AM. Next Tuesday, Congress will establish the investigation commission on masks, which the PSOE hopes to preside over

On Tuesday of next week, April 2, Congress will establish the investigation commission on emergency contracts in the pandemic, which was promoted by the PSOE after the so-called ‘Koldo case’ broke out and which the socialists aspire to preside over. It was at the end of February, after information about the plot for which Koldo García Izaguirre, advisor to the then socialist minister José Luis Ábalos, was arrested, when the PSOE registered this commission, which was approved by the Plenary of Congress last Thursday, but without support from the PP, which opted to abstain, or from Vox, which voted against. With it, the socialists intend to examine for four months the anticovid material contracts of the General State Administration, including those in the Koldo case, but also to review the contracting procedures of other public administrations “in order to “study and evaluate possible modifications of state legislation on public procurement to prevent irregularities from appearing in the future.” PARADE OF APPEARANTS DURING ELECTORAL PERIOD And it is in that section of “other administrations” that the socialists intend to take the opportunity to summon regional presidents of the PP, such as Isabel Díaz Ayuso from Madrid, whose partner is being investigated for alleged tax fraud and document falsification. On the other hand, what the PP wants is to demand explanations from socialist leaders who once contracted with the plot, such as the current president of Congress, Francina Armengol, and the Minister of Territorial Policy, Angel Víctor Torres. For its part, Junts wants to call Salvador Illa, then Minister of Health and now Socialist candidate for the Generalitat, as it holds him responsible for this corruption for not knowing about it or for consenting to it. Just 45 minutes after the investigation commission was approved, the Congressional Board met in a meeting called at the last minute to accelerate its implementation, starting by opening a deadline until this Monday for the groups to register their representatives. All of this even before the agreement adopted by the Plenary Session of the Chamber was officially published. And minutes after the registration period closed, the parliamentary groups have already received a call announcing that the new commission will be established on April 2, the Tuesday after Easter, as parliamentary sources informed Europa Press. As stated in the investigation commission’s letter, the PP and the PSOE will have three members each, Vox and Sumar two per head, and the other groups will have a single representative. The PSOE has elected two members of the Finance Commission, the president, Alejandro Soler Mur, and the socialist spokesperson, Juan Antonio González Gracia, and the third place has been reserved for Mercedes González, who was a councilor and Government delegate in Madrid, where he was involved in several political confrontations with both the mayor, José Luis Martínez Almeida, and the regional president, Isabel Díaz Ayuso. For its part, the PP has chosen its leader Elías Bendodo as spokesperson, who will be accompanied by Macarena Montesinos, general secretary of the Popular Group, and by José Vicente Marí, spokesperson for the Finance Commission. And Vox has named two of its deputies most critical of the PSOE, the Valencian Carlos Flores, spokesperson in the Constitutional and Foreign Commission; and Jorge Campos from the Balearic Islands, spokesperson for Territorial Policy and Cooperation. PSOE AND SUMAR, MAJORITY ON THE BOARD In next week’s constitutive session, the Presidency and the rest of the positions on the Board will be elected (two Vice-Presidencies and two Secretaries). PSOE and Sumar aspire to the majority, with three seats compared to two for the PP, which is the usual scheme for parliamentary commissions. The Socialists also aspire for one of their three representatives to occupy the Presidency, which requires the support of the rest of the Government’s parliamentary allies. And once the commission is established, a period will open to approve a work plan and propose appearances, which will only go ahead if there is a majority behind it. Congress already has three other investigative commissions established, which the PSOE agreed with Junts and ERC in exchange for the vote of the independentistas to gain the majority in the Congressional Board. They refer to the jihadist attacks committed in Catalonia in 2017, the espionage of pro-independence politicians with the Pegasus program, and the so-called ‘operation Catalonia’ to discredit political adversaries from the Ministry of the Interior of the first Government of Mariano Rajoy. None of these commissions have been able to get started, they are in the phase of agreeing on the work plan and approving appearances, but everything indicates that the parade of appearances of these Catalan commissions and the new one on contracts will coincide in the middle of the electoral cycle with elections Basques on April 21, Catalans on May 12, and the Europeans on June 9. Until this legislature, the parliamentary groups in Congress always argued that it was not possible to have so many investigative commissions working at the same time. In 2020, it was the PP that asked to create a Joint Commission (Congress-Senate) to investigate hiring in the months of the pandemic, but then the PSOE and its allies rejected it. What was created was a study commission to approve recommendations for “reconstruction” after the pandemic.