The mayor of Badalona and top of the list for Barcelona to the Congress of Deputies on 29 November, Xavier García Albiol, has underlined that the next general elections in Spain are “exceptional” because “we have to decide whether to continue with democratic institutions as we know them since 1975”.
García Albiol delivered this message at an event of the Partido Popular held in Bilbao, in the San Francisco neighborhood, accompanied by the Partido Popular candidate for the Congress for Vizcaya, Esther Martínez, and by various PP leaders from Vizcaya, including its president, Amaya Fernandez.
After pointing out that he is “convinced” that from Vizcaya there will be contributed “that little grain of sand so that next 29 November in Spain the change that a majority of Basques, of Catalans and of Spaniards believe is necessary takes place,” Albiol insisted that the PP does not defend “change for the sake of change,” but instead intends to push through concrete reforms in response to problems that “are shared by cities like Bilbao or Barcelona, such as illegal squatting, repeat offending, insecurity for citizens, or irregular immigration”.
The PP leader detailed that he has received “a very specific assignment” from Alberto Núñez Feijóo to be “the rapporteur on the future law against illegal squatting,” a rule that he considers key to addressing coexistence conflicts in major urban areas like Bilbao.
As he explained, “it will be a law that has to allow that, within 48 hours, whoever kicks a door and moves into a flat, a house, or a premises that is not theirs, has to be made to leave immediately”.
García Albiol defended that this proposal sends “a very clear message to those who make a living out of creating problems for the rest of the neighbors, those who think they can do absolutely whatever they feel like” and he emphasized that “it is a message addressed to everyone, it is addressed to Spaniards and it is addressed to those who have come from abroad, but who think they can act as they please”.
The candidate denounced that in Spain there is a level of criminal repeat offending “without precedent in Europe” and he criticized that “it can’t be that the police detain an individual who is dedicated to creating insecurity problems so that he enters through one door and, just a few hours later, ends up coming out through another”.
Albiol has again placed illegal occupation, multirrecidivism and irregular immigration as "priority problems" that affect the day-to-day lives of residents in large cities and has maintained that "in Spain, if there is any problem at the moment it is that related to integration problems on the part of immigration".
Along these lines, he has warned that the current situation is "unsustainable" because "a person knows that he can commit a crime because in the end the consequences are very relative".
For this reason, he has insisted that "this cannot go on like this, it cannot continue with the issue of squatting and it cannot continue with the issue of ordinary crime, that in the end squatting is also a result of ordinary crime".
First reforms of a possible PP government
At this point, he has ensured that "one of the first measures that the government of Nuñez Feijóo is going to take will be to carry out those reforms so that problems like multirreincidivism stop being a headache for the overwhelming majority of citizens, for the authorities and for the police, as is illegal occupation".
García Albiol has drawn differences between those who come to Spain to integrate and those who do so to commit crime, and he has emphasized that the future executive of Núñez Feijóo "will be a government that has clear that in Spain those immigrants who come to work and to adapt are welcome" but "those who come to take advantage of the system, who come to take advantage of the social services that are provided in our country, who come to commit crimes and to create problems of coexistence, these people are not welcome".
After reiterating that the PP advocates a zero-tolerance policy with crime, regardless of nationality, he has repeated that "he who commits a crime and is Spanish, to prison"; and that, "he who commits a crime and is a foreigner, plane and back to his country".
In his opinion, "those people", "we neither want them nor have to keep them, because social services, aid to citizens have to be destined for those people who truly deserve it, not those who have turned their way of acting into a 'modus vivendi' based on living off the system or in creating problems".
He has emphasized that the PP will be “very forceful” in pushing through legal changes that benefit local residents, convinced that the solution lies in a regulatory reform in the Congress of Deputies to correct what, as he has said, has not been addressed during the last eight years, and to introduce “measures in favor of local residents and those people who want to live in peace.”
Esther Martínez’s criticisms of insecurity in San Francisco
For her part, the PP candidate for Congress for Vizcaya, Esther Martínez, has denounced the situation of insecurity that, in her view, affects the Bilbao neighborhood of San Francisco and has accused the PNV of having “abandoned its residents, allowing crime and coexistence problems to worsen without offering effective solutions”.
After demanding “urgent” actions to restore security in the area, she has criticized that the City Council resorts to murals and sports activities instead of strengthening security devices, while residents who warn about the deterioration of coexistence and the increase in crime “are labeled racists for demanding greater security and coexistence”.
She has asked whether “it is racist to demand coexistence and freedom or to ask for order and security” and has defended that she does not aspire to “a multicultural society but a plural society where each person can think, feel and live as they want, but the law has to be exactly the same for everyone”.
Martínez has agreed with Albiol that “for the PP tolerance for crime is zero” and has lamented that a key neighborhood of Bilbao such as San Francisco, “located in the very center of the city,” has been transformed into “an area that many people in Bilbao avoid going to for fear of suffering some incident”.