The Popular Party has accused the Executive on Tuesday of stopping and preventing the visit of the opposition leader, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, to the Spanish troops deployed in Latvia as part of the NATO mission and coinciding with the first anniversary of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia. A fact that the formation, through a statement, calls “unusual”, which is why it demands La Moncloa to reconsider his decision.
The Ministry of Defense, in this regard, ensures that the maneuvers of the Spanish contingent at this time are “very complicated”, for which reason they prohibit the president of the PP from traveling to the area so as not to “distort” the work of the military. However, popular sources assert to EL MUNDO that Feijóo’s team transferred to Defense its offer to change the dates of the trip if it hindered the course of the troops’ actions. But that the response, at the request of the Presidency, was that in an election year it is not allowed to visit the Spanish deployment in Latvia.
“No Spaniard can understand that the opposition leader is denied a meeting of encouragement and support with the Armed Forces deployed abroad,” the popular consider through the letter released this Tuesday. In fact, the PP assures that, in previous legislatures, the Government allowed other political leaders to visit the troops deployed outside our borders, which is why it defines this veto as “incomprehensible”.
The Government, for its part, hides behind the sensitivity of the operation in which the Spanish military is working in Latvia to justify rejecting the visit of the opposition leader: “Mr. Feijoo will always be very well received in any military unit, but not when that military unit is carrying out operations that could distort the visit”, the Defense Minister, Margarita Robles, considered in this regard.
“The visits must be planned so that they do not distort the operations being carried out” by the troops on the eastern flank of the Atlantic alliance, Robles specified in response to the PP statement. In this sense, he has assured that “all military units always have the door open to all Spanish citizens, because we understand that the armed forces do not belong to a political party, but to all Spaniards”.
For this reason, he has regretted that the popular leader, with his attempted visit and subsequent complaint, tries to engage in “partisan politics” with the Armed Forces that operate in Latvia together with units from other NATO member countries.
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