The president of the Popular Party, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, this Thursday in Zaragoza. Fabián Simón (Europa Press)
Alberto Núñez Feijóo had prepared this Thursday an act on the opening of the school year, with a proposal for a financial aid check for families with children, but his statements about ETA have been the ones that have taken center stage.
The leader of the PP has accused the Prime Minister of "accepting Bildu's blackmail" with the approaches to the Basque prisons of the former heads of ETA Txapote and Henri Parot, known yesterday.
Feijóo has also recalled the murder of popular councilor Miguel Ángel Blanco in 1997, whom the gang killed after kidnapping him in the years of the so-called "socialization of suffering" (when the gang added politicians and journalists to its target), to criticize the transfer of one of his executioners and other ETA prisoners today, 11 years after ETA announced its dissolution.
“Not everything is worth in politics to continue being president of the Government.
We knew that Bildu was very comfortable with the Government, because he has always said so.
What we did not know was the last price that the Government was going to pay Bildu for his support of the last royal decree law ”, criticized Feijóo in Zaragoza.
“Any normal person, who knows a little about recent history, this morning breakfast was bad for him.
Of the 13 ETA members who have approached, Parot and Txapote were sentenced for 53 murders, to 5,300 years… See that we recently celebrated the anniversary of the death of Miguel Ángel Blanco… Miguel Ángel Blanco died because the PP government did not accept the blackmail of the rapprochement of ETA prisoners with blood crimes without previously having repented or collaborated with justice.
He died for it
Although the Government of José María Aznar did not accept ETA's blackmail during the kidnapping of Miguel Ángel Blanco to bring all ETA prisoners closer to the Basque Country, it did order transfers of ETA prisoners to prisons near the Basque Country during their mandate.
Specifically, between 1996 and 2004, the governments of José María Aznar ordered 574 transfers.
For his part, between 2011 and 2018, Mariano Rajoy ordered transfers on 229 occasions.
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The context of today's approaches is very different, since ETA announced the definitive cessation of its armed activity on October 20, 2011. The PP argues that, despite this, the group is not collaborating with the clarification of attacks without resolve, while the Government of Pedro Sánchez emphasizes that serving the sentence close to the social and family environment is not a prison benefit, but rather a right of all inmates, and that "with ETA and its terrorist activity disappeared, this cannot be violated." right, which also in no case implies a sentence reduction or anything like that”, point out government sources.
With everything, Feijóo has continued percussing Sánchez for this matter and the agreements with Bildu, an issue that the PP has defined as one of the main lines of wear against the socialist president.
“I am convinced that many socialist voters will not accept this.
I regret that my Government is accepting permanent blackmail during the last four years of the Bildu political party.
I regret it as a Spaniard and, above all, as a politician.
Politicians cannot do anything to stay in power.
I assure you that with Bildu there will not be this type of relationship in the event that the Spanish want to change their government.
Bildu lives better than ever with Sánchez.
With us, he has to accept again that it is not possible, without apologizing, without collaborating with the justice system in clarifying the murders,
This prison policy is not possible.
I apologize in the name of politics to all the victims of terrorism."
However, some victims of ETA, such as the journalist Gorka Landaburu, have questioned the PP's statements, assuming the representativeness of all the victims.
"Mrs.
Cuca Gamarra”, Landaburu wrote on the social network Twitter, referring to the general secretary of the PP.
“I will explain it to you again: When those who tried to assassinate me were brought to prisons in the Basque Country, I told them that I was not happy for them, but for their families.
Now, I keep what I said for Txapote and Parot.
Do not speak on behalf of the victims of ETA”.
Mrs. @cucagamarra I will explain it to you again: When they brought those who tried to assassinate me to prisons in the Basque Country, I told them that I was not happy for them but for their families.
Now, I keep what I said for Txapote and Parot.
Do not speak on behalf of the victims of ETA.
https://t.co/3pb6UjkzPH
– Gorka Landaburu (@G_landaburu) August 31, 2022