The ‘Popes’ of the European PP had doubts about the convenience of celebrating next April in Valencia the Organic Congress of the party. The conclave was announced in July 2024, but the tragic consequences of the Dana put the continental leaders on guard. Carlos Mazón’s castle at the head of the Generalitat and its continuous version changes about what that October 29 did in which it was missing raised the fear that Congress was celebrated between citizen protests. A month and a half of the appointment, Feijóo has chosen to choose another city: Madrid. Everything, after a telephone conversation with the Mazón himself that took place this weekend and whose exact terms are still unknown.
The change of headquarters was announced by Feijóo himself at a press conference in Brussels after a meeting with the main leaders of the PPE. The president of the commission, Ursula von der Leyen. The party leader, also German Manfred Weber. And the call to be the next chancellor of the richest country in the EU, Friedrich Merz. With him he held a bilateral encounter. He also did it with the Italian vice president of Forza Italy, Antonio Tajani.
The PP leader justified the change in which the PPE Congress will coincide in time with a plenary session of Congress. Indeed, on April 29 and 30 there will be parliamentary session. But in the PP they know, at least, since last January and the change of headquarters has now been announced. In reality, the parliamentary calendar knows it from before because for decades the ordinary sessions of the Congress are still two unwritten rules: three are held per month and the first week is always left free.
The tradition was fulfilled at the start of 2025. On January 16, the camera services passed a draft of the first semester full calendar. No group made allegations. On February 4, it was voted on the table of Congress, the only organ mandated to approve it. PSOE, Sumar and the PP unanimously accepted it, as eldiario.es of various parliamentary sources has been confirmed. That same day a Board of spokespersons was held. It was there that the spokesman of the party, Miguel Tellado, made that they had just noticed the coincidence with the European PP Congress scheduled in Valencia since many months before and asked to postpone the plenary. All groups opposed, including Vox. Next, the calendar returned to the table, where it was ratified. Again without allegations against. It is now, March, when the PP exposes what happened to modify its plans and cancel the Valencia conclave, to take it to Madrid.
Even so, Feijóo accused this Thursday from Brussels to the president of the Congress, Francina Armengol, of preventing the change of the calendar and forcing the PP deputies to choose between their obligations towards citizens and their militancy in the PPE. As you can not miss your parliamentary duty, he said, the only possible alternative is to transfer the conclave to Madrid or some of its bordering cities. “We will make a decision immediately,” he settled.
Called Feijóo-Mazón
Feijóo’s statement was unexpected for many, own and strangers. This week some media have published information about the advances of some preparations for Congress in Valencia that have not begun now, but months ago. Meanwhile, at the national headquarters of the PP in Madrid’s street of Genoa the itinerary was prepared to justify the change of location.
The decision has been formalized in the face of Mazón’s enclosure not only at the head of the Generalitat Valenciana, something that Feijóo had assumed due to the impossibility of guaranteeing to maintain power in the community if the president resigned or forced him to leave. A power that, according to the leader of the PP, is the priority for his party, as he explained in an interview last February.
A statement that coincided in time with Mazón’s first visit to Madrid. The president of the Generalitat starred in an informative act at the Ritz Hotel in Madrid before the leaders of his party (without Feijóo and no baron), entrepreneurs and journalists. In that forum he did not say a single word about the reconstruction of the province of Valencia, committed self -assignated by himself and bought by Genoa as justification to stay in charge of the Government an indeterminate time.
Mazón did the opposite of what was planned. He dedicated all his speech in Madrid to defend his performance on October 29, food in the ventor and his absence in later hours. “I am collateral damage,” he said that morning visiting the capital.
That Wednesday, the president returned to give a new version about what he did on October 29, and said he did not arrive at the Cecopi until half past eight in the afternoon, even after the latest was sent ahead of citizens’ phones. A discursive turn that obeys its defense strategy in the courts, but that left the National PP out of the pp. The first idea was to close ranks with Mazón. “There are no news,” he said.
But the reality is that the relationship between Mazón and Feijóo has never been good, and now it is worse. The support of the PP leader to his baron is at the limit to break. Or he was, because this Monday Feijóo said that the regional president “did not up to the Dana.
The statement came after a telephone conversation between the two that, according to ‘La Razón’ this Thursday, occurred during the weekend. From the address of the PP confirm that both “usually speak” and do not deny that there was a call this weekend, although without informing its content. Nor from the Presidency of the Generalitat want to “say anything about it.”
Beyond the content of the call, Feijóo traveled to Brussels this Thursday with the determination to announce to its European colleagues that the April Congress will not be held in Valencia. The PPE website with all the information of the event remains active and with information not only about the program, but about hotels, tourist visits and a long etcetera. The city, whose distances were also seriously affected by the Dana, was going to receive hundreds of delegates, advisors and journalists from all over Europe for several days. Now, those drills, meals, dinners and purchases will not fill the coffers of the Valencian businesses. The alternatives are few and the chosen place is Madrid, where this Friday the preparations have begun to organize the act in just over a month. It remains to be seen whether or not Carlos Mazón attends the event.
Source: www.eldiario.es
