The Minister for Digital Transformation and Public Function, Óscar López, has described as "crude and intolerable" that the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, and the far-right "mix" those who mobilize peacefully in the streets in defense of rights and "a better world" with the authors of the serious damage and looting in businesses recorded last Saturday in Barcelona, events that, he has emphasized, will be "paid for." In his view, Feijóo has had "a bad day" after confirming Lula da Silva's victory in Brazil because "now comes" Pedro Sánchez's in Spain.
López has closed in Bilbao a presentation day of the Future Government Center, an initiative of the Japanese multinational NTT DATA "conceived as a reference space for analysis, innovation, and collaboration around the future of public management." The event was also attended by the Lehendakari, Imanol Pradales, the president of the Generalitat of Catalunya, Salvador Illa, the president of the Junta de Andalucía, Juan Manuel Moreno, and the one from the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo.
In statements prior to the media, the minister emphasized that both Illa and the mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni, have been "very clear" regarding the serious incidents and crimes on Saturday in the Catalan city, originated after a call on social networks, which "have nothing to do with demonstrations of people in the street who are defending a better world."
"I think what is important is that those responsible pay. I have had the opportunity to discuss with President Illa that dimension with social networks, because something needs to be done with them, it cannot be that they provide shelter to those who are calling to commit crimes," he emphasized, insisting on the need to act against these calls.
Referring to the more than 120 detained for the disturbances, he pointed out that "it is important that anyone who breaks the law and commits crimes knows that they will pay for it," demanding that "action be taken accordingly" so that what happened does not go unpunished.
"I hope no one wants to confuse that, because I already hear the PP and the far-right, confusing it with people who go out to the street to defend pensions or housing. There is nothing in common between those committing an intolerable crime and people who defend a better world in the street," he reiterated, marking a distance between social protests and vandalistic acts.
In relation to the statements of the president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, who linked the Executive of Pedro Sánchez with the disturbances and claimed that "they are resisting to abandon power with violence and that they have lost the street and want to set it on fire," López has responded that he finds it "truly crude and intolerable to mix people who go out to the street to defend education, to defend healthcare, to defend housing, in a calm and serene manner" with a "truly strange call."
Reaction to Lula's victory in Brazil
Furthermore, he pointed out that "it will be necessary to investigate the origin to know everything" about these "kids who have come together to commit crimes." "Do not confuse one thing with the opposite," he replied to Feijóo, before stating that the leader of the popular party "is having a bad day," upon contemplating "the progressive victory in Brazil" and that "now Spain is coming."
"First Lula and then Pedro Sánchez, progress is advancing in the world, fortunately, despite all that ultra wave. What we have seen in Brazil has been excellent news, and after Brazil, Spain will come," concluded the minister, linking Lula da Silva's triumph with his expectations for the continuity of Pedro Sánchez's project in Spain.