The parties that support the Government, PSOE and United We Can, and their parliamentary partners have harshly charged this Tuesday against the PP and the other two right-wing parties – Vox and Ciudadanos – for fabricating a “hoax” around the statements of the Minister of Consumer Affairs , Alberto Garzón, on the macro farms. A “lie” that, as those groups have recalled, has become one of the main props of the pre-campaign of the popular for the elections in Castilla y León on February 13.
The data that shows that the macro-farms have led Spain out of environmental legality
Know more
The PP has thus not achieved sufficient support in the Permanent Delegation of Congress – the highest decision-making body of the chamber outside of ordinary periods, as is the case in January – to force the appearances of both Garzón and the Minister of Agriculture, Luis Flat, to give explanations for the words of the first. Only Vox and Ciudadanos have supported them.
The wording of the requests for appearances registered by the PP delved precisely into the hoax spread by the right, also assumed by some leaders of the PSOE – such as the presidents of Aragón and Castilla-La Mancha, Javier Lambán and Emiliano García-Page, respectively–, about what Garzón said in the interview granted to the British newspaper Guardian and that was published on December 26.
The statement asked the Ministers of Consumption and Agriculture to make statements “to report on the serious statements” by Garzón which, according to quotation marks popular, stated that “Spain exports poor quality meat and does not respect animal welfare”. In reality, the Minister of Consumption never pronounced that phrase that the PP now puts in quotation marks.
Garzón limited himself to assuring, according to the transcript of the interview with the British media provided by the minister himself, that that of the macro-farms “is a meat of worse quality” than that of extensive agriculture, that these farms cause “animal abuse” as well as “an enormous and disproportionate ecological impact”. He also showed his support for the extensive livestock sector in the English media, recalling that this “has a lot of weight” in regions such as “Asturias, part of Castilla y León, even Andalusia or Extremadura.”
The PP denounces “attacks” by the Government on the “rural environment”
Despite the evidence, PP, Vox and Ciudadanos have insisted this Tuesday on manipulating those words at the headquarters of national sovereignty. During the Permanent Deputation of Congress, the PP deputy Milagros Marcos insisted on the hoax, assuring that Garzón’s statements “put the future” of the country at risk. “The meat of Spain is neither of poor quality nor of mistreated animals,” he remarked, before demanding the “immediate” dismissal of the Minister of Consumption.
In his opinion, “the entire government” is “permanently against the rural environment.” “The rural environment only gets insults and attacks from the Government,” he added, before accusing the Executive of having “for three years deteriorating the reputation of Spanish products based on salon environmentalism.” “They are systematically questioning the honesty of Spanish farmers,” he said.
The PP, he added, will not “cease” to insist on lying about Garzón’s statements “until Sánchez rectifies” and “cease” the Minister of Consumer Affairs. For Marcos, the government “wants to end” livestock farming. Next, the deputy took the opportunity to use the controversy in the pre-campaign of Castilla y León, assuring that “the farmers and ranchers” of that community “are not stupid” and “do not deserve a government that insults them.”
Although the spokespersons for Vox, Ciudadanos and UPN expressed themselves in similar terms, the majority represented by the left-wing parties and the nationalists and pro-independence parties has harshly disgraced the right-wing by spreading the “hoax” about Garzón and the macro-farms.
The “electoral tactics” of the PP
The socialist deputy Juan Francisco Serrano accused the PP of “using lies” to “confront the government and irritate society.” “Democracy and institutions deserve respect”, emphasized the PSOE parliamentarian, who has accused the popular to want “cover with noise a Government of more than 35 years”, that of Castilla y León, “where corruption corners the PP and President Alfonso Fernández Mañueco”.
Sofía Fernández Castañón, from United We Can, recalled that the controversy was generated “from a hoax, false news and a tortuous interpretation of some statements.” She criticized the “opportunity” and the “electoral tactics” of the PP spreading the lie about Garzón. “The bell [de Castilla y León] it will end up smelling like a macro-farm”, he ironized, before remarking that, in his opinion, “it is very worrying” that a political party “echoes what is false”. “If we pay attention to hoaxes we are promoting anti-politics and, when we do, we make totalitarianism grow,” he lamented.
Compromís spokesman, Joan Baldoví, spoke of an “absolutely artificial controversy that the PP and the right are using solely and exclusively as electoral ammunition.” From the PNV, Mikel Legarda, also assured that “this controversy spread by the PP only has an electoral purpose.” And the spokeswoman for EH Bildu, Martxe Aizpura, recalled that “all the dust” generated around Garzón “is based on demonstrations that have not taken place” and “did not exist”. “Garzón never said that Spanish meat was of poor quality, what he said was that intensive meat was of worse quality,” he stressed.
www.eldiario.es