If there is still any doubt that the electoral calendar represents a political act, with the focus on the date with the ballot boxes on March 15, the Prime Minister, this Wednesday, Pedro Sanchez did this with the Board of Directors during his tenure … Interference in the House of Representatives. He had to speak there, among other things, on the administration of public services in Spain, a point at which he saw the skies open to refer to the actions of the other autonomous regions, and, more specifically, those of Castile and León. In this way, the fire and health management carried out by the autonomous government of Alfonso Fernández Manico was the subject of their criticism, amid loud protests by the PP deputies present in the Assembly.
“Mr. Manueco is letting those mountains burn. More than 56 million trees have burned this summer, and with them the homes, farms and businesses of hundreds of inhabitants of Castile and León. “Lies, absences and ashes,” shouts Pedro Sánchez in his chapter addressed to Castile and León, where he asserts, in the electoral “situation”, that “in 2022 the Sierra de la Culebra burned, in 2024 the Astorga mountains burned, and in In 2025, Las Medulas burned down. In none of the cases did Mr. Manyueco or you (represented by the President of the People’s Party, Alberto Nuñez Viejo) measure up to “.
The Prime Minister presented his data stating that the Council “reduced public investment in forest protection by 20 percent,” a statement that sparked complaints from the Popular Committee, which strongly denied it. He then attacked Environment Minister Juan Carlos Suarez Quiñones, calling it “astonishing” that “the person who says that maintaining the budget for prevention and forest care is a waste” remains at the head of the administration. He went on to ensure that the Castile and León executive handed over more than 40 percent of fire services to private companies and introduced destructive timing into aerial surveillance systems.
With this scenario, according to Pedro Sánchez, when “disaster struck this summer, remember Santa Barbara when it thundered.” The result, he said, was that “they denied all responsibility, even though forest management is the exclusive responsibility of local communities.”
Health was the other target of criticism of the PSOE Secretary General, in this case to ensure that “in Castile and León, 199 million euros were transferred to private health” from the additional funds that the state allocates to the community for investment in public services. In the face of this, he said that “while the coalition government has invested an additional 300,000 million euros in autonomy in public services in the last seven years, where the right rules, there has been a weakening and selling of public health.” He added, “They want services to deteriorate and waiting lists to lengthen so that citizens have no choice but to go to the private clinic, with them paying its costs from everyone’s taxes or from their own money.”
The response to Pedro Sánchez came from the Minister of Health, Alejandro Vázquez, who emphasized that “in the face of the hype that always accompanies the head of government, Castilla and León speaks with figures” that show that “it is the third community that allocates the least percentage of its budget to health concerts,” according to Ecal. It is a fact that encouraged comparison with Catalonia, whose president Salvador Illa was “Minister of Health under Pedro Sánchez,” and whose government leads “spending on health care agreements in the country by 21.7 percent and nearly 3.5 billion euros.” “An example of the privatization policies of the PSOE” that Vázquez extended to Castilla-La Mancha, Asturias and Navarra.
Vazquez concluded by saying: “It is quite clear that this intervention by the head of government in Congress is nothing more than a new smokescreen to cover up the numerous cases of corruption surrounding his party and his government.”
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