The Minister of Foreign Affairs, European Union and Cooperation, José Manuel Albares, has finally been absent again this Monday from the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, summoned extraordinarily by the PP to address the migration crisis in Ceuta. In light of this new absence, the 'popular' have reiterated that they will promote the legal actions they deem appropriate.
"Once again, the Senate has been ignored by the Government," criticized the PP senator and president of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Pilar Rojo, during the extraordinary session of this body, promoted by her group to analyze the situation in Ceuta.
Just as happened last week with the absence of the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, Albares has also disregarded this summons in the Upper House. The Executive had already warned in recent days that the ministers called extraordinarily to the Senate during the month of August would not attend, claiming that they would appear later in Congress to detail the actions of their departments in relation to Ceuta.
Only PP, Vox, and Junts attend the committee
Despite this warning from the Government, the PP has asserted its absolute majority in the Senate to maintain the official summons. The Foreign Affairs Committee met this Monday with the presence only of senators from the PP, Vox, and Junts, while the chair reserved for Minister Albares remained empty throughout the session.
In this scenario, the president of the committee expressed her "concern" over the absence of the Foreign Minister in a context she described as a moment "of special gravity for Spain." "An empty chair that is not just a physical absence, but represents an absence of explanations, of responsibility," she emphasized.
Rojo thus denounced the "failure" of the minister's constitutional obligation to account before the Senate and stressed the need to adopt "the measures that are appropriate by the bodies of the Chamber and the demand for the responsibilities that correspond in law."
Despite the fact that the summoned individual did not attend, the president decided to open a brief turn of interventions from the groups. In it, PP senator José Antonio Monago took the opportunity to lash out at the Foreign Minister, whom he defined as the "worst Foreign Minister of democracy."
The PP defends that the meeting was not "a whim"
"This Commission has not met extraordinarily in the full month of August at the whim of the PP. It has met after tens of thousands of people have crossed a Spanish border, after around 100 people lost their lives, and after a crisis that directly affects our relations with Morocco, our national security, and the territorial integrity of Spain," Monago has stated, thus justifying the urgency of the call.
In a similar vein, the senator from Vox, Javier Valentín, has demanded that the Presidency of the Commission record the minister's absence in the minutes and has requested that he be formally summoned again to appear before the senators.
The spokesperson for Junts in the Senate, Eduard Pujol, has also harshly criticized Albares' absence. "That one of the southern borders of Europe with Africa is absolutely vulnerable makes Minister Albares' absence even more serious than that of Minister Marlaska, if possible, which already was," he has stated, emphasizing his group's concern about the situation at the border and the lack of explanations from the Government in the Upper House.