González Pons: "National-populism has taken hold in the United Kingdom"

Esteban González Pons, spokesman for the Spanish delegation of the People's Group in the European Parliament, is attending Atalayar's programme on Capital Radio to discuss this week's most important issues in Brussels. Starting with Boris Johnson's decision to go ahead with the English Internal Market Act, we will also talk about the coronavirus crisis, the economic consequences and how we are going to face these challenges in Spain.

Good evening Esteban, thank you very much for your attention. To begin the interview we would like to know how the reactions have been within Brussels circles to the UK's insinuations to go ahead with the Internal Market Act which violates the clauses of the European Union's Withdrawal Agreement, were the UK already expected to "kick the hornet's nest"?

Good evening! I would say that rather than having surprised us, it has upset the European Union. The chances of the Brexit ending without agreement were very high and we already knew it. In fact, we have been warning about it for months and preparing for an exit without any kind of agreement.

What has happened is more than that: Boris Johnson has announced his intention to breach the agreement he has already signed with the Union regarding the border with Northern Ireland, thus violating international law and putting in check the "Good Friday" agreements that pacified that part of Europe.

With the proposed British internal market law, what is being attempted is to recover Northern Ireland as part of the market by skipping the agreement it has with the European Union and establishing a hard border between the two Irish that cannot have good consequences. This is why many conservative politicians are already saying in public that "if the United Kingdom does not respect international law, how are we going to demand that Russia does so".

Do you think this could be a way of covering up the internal miseries of the UK? Boris Johnson's attack on the pandemic was perhaps not the most brilliant in terms of management efficiency. Or even the serious economic situation, a consequence of the measures that have been taken. Can it be a diversionary manoeuvre?

I don't think so. It is true that the situation there is very difficult, but Boris Johnson is not an opportunist, he is a populist. Brexit carries behind him a political philosophy born of an economic doctrine. Brexit is neither a whim nor a warm-up, but the latest expression of a nationalist and populist movement that has long been established in the United Kingdom.

Continental Europeans find it hard to admit that this time national-populism has settled in the UK and not again in Germany, Italy, France or Spain. This time it is the British. The threat to which we are all being subjected with regard to Northern Ireland is the typical nationalist-populist threat of a Prime Minister who puts national interests before anything else.

On the other hand, it is the same with the economy. All those who think that the UK "will not dare harm itself with a Brexit without agreement" are wrong. It will dare, why shouldn't it? What lies behind it is a political philosophy of an economic doctrine, the aspiration of the Brexit ideologues is to make the UK the 'Great Singapore' attached to the European continent: our great unfair competitor.

I don't think there's a way out, it's not a diversionary manoeuvre. The English are not crazy, they know what they are doing; it is another matter that what they are doing is crazy.

What about Scotland? What can happen to the Scottish state if in the end there is a "hard Brexit" and the Scots pretend (although we will see how they manage it) to be in Europe?

Scotland will be a problem for the UK. In much of the European Union, especially for the Germans and the French, Scotland is going to be the great temptation to respond to what Boris Johnson is trying to do. But we in Spain would have to tread lightly: encouraging independence in a European country is certainly not something which can bring us any advantage.

On the other hand, to offer Scotland the prize of joining the European Union ahead of those who are in the queue simply because they are segregated from the United Kingdom, I do not think that this is a path that is convenient or interesting for us Spaniards either.

Scotland is going to be there, but it is a move that Spain should avoid and, for the good of all, promote the principle of respect for the territorial integrity of States.

Yesterday, Sunday, former British presidents Blair and Major demanded, in an article in The Times, that Johnson comply with his international commitments. They asked the British Parliament to withdraw the law that is in the process of being approved for this "tough Brexit". (Minutes after this interview, the British Parliament passed the above-mentioned law with (340 votes in favour to 263 against). Do you think a "tough Brexit" is now inevitable?

We are installed in the "Ojala". 

"I hope everything is a bluff", "I hope everyone is playing the game of 'whoever lifts their foot off the accelerator'", "I hope they believe that, as always, in the last negotiation of the last night, almost at dawn, the EU will give in".

We're settling into the "hopefully", but everything points to a tough Brexit. The break will be absolute and the United Kingdom will be, from 1 January, like North Korea for trade purposes for us.

They want to become the Greater Singapore of the Union, they will be unfairly competing with us, they will be dumping on us, and they will be making it very expensive for us to access their waters. They seek a privileged relationship with the United States and believe that an unfair neighbour has everything to gain from the bureaucracy of the European Union.
 

What sensation has been left in Brussels by the EUROSTAT report that talks about Spain being the last in everything (management of the pandemic, economy, fall in GDP of 18.5%, destruction of jobs...? 

Well, the European Union has many problems on its plate. The Spanish economy today is one of them, but not the most pressing one. 

At the moment the borders are again being closed in a random way, putting Schengen in check; we are beginning to have outbreaks of coronavirus, and some worse incidents, in the refugee camps; the tension between Greece, Cyprus and Turkey is even growing so as to justify the convening of an Extraordinary Council in September...

Let us say that the Spanish economy is among the concerns, but not among the urgent ones. It is obvious that we Spaniards are very concerned about the next budget, but I have the impression that we should be more concerned about this budget. 

Revenue, with this fall in GDP, can only sink in the last quarter. And with a collapsed revenue, the problem is not how we make the 2021 budget, but how we close the 2020 budget. We will have to think about what cuts we make in 2020 in order to close this budget. 

On the other hand, with regard to the recovery fund from which 140 billion euros will come, all countries are already working on their country and recovery programmes. But we are not yet. 

The Government has told the lie that this recovery programme is linked to the general state budget. They have turned the debate on the recovery plan into the debate on the budget. Therefore, it is not only that the Spanish economic situation is very bad, but that it is worse in the present than is being announced. 

Spanish politics is poisoning everything, including the solutions that are waiting from Europe for us to breathe again.

It is true that there are still no projects. In fact, last week the President of the Government, in relation to the criteria with which the famous 140 billion is going to be distributed, spoke of "installing lifts in buildings that do not have them and in which people with reduced mobility live". These projects are fundamental for a society like ours.  But are these the projects that must be carried out and designed to receive the 140,000 million?

Well, the money may never come. The process does not involve a man with a lorry loaded with millions appearing at the Bank of Spain on 1 January.

Firstly, it is not clear that the draft recovery plan has been definitively approved. The Council has approved a project and this week Parliament has to give its consent. Parliament is demanding that conditionality be established out of respect for the "rule of law". If this happens, it is foreseeable that the Council will not approve it again under the conditions in which it was approved.

In any case, after the Council gives it a second approval, it has to go through the national parliaments, which are not 27, but 42. Finally, the European Parliament has to approve, if it is finally approved by the Council, the multiannual financial framework, which is basically what we know as the European budget, and it serves as the foundation for the recovery plan.

And even if all of this were to be fulfilled in the coming months, the Spanish government, within the framework of the European semester, has to present the country plan which has not yet been drawn up and has nothing to do with the budgets. In this, a series of programmes will be presented, and the money will be released when the projects are presented.

At the moment, it is more likely that there will be enough money but that there will be a lack of ideas. There is a report, published in some media, that says that we Spaniards do not consume all the money that we are entitled to from the programmes. This could also happen with this recovery fund.

This is all yet to be written and what surprises me from the point of view of Brussels is that in Spain there is no debate on this issue, which does exist in the other European countries.