I would like to write the most temperate words this morning to specify what I think and feel on the subject of wiretapping. Perhaps the best summary of his outcome is a press headline: “Sánchez dismisses the director of the CNI for spying on the government. The head of the Executive plans to redirect the clash with ERC at a future meeting”. That is to say: 1. the decision belongs to Sánchez; 2. the alleged cause of the removal of Paz Esteban is espionage to the Government (the president, Robles and Marlaska) and not listening to the secessionists, and 3. the objective pursued with the removal is to please Esquerra to save the legislature . To which it must be objected that points 1 and 3 are correct, but that point 2 (the reason alleged by the Government for the dismissal) is not true. The real cause is not espionage on the government, but espionage on Catalan separatists. Why do you lie looking for a subterfuge (the sudden and false denunciation of some wiretapping to the Government, which had been known for a long time)? Very simple: because the ultimate responsibility for espionage on the Catalan secessionists lies with the Government and, specifically, with its president, Pedro Sánchez. I then try to order my thoughts:
1. The National Intelligence Center (CNI) has a double dependency: organic, from the Ministry of Defense, and functional, from the Presidency of the Government, which periodically receives from it the guidelines to which it must subject its action, through a National Directive of Intelligence (with a list of objectives) signed by the President of the Government. The actions carried out in compliance with and development of these objectives are subject to prior judicial authorization in the cases provided by law. As a result, the only client of the CNI is the Government, and that the only recipient of the information obtained by the CNI is the Government. Therefore, the espionage of the Catalan secessionists carried out in accordance with the law is not the responsibility of the director of the center, Paz Esteban, but of the President of the Government, although he claims to be unaware of this case, since it was carried out in accordance with the directive then in force. For this reason, this espionage has not been alleged as a cause for the dismissal.
2. The National Cryptologic Center (CCN), dependent on the CNI, is the only State agency with the capacity to detect the infection, reported ad hoc, of the cell phones of the President and the Minister of Defense, and for this reason this failure as cause for dismissal. But, when stringing together the montage, it was forgotten that the CCN can only check the phones that are given to it in accordance with the rules for the use of mobile phones in Moncloa, prepared by the Information Technology and Communications Unit of the Presidency of the Government. . From which it turns out that the CNI and its director are totally oblivious to this matter.
3. The dismissal of the director of the CNI has no cause. It’s tactics: pure bad politics. It seeks to please ERC, rebuild the relationship with this party and thus prolong, as long as possible, the legislature. Is this gesture enough? Maybe for a while, but only as long as it suits Esquerra. You can’t please those who don’t want to please.
4. The Minister of Defense should have resigned in protest at the dismissal of Paz Esteban. Out of respect for her career, it is better to forget her appearance giving an account of what happened. She will not get over this trance.
5. A possible future Spanish political scenario begins to insinuate itself: a growing populist extreme right (which Vox leads and will lead); a new San Sebastián pact (Pedro Sánchez’s PSOE, left-wing populists, secessionists and their assimilates), and a center that is vacant and that “a voice like Lázaro, waits / to tell him: ‘Get up and go’ ”.
Will Alberto Núñez Feijóo be able to resurrect Lázaro? Perhaps, if he manages to turn the Popular Party into a center-right, pro-European, autonomist party completely detached from Vox. Greater miracles have been seen.
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