The Popular Party has doubts about the preliminary draft of the Official Secrets Law that the Council of Ministers will approve this Monday. The first, that he does not know the content of the text whose drafting has been commanded by the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños. “There have been no contacts,” Economy Secretary Juan Bravo lamented at a press conference, assuring that a rule that affects “state” affairs should have been drafted in agreement with the main opposition party. But, in addition, the PP has accused the Government of “politicizing” the issue by transferring competence in the matter from the Ministry of Defense to that of the Presidency.
The democratization of the Official Secrets Law languishes in Moncloa 54 years and 80 extensions later
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The coalition government will launch this Monday the first stone for a democratic Official Secrets Law. The current one was approved in 1968, during the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, and is not assimilated with similar regulations that exist in Western countries. For this reason, they believe in the PP, the PSOE should have agreed with them on the content of the project. “We have shown firm will to reach agreements,” said Bravo, who acts as spokesman for Alberto Núñez Feijóo’s party in the first week of August.
The leader has lamented that something “so important” and that affects the security of the State has not been agreed so that the future law, whose process has only just begun and that can easily be extended a year before its approval, lasts “in the time”. Bolaños has managed the drafting of his proposal with great zeal, so much so that not even the government partner, United We Can, knew of its content, which has led the leader of the political space, Yolanda Díaz, to reject the measures that were have filtered.
But the PP has also criticized the substance of the rule. At least, of some of the approaches that have already been made public. Franco placed the management of official secrets under the mantle of the Ministry of Defense, a declaration of intent. Five decades later, the coalition government plans to transfer it to the Ministry of the Presidency. That is to say, to the Moncloa Palace, which for Bravo means a “politicization” of the matter, in addition to a new affront to the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, whom this Monday the PP has once again pointed out as its favorite within of the Council of Ministers.
“It weakens Minister Robles, it takes away her protagonism,” said Bravo, who gave as an example the dismissal of the director of the CNI after the outbreak of the crisis due to espionage with Pegasus on different members of the Government, including himself President.
The PP has related the intention to change the department that will manage the secret documents with a supposed weakening of the State. “Putting the CNI in doubt is a commitment for the country, it is the institution that defends our country above all else,” said Bravo. “What we should do is strengthen the institutions, the independence of the institutions,” he added.
Bravo, however, did not consider questions from journalists that the decision made by Mariano Rajoy in 2012 to transfer the entire CNI from Defense to the Presidency meant “politicizing” the Spanish espionage service. And he has slipped that the new norm can subtract power from the intelligence service and, therefore, from the Ministry of Defense. “For the second time, the powers of the CNI are reduced,” said Bravo. The intelligence service is in charge of the custody of the documents that the Government classifies as secret, something that the PP believes can change with the new norm. “That is what can worry the whole of the Spaniards”, he has settled.
Against the energy saving plan
The PP does not look favorably on the energy saving plan that the Council of Ministers will also approve this Monday. As in the case of official secrets, Juan Bravo has regretted that the Government has not previously contacted the main opposition party to agree on the measures, some of which Pedro Sánchez already detailed in his appearance last week .
“With what we have heard, it is not going to solve the problems”, has indicated the financial manager of the PP. “He is very reminiscent of President Zapatero”, he assured afterwards, referring to the saving measures that were launched in the early stages of the economic crisis unleashed in 2008.
So, Bravo has said, “the solution was not the best, nor was it better for the Spanish”. Something that, he believes, will happen again if the royal decree-law remains as announced by Sánchez.
Bravo has demanded from the Government “a complete plan” that goes beyond short-term saving measures and that affects the Spanish energy mix, betting on recovering coal-based production and announcing that the life of nuclear power plants is being extended.
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