In case there is still any doubt that the election calendar is indicative of political action with an eye to the voting day of this Wednesday, March 15th, the President of the Government Pedro Sánchez worked on this with the board during his tenure. … Intervention in the Parliamentary Assembly. There he had to speak, among other things, about the management of public services in Spain, and in that regard he saw heaven as opening to be able to refer to the actions of other municipalities, more specifically that of Castile and León. Thus, the fire and sanitary controls implemented by the Autonomous Government of Alfonso Fernández Manueco became the subject of their criticism, amidst the massive protests by the PP members present in the chamber.
“Mr. Manueco burns those mountains. This summer more than 56 million trees were burnt, and with them the homes, farms and businesses of hundreds of Castilians and Leonans. Lies, absences and ashes,” Pedro Sánchez shouted in the branch addressed to Castilla y Leon, “how to do” the elections. “In 2022, the Sierra de la Culebra burned, in 2024 the mountains of Astorga burned, and in 2025 Las Medulas burned.In none of these cases was the judgment of Mr. Manueco or yourself (according to PP Party President Alberto Nuñez Feijó).”
The President of the Government provided data that the Council had “reduced public investment in forest protection by 20 percent,” but this statement caused dissatisfaction from the People’s Commissars, who forcefully denied it. He also attacked Environment Minister Juan Carlos Suárez-Quiñones, saying it was “surprising” that “someone who says it is wasteful to maintain a budget for forest prevention and care” is still head of the department. And he continued to ensure that the administration of Castile and Leon handed over 40 percent of firefighting services to private companies and introduced corrosive temporality to the surveillance system by air means.
According to Pedro Sánchez, in this scenario, “when the disaster happened this summer, the thunder reminded them of Santa Barbara.” As a result, he claimed, “they denied all responsibility, even though forest management is the exclusive responsibility of the communities.”
Another target of the PSOE Secretary-General’s criticism was the health sector, in this case to ensure that “199 million euros in Castile and León were diverted to private health care” of the additional funds allocated by the state to communities for investment in public services. In the face of this, he said: “The Coalition government has invested an additional €300 million in public service autonomy over the past seven years, but there has been a weakening and divestiture of public health in areas ruled by the right.” “They want services to be degraded and waiting lists to be long until people have no choice but to pay with their tax dollars or their own money to go to private clinics,” he said.
The response to Pedro Sánchez came from Health Minister Alejandro Vázquez, who asserted that “despite the noise that always follows the president of the government, Castilla and León speaks in numbers,” which shows that “Castilla and León is the third region to devote the smallest percentage of its budget to health concerts,” Icar reports. This fact prompts comparisons with Catalonia, where President Salvador Illa “served as Minister of Health with Pedro Sánchez” and where the Catalan government “leads the spending on the national health insurance agreement with 21.7 percent, almost €3.5 billion.” “An example of PSOE’s privatization policy” that Mr. Vázquez applied to the states of Castilla-La Mancha, Asturias, and Navarra.
“It is clear that the government’s intervention in Congress is just another smokescreen to cover up the numerous corruption cases surrounding the party and the government,” Vázquez concluded.
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