Neither the president, nor the ministers who suffered attacks, nor the Minister of the Presidency, nor the Minister of Foreign Affairs. The Government has given a sit-in to the European Parliament delegation that will travel to Madrid next Monday and Tuesday to investigate espionage with the Pegasus program on leaders of the Catalan independence movement and external cyberattacks on members of the Executive. No leader from the first row will receive the committee of MEPs. Neither did the president of Congress, Meritxell Batet, who has delegated to the Defense Commission, nor the Ombudsman, Ángel Gabilondo, who has referred him to Andrés Jiménez Rodríguez, director of the Security and Justice area of his body.
The feeling that some of the members of the delegation have is that the idea is going to be transmitted that they are being given the slip, which may arouse suspicion regarding Spain's commitment to this scandal. They had demanded to see Pedro Sánchez, the Minister of the Interior, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, and Margarita Robles, Minister of Defense, since the three suffered espionage with the Pegasus program, as they themselves recognized.
Also to the head of Agriculture and former ambassador to Morocco, Luis Planas, who was the victim of a failed attack. And to the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, to ask him what measures the Government plans to take to improve protection, as well as José Manuel Albares, Minister of Foreign Affairs, to talk about the "external dimension of espionage" and possible foreign interference.
All of them have so far declined -the program is not considered definitively closed, just in case- their presence. Instead, the MEPs will only meet on Monday, for one hour, with the Secretary of State for European Affairs, Pascual Navarro. In the parliamentary delegation they understand that Sánchez will be preparing the motion of censure for the following day, and that Tuesday the 21st is therefore a bad day for both the ministers and the president of Congress, but the sources consulted assure that they were explicitly offered " accommodate” the meeting to the place, day and time that the ministers wanted. In fact, on Monday the 20th there have been constant schedule changes based on confirmations. And the members of the Executive would have had priority.
In this way, the agenda of the European delegation is clearly unbalanced towards the pro-independence version. Because? Because the MEPs will meet not only with some of the people spied on - with judicial authorization - in 2019, but also with their counterparts from the investigation committee of the Catalan Parliament.
On Tuesday, just as Vox's motion of no confidence begins, the delegation will meet with the President of Catalonia, Pere Aragonès, as well as the Generalitat's Foreign Affairs Minister, Meritxell Serret, and Barcelona City Councilor Ernest Maragall (ERC candidate for Mayor), all of them spied on with Pegasus.
Before that, on Monday afternoon, they will meet with several Catalan regional deputies: Óscar Aparicio (PSC), Montserrat Vinyets and Xavier Pellicer (CUP), Lucas Ferro (En Comú Podem), Marta Vilalta and Josep Maria Jové (ERC) , Albert Batet and Josep Rius (JxCAT) and Alberto Tarradas (Vox).
That same afternoon, the members of the commission will meet with three journalists from the main newspapers in Spain. Before, they will hold a meeting with Virginia Álvarez, head of the Human Rights area of Amnesty International, and with Patricia Goicoechea García, director in Spain of Rights International, as well as with a leader to be confirmed from the Civismo Foundation, according to the latest draft of the parliamentary delegation's agenda.
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