Don’t say Europe, say Puigdemont

Pacts with the extreme right? Puigdemont! Conflict with Milei? Puigdemont! Risks from using TikTok? Puigdemont! In the first debate of the European elections on television, Dolors Montserrat nailed the Popular Party’s argument in a new demonstration that it does not matter what type of election is held in Spain. The message is the same as if the Spanish, Catalan or European Parliament is elected. On any of the cards that the candidate used the cursed word appeared: Puigdemont!!!

One day before the start of the campaign, La Sexta united the PSOE and PP candidates, Teresa Ribera and Dolors Montserrat. They didn’t spend much on scenery – a high table and the two protagonists standing – but not all great debates have to be located on a spaceship. In the background, the blue tones of the European flag dominated to serve as a guide for the protagonists. Not that it was of much use, but at least you had to try. Inevitably, it had to appear… Puigdemont.

To the first question from the moderator, Ana Pastor, to Montserrat about possible future pacts in Brussels with the extreme right, the PP candidate responded by saying that they will put “their party’s program on the table.” When asked Ribera whether these elections will be a “plebiscite on Pedro Sánchez”, the socialist referred to the first question posed to her rival about the extreme right. Each one came with her message and getting them out of there was complicated. In the final section of the debate, when it was time to talk about polarization, they went directly to talking about Catalonia. And Montserrat once again mentioned the “fugitive from justice.” Why hide?

About the great European debates, just enough was said. Obviously, about the war in Ukraine, although not much. On account of climate change, something but not too much, which harmed Ribera. It could have been the debate of a Spanish election, because they are also one. The socialist fully sold the great successes of the Sánchez Government and she even talked about “exporting the Spanish model”: “Our proposal for Europe is what we are doing here.”

Montserrat repeated what Alberto Núñez Feijóo had already announced this week. The star measure is to forgive direct taxes on young people in their first job “in the first four years.” The truth is that most young people would love to have to pay a lot of money after filing their income tax return, because it would mean that their salary is very high. This is not what usually happens for most of them in their first years in the job market.

Ribera responded with the usual figures in the control session in Congress. “In Rajoy’s six years, 400,000 jobs were created. In Sánchez’s first six years, 3.6 million jobs have been created,” he said. Comparing different economic situations is a classic in political debates, although it is always debatable. Rajoy won the 2011 elections thanks to a gigantic economic crisis and then had to face it in very difficult years. But the final data is what it is.

It was the moment when Montserrat took out a sign with the figure 65%. She said that was the increase in “poverty levels in Spain.” It is quite an enigma to know where he got this information from, taking into account the decrease in unemployment and temporary employment in recent years.

What is undoubted is that Spain is the fourth country in the EU with the highest population rate at risk of poverty and social exclusion with 26% and that income inequality is among the highest in the EU. At the same time, it must be remembered that this percentage is the lowest since 2015, the year in which the PP governed. The highest rate occurred in 2016 when Montserrat was Minister of Health and Social Services.

The PP’s other line of attack in this campaign will be agriculture and livestock. Montserrat denounced “the unfair competition that farmers suffer” without saying where it comes from. The countryside receives million-dollar European subsidies from the CAP, that is, from the EU, which in turn has signed trade agreements with other countries, such as Morocco, to receive their agricultural exports. One thing cannot be separated from the other and all governments know it.

“You joined the attack on Huelva strawberries,” Montserrat accused Ribera without explaining how. He should have talked about Doñana and he certainly wasn’t interested in him. She even said that the Government had let in “strawberries with hepatitis,” almost as if she knew they were contaminated.

He did not bother to comment that the European Commission announced very early that They were not for sale anywhere in Spain or any other European country. The Andalusian Government confirmed that it had located the importer and the distributor and that the latter did not put them on the market.

When Ribera claimed that a Le Pen victory in France would make it more difficult for Spanish agricultural products to be sold in Spain – a risk that Brussels is unlikely to allow – Montserrat must have felt nervous because she brought out the wild card she had brought with her. home. “Do you know who Junts is? Pedro Sánchez said that Puigdemont was the Spanish Le Pen. So don’t talk to me about Le Pen.” Better to talk about Puigdemont than about the fact that the PP did not give the affirmative vote in Congress to the food chain law.

In the realm of pure fantasy when defending the field, Montserrat suggested that they will stand up to Donald Trump: “We are not going to allow tariffs to be imposed to Spanish agricultural products when a government changes in the US.” Spain’s ability to prevent someone like Trump, if he returns to the White House, from increasing tariffs on Spanish oil or wine is close to zero. This is what happened in his first term and the Rajoy Government could not do much about it.

It had been a strange debate, because both candidates did not interrupt each other and let the rival present his arguments. We are used to worse things. Ribera brought up the issue of climate change and Montserrat decided that good manners were over. It was also the time to draw on the topics that she had saved, even if they had nothing to do with Europe.

He showed another sign with the figure 1,100. Lately, the parties put very little effort into the posters they show in televised debates. A number already running. It was the number of “1,100 predators” with sentences reduced by the law of only yes means yes. There is no campaign in which the great successes of the past cannot be brought out.

In her final speech, the PP candidate promised that she will fight in Brussels against the amnesty law. By then, it will already be approved and presumably implemented. That has no major importance for Montserrat. She is going to spend the entire campaign talking about Puigdemont.