Miguel Tellado's shouts sneaked into the internal signal of the Congress even though he had a minute with his microphone off. “Read the article!” He repeated in vocals while stirring in the air a book with the regulations of the Cortes. The president of the Chamber, Francina Armengol, reluctant to apply sanctions to the deputies, called the PP spokesman to order after two minutes of reproaches from her bench, without having received the turn of the word. As soon as the plenary of the week began and the main opposition party had already managed to burst it.
The mess had begun a few hours before, but this time in private, at the meeting held on Tuesdays at the Board of Spokespersons. It is an encounter that until the rise of Tellado to national politics used to be relaxed, a kind of process to agree on the agenda of the plenary and solve some issues of parliamentary intention. But the PP spokesman intervenes as if he were there, according to all the sources consulted, as he does in the gallery. They have already normalized but that custom surprised at the beginning of the legislature the companions of the rest of the parties.
This Tuesday, once addressed the points of the agenda at the Board, in the turn of pleas and questions, the general secretary of the Popular Group, Macaren Montesinos, took the floor to accuse Armengol of having lied about businessman Víctor Aldama, charged in the Koldo case. “It's a shame that lies, you knew Aldama,” he told Armengol. The reproach irritated the socialist spokesman, Patxi López, who reminded him that this was not part of the agenda and asked him to respect the regulation.
“Let's see if you are going to have a different regulation from the rest,” Tellado snapped. “My regulation begins in education and respect,” replied the socialist. The PP spokesman continued to raise the tone until López gave the meeting for the end: “It doesn't matter, it makes no sense.” It is not the first encounter that both spokesmen star and not the first time that a deputy gets up to Tellado's insults. According to sources present at these meetings, the former PNV spokesman Aitor Esteban already did so during the legislature.
The PP wants to take advantage of the Congress to further complicate things to the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, very touched after the publication of the Civil Guard report that places the former Secretary of Socialist Organization Santos Cerdán in the center of an alleged plot of corruption in public works contracts. The case also affects the former transport minister José Luis Ábalos and his former advisor, Koldo García.
In the Board of Spokespersons on Tuesday, Sanchez's appearance was discussed in the plenary. Although the president will attend at his own request, several parliamentary groups had formally asked to give explanations in parliamentary headquarters. The problem is the times: both the PP and the partners want it to be as soon as possible but Sánchez alleges agenda problems for their international commitments to do so before July 9.
Alberto Núñez Feijóo's party tried at the meeting of the spokesmen to exploit the anger of the partners with the government after a scandal for corruption that has left the confidence of the investiture block with Sánchez. The PP asked to modify this week's plenary agenda to include in it the president's appearance, an operation, the schedule change, which needs unanimous support of the groups.
Although Tellado sold at a press conference that several partners had supported his request, the reality is that only Republican schedule seconded the PP plans. The PNV, EH Bildu and Sumar defended at the Board that the president came as soon as possible but accepting that he does it based on an agenda that in the coming weeks is full of events: a UN meeting in Seville, the NATO summit in the Hague and the Federal Committee of the PSOE, later. The appearance will be in an extraordinary plenary session on July 9.
The PP spokesman did not settle for the decision and announced at the exit that he would ask for the Congress table the call of a new meeting of the Board to address the request for an additional plenary this week, on Thursday, at the end of the ordinary session. The play has little route because although the lower house requests the president's appearance, the usual procedure is that it is based on its agenda.
The tellado fuss did not stay at the press conference. The screams at the beginning of this Tuesday's session sought to force a change in the agenda by another way. “We have just registered a letter the deputies of the popular group, more than a fifth of the members of this Chamber, just a few minutes ago, requesting that the Plenary of the Chamber under article 68.1 pronounced a modification of the agenda of this plenary,” the spokesman announced in a brief turn of the word granted ad hoc by Armengol.
The president reproached him to want to modify the agenda after the matter had been rejected in the Board of Spokesmen just a few hours ago and that the regulation not only applies following its literalness but the “customs and norms of the house” that they have usually opted to discard the modifications of a full full fullness to “safeguard the rights of the deputies”. The legal debate on the regulation in any case, recognizes parliamentary sources, has no journey since the PP objective of calling Sánchez this week was not going to be fulfilled in any case.
Tellado, in rebellion with the Armengol criteria, continued screaming for several minutes, supported by the blows of the PP in the wood of its benches. “This is not a debate with the presidency of the Chamber. Everyone has to know what role he plays, and you have to learn what is the role of the Popular Party spokeswoman,” Armengol insisted without success. “They already know that I am a person who tries to balance,” he settled among the screaming, “but I have to call the order, Mr. Tellado.”
It is an episode similar to that which has starred in the main opposition party on other occasions this legislature, now emboldened with the news about the case of Santos Cerdán that stalks the government. Last Thursday, while the media published the Civil Guard report, the popular bench broke out several times in shouts of “resignation” towards the then secretary of the PSOE organization. The corruption that affects the Sánchez government gives air to a new PP show.
