Negotiations to ensure that the autonomous communities take in the thousands of migrant minors who are overflowing the Canary Islands centres have pushed the stability of the coalition governments maintained by the PP and Vox in five regions to the limit. Alberto Núñez Feijóo revived his offer of inter-territorial “solidarity” this Monday in Barcelona, and did not mention the Navy, minutes after Santiago Abascal made official in person his threat of breaking up if it is confirmed that the regions he co-governs are included in the distribution that should be agreed on this Wednesday. A commitment that the PP does not fear will be fulfilled.
“We will abandon these governments immediately. We will not be complicit in robberies, machetes or rapes,” Abascal said on Monday to reject the idea that the communities where Vox co-governs should take in those minors who have arrived alone on the Spanish coast. “Vox will not be complicit in a migration policy that leads to massive and illegal immigration and condemns our people to insecurity,” he added.
Asked again by journalists from the media that Vox allows access to its press conferences, and which does not include elDiario.es, Abascal insisted: “All regional governments that do not use all political and legal means to prevent the distribution of unaccompanied minors will be considered to be broken.”
The threat from the top leader of Vox received a direct response from his counterpart from the PP. Feijóo revived in Barcelona the discourse of “solidarity” that he had given at the beginning of last week, and then hardened his position to the point of copying the extreme right and asking the Government to deploy military ships to prevent the arrival of cayucos in the Canary Islands.
“The autonomous communities will make their capacity to care for minors available to the central government and the Canary Islands,” he said, after regretting that the Executive “does not speak” or “meet” with the autonomous communities, although this Wednesday the sectoral conference on Childhood in the Canary Islands will meet to address the distribution of the thousands of minors taken in on the islands.
According to the Minister for Youth and Children, Sira Rego, the PP autonomous regions are not complying with this despite having agreed to do so. The president of the Canary Islands, where the PP co-governs, has asked that the distribution be “mandatory”.
This is not the first time that Vox has threatened to break its regional governments with the PP, but unlike previous occasions it does seem that this time it may be serious. Xenophobia is one of the great social and electoral pillars of the extreme right. Until now, Abascal’s party could maintain a tough discourse and, at the same time, co-govern with the PP. But the emergence of Alvise Pérez in the last European elections represents competition that had not existed until now.
The last of these warnings had to do with preventing the amnesty law from being passed in the Senate, something the PP flirted with but ultimately did not do. Vox sheathed the warning.
The PP has not been intimidated by the threat from Vox, as it has not been on previous occasions. “We are not going to adapt our principles to anyone’s threats,” say sources from the leadership consulted by elDiario.es, who confirm: “Where there is the capacity to help, we will help.”
In Genoa they prefer “not to consider hypotheses”, as they describe Abascal’s threats and distance themselves from their government partner: “We will make our decisions based on conviction and solidarity. The welcome depends on the capacity of the autonomous communities, not on anyone’s threats.”
In fact, the PP recalls that “it would not be the first time that Abascal says one thing and does the opposite.” A defiant phrase that is in line with others uttered in the recent past by PP leaders who have ironically referred to Vox’s courage in breaking with them.
Privately, there are many who hope that, for once, Abascal will carry out his threat, which would allow them to get rid of the burden of the extreme right when they face certain speeches against the coalition government, or which prevents them from recovering the electoral ground lost among young people and women, especially.
Limited risk of losing governments
In public, the leader of the PP has defended regional governments with Vox as examples of “stability and moderation”, but the hypothetical exit of the extreme right would not imply that the PP would lose the autonomous governments of Aragon, Castile and Leon, Valencia, Extremadura and Murcia.
To topple these governments, Abascal’s party would have to support a motion of censure by left-wing forces, something that seems unlikely. But if Vox drops out, the PP would take over dozens of positions that it currently has to share with the far right, with the consequent headache for Feijóo, his spokespeople and the presidents who cohabit with them.
Although the PP consolidated its assault on regional and municipal power in May 2023 in a broad alliance with the far right in hundreds of regional and local governments, Feijóo was left at the gates of Moncloa after winning by a narrow margin in the general elections in July. Those elections were marked by negotiations and agreements for those governments, with the “red lines” that were not met and the imposition on the then Extremadura candidate, María Guardiola, of a pact that she herself denied until putting her continuity in politics first.
Vox denounces Feijóo’s “double discourse” for speaking out against the same government with which he later shares parliamentary commissions or the General Council of the Judiciary. In the case of immigration policy, the extreme right recalls that the PP’s tough talk comes at the same time as voting in favour of processing a popular legislative initiative to legalise tens of thousands of people in an irregular situation. Or voting against a parliamentary initiative that “demanded the presence of the Navy to stop illegal immigration” only to make that same demand their own shortly after. Or the agreement between social democrats, liberals and conservatives for the distribution of power in the EU.
Monday’s threat is yet another from Abascal, who also demanded that the leader of the PP break off negotiations and agreements with the President of the Government for the CGPJ, the most recent, or for RTVE, the Constitutional Court, the Court of Auditors, the Bank of Spain, the CNMV or the CNMC.
Source: www.eldiario.es
