning for Pedro Sánchez” with the Doñana affair. Some statements that provoked an immediate reaction from the Commissioner for the Environment and the subsequent involvement of a spokesman for Ursula von der Leyen. The war for Doñana, where Electoral interests of both Moncloa and the PP convergeone month before the regional and municipal elections, thus takes a step in its internationalization.
Beyond the controversy, the PP appreciates Weber’s words. Alberto Núñez Feijóo himself assured that he “is a person who when he speaks is because he understands that the position of the European PP is that.” He was his way of applauding the criticism of the Commission’s position in the middle of what in Genoa they see as an “ontack” by the Government to “put the PP in the sack of denialism.”
“They divert the water debate and the drama of the drought to the ecological framework because it suits them. They make a twisted reading of what has been approved in the Andalusian Parliament”, accuse popular sources, after the conflict over the largest wetland in Europe has already acquired a completely European dimension.
Feijóo did not demand that Weber intervene
With everything, the position of the PP is that there is “too much overacting” in the matter “and little desire to solve the problem.” As much as Weber came out in defense of the Andalusian Junta, the reality is that in the conservative leadership they do not believe that it is a particularly beneficial issue for them. In fact, in Feijóo’s environment they assure that he did not ask for Weber’s intervention nor was it his idea. It is true that the German leader has a lot of dialogue with the party through González Pons and it is not the first time that he has come out in defense of national issues in Spain. Something that has happened in other stages of the PP.
Proof that Feijóo was not involved is that he spoke this Thursday after a question from the media. During the days, with various pre-campaign events in Aragon, he avoided addressing news about the Natural Park, focusing his attacks on the housing law, which was approved by Congress, and the ‘only yes is yes’ law. An attempt to turn the page or, at least, focus the opposition of the PP on the issues that they really believe hurt the government.
“Environmentalism does not take away a single vote from us”
Despite the fact that Doñana is centering a good part of the national political debate, the PP rules out that it will have an electoral penalty, even after the jump to the Brussels scene. In fact, in recent days in Genoa they have carried out qualitative surveys to measure the impact of the matter and the conclusion, say people from the Feijóo strategy team, is that it will be zero.
“The Government raises it in an ecological framework, purely environmental. We Believe that He does it because he needs to mobilize his electorate and uses this flag because right now it doesn’t have any others. It doesn’t affect us. We do not have a vote left in any province of Spain”, they affirm.
In the national PP they insist that environmentalism does not appear as a priority among their voters (in fact, the CIS also places it among the least concerned) and that, in addition to not subtracting their vote outside of Andalusia, will reinforce the PP in Huelva. In fact, the latest predictions in Genoa indicate that the Huelva city council and the Provincial Council would also win. Even Vox sources acknowledge that the Junta’s initiative to recover the bill that expands irrigated hectares for those farmers who are in no man’s land, will benefit the PP and make the ultras lose support.
In the PSOE they maintain the opposite. That Juanma Moreno promoted it, precisely, to challenge Vox for the rural vote and because they thought that “socialist voters would get angry with the Government.” But they assure that they are going to maintain the Diputación de Huelva and that the PP “loses” strength in this province more than it intends to gain within. “There is an important concern in the regularized sector of agriculture in Huelva,” they point out.
“There are more and more people convinced of climate change, denying the evidence is a mistake”, they emphasize in Moncloa, where they do see reputational damage for the PP brand and affirm that, of course, it generates wear and tear. An erosion that is greater, they consider, because it means going against a CJEU ruling to protect Doñana and because of the institutional clash between Weber and the Environment Commissioner, Virginijus Sinkevičius, whom the spokesman for the European Commission, Eric Mamer, has strongly supported by stressing that Brussels “is fulfilling its role of managing a file on the basis of legislation.”
Sánchez: “They damage the image of Spain”
Four weeks after 28M this controversy has given more arguments to the Government. The head of the Executive, Pedro Sánchez, this Thursday at a rally in Logroño assured that the main opposition party is “adrift” because “it skips the European sentences against Doñana” and “damages the image of Spain delegitimizing the EC”. In some informal conversations with journalists, the president has transmitted that the concept of Feijóo in Brussels had deteriorated a lot, because his attitude of “criticizing everything” what the Government does has been an “unpleasant surprise” in the eyes of the EU.
The government intervened on this flank, taking advantage of the conflict between Weber and the commissioner. The vice president considered “absolutely inadmissible” to question the European institutions”but added that, “unfortunately” in this legislature there has been an attempt to “delegitimize the Government of Spain” and now the popular ones are taking “one more step.”
“I have never seen anyone attack a commissioner like that, but it seems very serious to me that this is also being pursued here, because this is a problem of defiance, of lack of confidence, of questioning the legitimacy of the current commission that does not go unnoticed in Brussels or anywhere”, endorsing In this way, there is discomfort in the EU with the attitude of the popular.