Yolanda Díaz meets with young activists, in the Ecooo sustainable space, this Friday in Madrid. Eduardo Parra (Europa Press)
In the midst of a heat wave in Spain, Yolanda Díaz has decided this Friday to put young people concerned about climate change at the center.
Stripped of her vice-presidential outfit and surrounded by around thirty participants, mostly women, Galician politics has made a complete declaration of intent in Madrid by starting with this group what it has defined as "listening" acts of Sumar, the political project that champions with an eye on next year's general elections.
The challenge of the "just" ecological transition will be one of the axes of the movement that is about to be built and that seeks to encourage an electorate disenchanted with politics.
In a brief opening speech, Díaz defined the climate crisis as the "main problem" facing Spain and the world,
“As [journalist and activist] Naomi Klein used to say, climate change changed everything,” Díaz said.
"It's not about dealing with ecological and climatic collapse," she warned at the beginning, but about presenting these meetings as "an opportunity."
"We are on time", he has questioned the young people, a sector of the population that in recent years has led this battle and thanked them for their "hope".
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Valeria Riaza, from Fridays for Future and Ecologists in Action, responded to Díaz: “We are late, but we have to be positive.
The best time was four decades ago, but the second time is now."
Riaza put the focus on inequality.
“We cannot allow people to have to choose between one container or another when the difference is economic and you have to pay rent”, she summarized.
Irene Rodríguez, from Talent for the Future, reproached: “I see the future with a lot of anxiety, due to the inaction of the Governments.
With the covid crisis, we acted with much more urgency.”
In their speeches, which lasted only three minutes, the participants, arranged in a circle, emphasized the need for the fight against climate change to go hand in hand with tax justice, the importance of promoting public transport, advancing towards elimination of fossil fuels and propose actions in the European context.
Some of the attendees have requested, towards the end of the debate, that the young people also be present in the discussions of the rest of the thematic areas of the project by Díaz, who has picked up the glove and after remaining silent for an hour and a half, has committed thereto.
"I ask you to help us, because if you don't, it won't be worth anything," the vice president requested at the end, alluding to the need to specify all the proposals.
Sumar already has at least 25 groups distributed in different areas that will be in charge of collecting the ideas that derive from each of the meetings and designing that "country project" that will serve as the basis for a future electoral program.
"Sumar does not stop and will continue working throughout these days to build a country project for the next decade," stressed Díaz, who has not yet made public the calendar of events that will take her to tour between now and the end of the year. much of Spain.
Only then, after the mass bath with civil society, will she make public if she is willing to run as a candidate.
And from that moment the negotiation with the parties will begin,
a priori
the most complex part of the whole process.