Podemos claims Spanish right-wing wants UK-like ‘explosion of racism’
Spain’s right-wing Partido Popular, the far-right VOX and the far-right SALF, led by controversial agitator Alvise Pérez, want an “explosion of racism” in Spain like the one that took place in the UK in early August, the secretary general of the far-left Podemos party said on Tuesday.
These three right-wing parties want “the same thing to happen in Spain as in the UK,” Ione Belarra warned, referring to the xenophobic attacks launched by several far-right groups in the UK in early August following the murder of three young girls in the town of Southport on 29 July.
The spread of fake news stories attributing the attack to an asylum seeker triggered the riots.
“Spain does not have a problem with immigration. It has a very serious problem of racism,” Belarra told a parliamentary committee, Euractiv’s partner EFE reported.
The Partido Popular (PP), the main centre-right opposition force to Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez’s (PSOE/S&D) government, has called for the Spanish prime minister to appear in parliament urgently to explain what measures the left-wing executive plans to take in the face of Spain’s severe migration crisis.
Podemos (The Left) currently has four MPs sitting in the Spanish parliament and two MEPs in the European Parliament.
VOX is the third largest force in the Spanish parliament, with 33 MPs. At the EU level, it has six MEPs sitting in the European Parliament and is part of the recently formed far-right Patriots for Europe group). The SALF party, the big surprise of the last European elections, has three MEPs in the EU Parliament.
Belarra’s harsh words come at a very tense political moment. The hot potato of irregular migration is one of the main issues confronting the right, the far right, and the left.
Meanwhile, the President of the Canary Islands regional government, Fernando Clavijo (of the centre-right Coalición Canaria), on Monday invited the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to visit the region to see first-hand how it is dealing with the serious migration situation and to ask for extra help from Brussels to deal with the humanitarian emergency.
In a letter to Von der Leyen, Clavijo and the regional government asked the European Union to become more involved in finding a lasting solution to the migration crisis and to “look at the southern border of the continent”, EFE reported.
Sánchez looking for cooperation with Africa
To ease tensions, Sánchez embarked on an official trip to Mauritania, Gambia, and Senegal on Tuesday. The trip aimed to strengthen Madrid’s cooperation with these countries and promote ‘circular migration‘, a system whereby people are recruited in their country of origin to work temporarily in Spain and return home at the end of their contracts.
Senegal has already signed such agreements with Spain, but Sánchez wants to strengthen them. Mauritanians and Gambians are also expected to sign up.
Sánchez was due to sign the first of these agreements on Tuesday in Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania, where he visited in February with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
During that visit, they announced more than €500 million in aid to facilitate the country’s fight against irregular migration.
Mauritania has been severely affected by the dire humanitarian situation in the Sahel region and is currently hosting some 200,000 refugees from Mali.
(Fernando Heller | EuroEFE.Euractiv.es)
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