The president of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, has reiterated that his wife, Begoña Gómez, resigned from her job when he accessed La Moncloa and rules out that she could have exerted any type of influence simply for being his partner.
In an interview broadcast this Thursday on "La Revuelta" of TVE and disseminated by Europa Press, he emphasized that she already had a "consolidated" professional career when they met about twenty years ago, and defended his model of a country, in which a woman can perform the job she desires without having to "sacrifice her career" for that of her sentimental partner.
Gómez is awaiting trial for alleged crimes of influence peddling and business corruption, although Sánchez has always maintained that she is innocent. "Red lines have been crossed with people I love, my wife and my brother," he emphasized this Thursday, describing the situation as "tremendously unfair" and warning that he will "always fight for the innocence of two people who are innocent."
The head of the Executive has recalled that, before he was elected secretary general of the PSOE in 2014, she was already collaborating with the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) and developing her professional work in a private company.
After the motion of censure against Mariano Rajoy prospered in 2018 and he assumed the Presidency of the Government, Gómez informed him "without consulting" that she was leaving her job. Sánchez detailed that, despite this, she maintained her collaboration with the UCM for "15,000 gross euros per year."
As he recounted, the thesis of part of the judiciary would be that, "for being the president's wife, just for being the partner, she already has the capacity to influence without you even asking for it," something he strongly disagrees with.
At this point, he questioned whether this approach would imply that the wife of a president "cannot do anything." He insisted that "I don't want that country, I want a country where, within the legality, a woman can work in whatever she wants and does not have to sacrifice her work life for the life of her partner."
He also emphasized that "my wife not only has the right to work in whatever she wants, but she stopped working because I am president of the Government, this is the most contradictory and paradoxical aspect of this case."
He declares himself "frozen" by the Ábalos case
When asked about some of his biggest mistakes at the head of the Executive, Sánchez referred to the episodes of "corruption" that have affected the PSOE and, in particular, the former minister José Luis Ábalos, sentenced by the Supreme Court to 24 years in prison for various corruption crimes.
He has assured, however, that he never had signs that made him suspect his behavior. "Really not, there you think you know people and suddenly a face is revealed in certain collaborators that leaves you frozen and that is the case of Ábalos."