The accountability expected from the Minister of Defense, Marguerite Roblesregarding the use it makes of its funds for reserved expenses, was left half-finished this Tuesday in the Congress of Deputies, in what ended up seeming … mass an exercise in obscurantism that of the transparency required by the law which regulates the use of this budget.
The meeting was called for 1 p.m. in the reserved expenses committee, commonly called the official secrets committee, knowing that it should rise at 3 p.m. because the spokespersons of the parliamentary groups should go to the plenary session of the Congress.
In addition, the agenda included not only the specific explanation of the use of the reserved funds that Robles owed to the Lower House since she was minister – the law obliges her to do so every six months – but also a complex point to satisfy ERC on the relationship between the CNI and the mastermind of the Las Ramblas attacks in Barcelona and Cambrils in 2017. The National Intelligence Center depends on the Ministry of Defense.
The consequence was that at the end of the scheduled two hours, the representatives of the four main parties present in the House had not yet intervened: Ester Munoz (PP), Patxi Lopez (PSOE), Pepa Millan (Vox) and Enrique Santiago (Sumar), as ABC learned from sources present during the appearance.
The session had to be adjourned despite being unfinished and the Minister of Defense will have to return to this body to complete a accountability that not only comes years late but, in an unprecedented manner, had to be interrupted and will take place in two stages. The forecast is a new call on January 13.
The two hours planned were only enough for Robles’ initial explanation and the interventions of the five spokespersons for the small parties: Nestor Régo (Mixed Group), Maribel Vaquero (PNV), Mertxe Aizpurua (EH Bildu), Miriam Nogueras (Together) and Gabriel Rufian (ERC).
Robles has been Minister of Defense and political leader of the CNI since Pedro Sanchez He arrived at Moncloa in 2018 and until today he has only attended the reserved expenses commission twice, so he has many explanations waiting.
The first time was on February 25, 2019, during a session in which the then first vice-president, Carmen Calvo, and the Minister of the Interior, also appeared. Fernando-Grande-Marlaska. His second appearance took place on December 16, 2022.
Since then, she had not come there despite the biannual mandate of the law which regulates reserved expenditure and that requests for explanations from the Minister of Defense accumulated during the last legislature for different cases such as spying with Pegasus on the President of the Government and other ministers -requested by the PP-, the cessation of CNI investigations into the activities of terrorist groups in the Basque Country and the reduction of troops dedicated to monitoring activities secessionists in Catalonia -claimed by Vox-, and the use of reserved funds -requested by a key partner of the government like the PNV-.
All these requests declined with the advance of the July 2023 elections without ever taking place, despite the fact that the Basque Group’s request dated from February 2020, more than three years earlier.
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