Valladolid (EFE).- About a thousand people have gathered this Saturday at the Millennium Summit in Valladolid, summoned by the UGT and CCOO unions, to defend the Statute of Autonomy of Castilla y León from the “attacks” they attribute to the coalition of government of the PP and Vox and to request its compliance.
Political parties, agrarian organizations, feminists, neighborhood movements and LGTBI associations have thus commemorated the 40th anniversary of the Statute of Autonomy.
This was stated during their speeches by the top regional leaders of the CCOO, Vicente Andrés, and of the UGT, Faustino Temprano, who have emphasized that the commemoration of the Statute really “is today”, February 25, and not yesterday, in reference to the act institutional that welcomed the Cortes, where they saw “decay” and “dismantling” of its content.
In several of the interventions they have appealed to the need for this act of protest and “resistance” to continue in the coming months, with events such as International Women’s Day on March 8, Castilla y León Day in the countryside of Villalar de los Comuneros (Valladolid) and the First of May, among others.
Blame it on Mañueco
“Mañueco is mainly to blame for agreeing with the wrong person,” Vicente Andrés summed up the compromised situation in which he sees some of the rights enshrined in the Autonomy Statute, although he added that the danger is that this is “a rehearsal” of what can happen in Spain if PP and Vox add up in the next general elections.
This thesis has been endorsed by several of the participants in the act, such as the first president of the Board (1983-1986), Demetrio Madrid, -the only one present at the act yesterday in Parliament-, and the current regional leader of the PSOE , Luis Tudanca, who has spoken of an “experiment” towards which “all of Spain” looks.
Andrés concluded with a quote from the historic trade unionist Marcelino Camacho, to proclaim to applause: “They didn’t bend us, they didn’t tame us, they won’t tame us.”
Before the act, in statements to the media, the CCOO leader has assured that the Community is “semi-intervened” because the central government has had to order compliance with fundamental laws, such as abortion, but it is also ” budding” the requirement for the Board to comply with the maintenance of SERLA, the guarantee of union activity and equality policies.
For his part, the regional leader of the UGT, Faustino Temprano, has wondered if it is not “themselves” (Vox) who are not dignifying politics, referring to the speech delivered yesterday by the president of Parliament, Carlos Pollán , and that of other representatives of the same party and of the PP, whom he has accused of being “dismantling the Statute”.
“We are going to resist, to continue being on the streets and for rights to be restored,” Temprano also declared.
Defend the Statute, word of Madrid
In his speech, Demetrio Madrid warned that the right in this Community “continues to long for” the existence of a “commonwealth of councils”, because “it is the political base” of parties like the PP and Vox to “be in the kitchens of the towns” and determine who governs in Castilla y León.
Madrid has extolled this “civic” meeting of “simple people” and has compared it with the institutional act that the Cortes hosted yesterday.
“It has given us grimness and sadness,” the former president said about yesterday’s institutional act, before which he asked the organizations gathered today not to fall “into discouragement” and in this “state of power and dominance of the institutions ”. “We don’t have to be scared, rather the opposite,” added Madrid, convinced that it is necessary to “explain to citizens what is happening.”
He has warned of the “desert of ideas and objectives” that is behind the “undoubted attack on the Statute” that in his opinion the PP and Vox are giving, but has pointed out that it is actually “an attack on the Constitution and the Rule of law” that Castilla y León has as its “starting point”.
Tudanca sees an “experiment”
“Everything that happens in Castilla y León concerns Spain,” Tudanca stated, paraphrasing and slightly changing one of Demetrio Madrid’s most remembered expressions.
The socialist leader has warned of those who “wrap themselves in flags and the homeland” but launch “attacks on the Statute”, which in reality are “on the Constitution”, norms that are “guarantee of rights, freedoms and equal opportunities”.
“They want to destroy everything, they come for everyone, for women, for associations, they don’t believe in organized society,” Tudanca summed up, convinced that today’s act is a starting point that reflects that there is “a resistance” and a “hope” to do “politics in another way”.
He regretted that only one former regional president, the socialist Demetrio Madrid, was present at yesterday’s institutional act in the Castilla y León Parliament, which he saw as a sign that “the right has never believed in this land.”
After Tudanca, the regional coordinator of the IU, Juan Gascón, has intervened, who has warned of the policy of complaints and criticism that, in his opinion, the regional government practices, since legitimate criticism of the central Executive does not solve the problems of Castile and Lion.
Gascón has added that it is essential that young people have a vision of claiming rights: “Less looking at the flags and more rights”, has settled. EFE
