Jaime de los Santos (PP): "There is no bill more important than calling elections"

The Lázaro Dou room of Congress hosts all kinds of activities. It is the first point of contact for their Lordships when they land in Carrera de San Jerónimo after the elections, as it is where credentials are handed out, asset declarations are completed, and they acquire their full status as deputies. It is also common for committee meetings that do not attract the spotlight to take place there, or for it to host work meetings that go unnoticed as they are located in a little-trafficked corridor.

But on special occasions, its doors open with lights and reporters. As for this interview with Jaime de los Santos, deputy and deputy secretary of Education and Equality of the PP. The popular leader reviews the recently concluded legislative period in DEMÓCRATA and sets out his party's priorities on the road to the polls.

Question - Current events dictate, and last week you gave an interview in El País that caused a lot of stir. You showed yourself to be in favor of reforming the 'Trans Law' and requesting a "psychosocial report". Do you stand by your words?

Answer - Yes, because it is what the PP has been saying since the misnamed 'Trans Law' was passed, and it is even in our electoral program for July 23rd. I was one of the rapporteurs in the Senate and even then I spoke of the fraud of law that gender self-determination represents. It is a fiction that, among many other things, seeks to destroy the feminist construct, all those norms, laws... approved in the last 50 years to erase the endemic inequality that women suffered.

I would repeal it immediately to approve a new one that protects transgender people, but in no case at the expense of women's rights.

Q - We are in Congress and you are the rapporteur for the Copyright Law. What is the point of blockage at this moment?

A - This Government carries out actions based on headlines and on trying, in quotes, to set the streets on fire and to permanently find ways to corner the main opposition party. With any topic, with this Copyright Law or with the Law Against Conversion Therapies.

And if the laws do not see the light of day, it is because the Executive is not interested in governing, but in using its positions for many things, even to commit crimes, and to promote extremist debates that divide society.

Q - I insist on the Copyright Law, has the Government asked for your support?

R - You already know that with this Government any communication is practically a utopia, because anything that involves amending a law to improve it is an unacceptable shock to them. Why? Because they don't want to reach an agreement, because they don't want to legislate. They don't even count on that bloc of parties that made the legislature possible anymore.

They don't want to reach an agreement with the PP, because they are not interested in legislating in favor of citizens, and with their old partners at odds, they do nothing but look for ways to destroy the opposition and to put the entire democracy in check.

P - We are now entering the final stretch of the legislature. If it depended on your parliamentary group, in these remaining months, what initiatives would you like to accelerate?

R - The truth is that the Government doesn't want to govern; look, we've gone more than three years without new budgets. Therefore, the only thing my group would unblock right now is a call for elections to give Spaniards a voice and to form a new parliamentary makeup from which a new Executive will emerge that will erase all the abuses of the one we unfortunately continue to suffer.

At this moment, there is no bill from the government of Pedro Sánchez that is more important or more imminent than the immediate call for elections.

P - Bearing in mind, as you know, that the calling and dissolution of the Courts is an exclusive competence of the President, what would be the main areas you would like to work on in these remaining months?

R- The PP has always been open to listening to the proposals of those who truly seek to improve the lives of citizens, and since Sánchez arrived at Moncloa, that has taken a backseat. But if there is anyone in the Government of Spain who has an iota of responsibility left, they should seek us out to talk about what truly matters.

If there is anyone in the Government of Spain who has an iota of responsibility left, they should seek us out to talk about what truly matters

I have asked the Minister of Equality in every possible way to transpose the European Directive on trafficking. And the other day, from Los Gallardos (Almería), Feijóo spoke of a State Pact to curb something as tragic as fires. There have been many occasions when the PP has wanted to row along.

P - You mention the Trafficking Law or the State Pact, is there any other matter you would like to unblock in the coming months?

R - They have been demonstrating to us throughout this legislature that they do not want to reach any agreement and that each of the bills that are approved with an absolute majority in the Upper House, as soon as they arrive here, are simply put in a drawer, frozen or a 19th-century desk, to deny citizens their right to decide on their future.

P- And of those initiatives that have been blocked, which ones would you prioritize if it were up to you?

R - I insist, no matter how much you ask me and ask me again, I will not enter the utopia of a Spain that Sánchez has destroyed, which is that of rigorous, serious debate and the use of the Cortes Generales for what they were truly designed for, to approve laws in favor of citizens.

P- The legislative period has just concluded, what is your assessment of your opposition work at the legislative and parliamentary level?

R - The opposition under our new spokesperson, Ester Muñoz, has been absolutely extraordinary, and she had the difficult task of succeeding such an immense politician as Miguel Tellado. Different styles, but the same forcefulness. And beyond the oversight of this government completely riddled with corruption, it has been proactive in all cases and with responsibility.

P - Is there any initiative you are particularly proud of?

R - The permanent denunciation of the failures in anti-abuse bracelets. It is unacceptable that in this country, 5,000 women victims of gender-based violence, who believed they were protected by the system, for whom a judge had imposed a protection measure like the bracelet, knew that they were not working. All due to an absolutely irresponsible tender designed by Irene Montero, and which Ana Redondo assumes as her own.

I also believe that an extraordinary job has been done in highlighting the negative consequences for the fight against gender-based violence of Félix Bolaños' new courts, where all crimes against women were mixed.

And we have stood firm against the government's constant attacks on what is represented by state-subsidized and private education, which, apart from going against initiative, is protected by European directives.

P - Juanma Moreno has been invested president of the Junta de Andalucía after an agreement with Vox, do you think it is possible to govern with this party without accepting part of its cultural and identity agenda?

R - I will only tell you to go through all the autonomous governments in which Vox already participated and which did not move an inch from the policies that are part of the PP's DNA.

But I'll tell you more, I will not tire of thanking Vox for making it possible with their vote in the first term of President Juanma Moreno to remove a PSOE from the Government of Andalusia that had convictions for corruption.

Furthermore, as a convinced democrat, I am not going to question the almost 3 million Spaniards who, according to polls, seem to lean towards Vox. Faced with this reality, I have two jobs: to see how I can improve as a representative so that when they have to choose a ballot, they choose mine, and to try with my policies to be the option that ensures prosperity.

P- Part of the criticism your party is receiving alludes to the fact that you have bought into Vox's discourse. What do you think about the talk of intrafamilial violence?

R - I think that whoever tries to pin that reality on the PP is lying. Machista violence is that which is exercised against women for the simple fact of being women, and intrafamilial violence is another matter, and there is a ruling from the Constitutional Court that also perfectly delimits one reality from the other.

The PP will never speak of intrafamilial violence when what is being discussed is the violence exercised against women for the simple fact of being women.

P - As Deputy Secretary of Equality of the PP, do you feel comfortable making agreements with a party like Vox, which has repeatedly denied homosexual marriage?

R- As Deputy Secretary of the PP, I feel extremely comfortable working alongside a man like Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who in 2006 ran against the law of equal marriage being brought before the Constitutional Court. I can assure you that not a single step back will be taken regarding the rights of the LGTBI collective, and there is the absolute majority of 2011, which in no case questioned the achievement that was equal marriage.

And if you ask Jaime de los Santos, I will say that he has always voted for the PP because it has compensated me. Because being gay is not only having relationships with another man, but taking the subway, taking the bus, paying taxes... It is simply one of my characteristics, but it is not 100% of my reality.

P - And what battles are you fighting from your deputy secretariat at a cultural and ideological level?

R - Well, all the bad consequences of the misnamed 'Trans Law' or the common PAU. It makes no sense that in a country like ours, where any young person can opt for a university in a territory other than their own, they still have to face an exam that is different depending on where they were born or where they are residing.

At the educational level, we also believe that we must recover that hour of reading that, until not so long ago, was mandatory, and that kept us in permanent connection with our language. It made us people who not only knew how to speak, but also write. On the other hand, we want to ensure that the new generations, who will live surrounded by technology, know how to handle it outstandingly but never going against traditional education.

P - 2027 is an election year. With the polls in hand, they will need Vox, but perhaps it won't be enough. Do they have the capacity to negotiate, on the one hand with Santiago Abascal's party, and in parallel with PNV or Junts, whose votes could end up being essential?

R- No, no, no, what the polls say today is that in that large bloc formed by PP and Vox, we would be close to 200 seats, therefore we would be 25 above what is needed for an absolute majority. Any party that aspires to reach the Government would want to do so with a sufficiently broad result to govern alone, and that is what the PP wants.

We live in a country where, until Sánchez arrived, agreements were not only necessary but essential because without them we would not have done that wonderful work that was the Transition. If Feijóo has demonstrated anything outstandingly, it is knowing how to extend a hand. Not only will he be an extraordinary president of the Government, but in those agreements he may be forced to reach, the only thing he will put forward is good politics.