Feijóo agrees to debate face to face with Sánchez and confirms that he will abolish the ministries of Equality and Consumption
Alberto Núñez Feijóo agrees to discuss “face to face” with Pedro Sánchez. The president of the PP picks up the glove of the socialist leader, but not for the six debates that he proposed yesterday. Instead, he has demanded that it be the campaign teams who “decide what the format is, and how many, which and where” are held. That is, he does not rule out doing more than one, but he does not confirm it either.
In an interview on Onda Cero, the Galician leader has not yet wanted to detail the number of debates he wants to lead, exactly. Nor if there will be several in this format of two candidates or prefer to do one in which the leaders of Sumar or Vox are also present, for example.
“There is going to be a face-to-face between Mr. Sánchez and me in the electoral campaign,” he assured. When expressly asked if he is afraid of debating more with Sánchez, Feijóo has flatly denied it and has indicated that the “occurrence” of holding six debates is due to the “urgency” of the President of the Government. “This reminds me of a western movie, I challenge you at such a time on Monday,” he ironized.
In this sense, he stressed that the debates “are negotiated” between the campaign teams, “they are not forced or established by an interested party”. “Of course it will be debated, but debates are not forced, debates are negotiated,” he added.
ministries cut
Asked about the information revealed by EL MUNDO about his plan for the first 100 days of government, if he reaches La Moncloa, Feijóo has assured that the “depoliticization” of the CNI and the CIS “is also part of the repeal of sanchismo”. In the same sense, it has confirmed that it would abolish the ministries of Equality and Consumption, which would pass to the structure of other departments. And that it would also merge those of Labor and Social Security, as well as those of Education, Culture and Universities. “Five or six ministries are left over,” he summarized.
The president of the PP has avoided giving names about who will be the Minister of Economy if he governs, since that is the growing question that Ibex presidents and investors ask to gauge what their government would be like.
Regarding the possible regional pacts with Vox, Feijóo has reiterated that the barons will have a free hand, and has stopped in the specific case of Extremadura, where the PP came in second place, but adds the majority together with the formation of Santiago Abascal. “I understand that Vox is going to facilitate the investiture of María Guardiola, because otherwise I would be voting for the PSOE,” he explained.
Asked about the laws that he will repeal if he manages to congregate the majority of Congress, Feijóo has assured that “I will repeal the Democratic Memory Law and the Trans Law”. “Education adjustments, without a doubt”, he added about the Celaá Law. And regarding the Euthanasia Law, he has assured that he will request reports to see what “adjustments” must be made. He also does not like “some modifications” of the labor reform, because “they go against companies and workers.”
Finally, Feijóo has pointed to the abstention of the PP in the Barcelona City Council in favor of Xavier Trias (candidate of the Junts orbit, but with a marked accent of his own), as a lesser evil given the possibility that Ada Colau continues to influence the consistory. And the leader of the PP in Ciudad Condal, Daniel Sirera, leans more towards the lesser evil of Trias alone. “The Collboni and Colau ticket is a ticket that the majority of the citizens of Barcelona do not accept, and in this context, I am sure that Mr. Sirera will make me a proposal,” Feijóo has implied.
Isabel Rodríguez and Félix Bolaños, at a press conference after the Council of Ministers. MoyaEFE
In the Government they maintain their position of reducing the campaign of 23-J in a face to face with Feijóo and holding all the debates that are possible. They consider in La Moncloa that the PP has gone in less than 24 hours from describing it as “eccentricity” to accepting face to face, without specifying how many. His position continues to be that of maximums, six between the two leaders. They believe that there is still room, time, because everything arose this Monday.
The purpose is to mark out the two weeks that the electoral campaign lasts with debates, hold as many face-to-face events as possible and, in addition, participate in others together with the leaders of the other formations. In an electoral process in the middle of July, with Spain on vacation and high temperatures, the strategy is to concentrate the impacts in the media: not to convene or have to fill rallies, but to be seen, to achieve the greatest possible number of impacts.
Sánchez focuses his strategy on reducing the game to a duel with the leader of the PP, while in 2019 he rejected the face-to-face with Pablo Casado. In the team of the president of the Government they justify this decision in the fact that now, as dictated by the citizens in the polls, only Sánchez or Feijóo can be president, while four years ago it was not clear who exercised as leader of the opposition because Casado, Albert Rivera and even Pablo Iglesias were disputing that role.