'And what difference does it make to me', a plan drawn up by the BATAPLOF and followed by Minister Margarita Robles
With his visit today, 28 December, to the Spanish military forces deployed in Iraq, President Sánchez concludes a plan hatched by the Battalion of Advisors of the Moncloa Palace, known as BATAPLOF. I am told that one of its qualified members has christened the operation " And what difference does it make to me", although its official name remains secret.
- Signatures without contractual value
- One lime and one sand: a silent farewell to the Loyola Barracks in San Sebastián
Operation " And what difference does it make to me" is aimed directly at the Armed Forces, of which the head of the Executive is its commander-in-chief. Yes, the President of the Government is at the top of the National Defence pyramid and holds the political and strategic direction of the joint military structures of the army, air force and navy. It is a very high function that is generally unknown, that most of his Cabinet ministers do not know about or want to forget, and that even the president himself often plays "the Swede".
So it is no coincidence that for the past two weeks, Pedro Sánchez and the head of his Defence portfolio, the magistrate Margarita Robles, have been lavishing special care on the military and the national defence industry. Their intention is to sow sympathy and try to capture voting intentions among their members, their families and their social environment, in accordance with the plan drawn up by the BATAPLOF.
Operation "And what difference does it make to me" began on 16 December, when Sánchez went to the Ferrol shipyard of the state-owned company Navantia under the solid pretext of contemplating the cutting of one of the first steel plates that will shape the future frigate F-112, the second of the four new warships for the Spanish Navy.
Although it is scheduled to be launched in 2027, it seems that the BATAPLOF has been looking for an excuse so that the president could be present on the weekend radio and television news in Galicia, and take pictures without a tie, jeans and turtleneck jumper in a large military shipbuilding factory. Why and what for? Simple.
Signatures without contractual value
The reason for Pedro Sánchez's flirtatious and casual visit to the Ferrol shipyard was to bring the Galician PSOE candidates for the regional elections next February to the fore. His aim, I am told by an insider in the BATAPLOF, was to ingratiate himself with certain groups, give a pat on the back to the trade unions and sow voting intentions among workers and small traders and entrepreneurs of the broad economic environment generated in Galicia by the construction of the frigates in Ferrol.
The second stage of the operation "And what difference does it make to mea" took place on 19, 20 and 21 December at the headquarters of the Ministry of Defence in Madrid, located at Paseo de la Castellana, 109, just over a hundred metres from Real Madrid's "Santiago Bernabéu" football stadium.
There, at the Defence headquarters, not in the middle of the Bernabéu pitch, the Secretary of State for Defence, Amparo Valcarce, for three days in a row has signed one, two, three, four, five and even six times on protocol documents, with no contractual or administrative value whatsoever. The aim was to inform the civilian and military national defence community of the efforts made to move forward with the contracts that have just been signed and the workloads that the industry is about to start.
A few hours earlier, it was the Deputy Director General of Procurement, Air Intendancy Colonel Efigenio Caminero, who was the real authority at the Directorate General of Armaments and Material (DGAM) to sign the contracts that begin the SILAM rocket launcher programme, the construction of two hydrographic vessels, 16 C-295 patrol aircraft, the H-135 helicopter simulator, the new Combat Support Vehicles and the purchase of 500 Mistral 3 missiles. Colonel Caminero is the one who actually exercises the delegated powers to contract, which with good intentions, but with no legal value whatsoever, he had pretended to commit the SEDEF.
Amparo Valcarce has had many and varied reasons for playing her gracious role of scattering millions of euros in the national defence sector. In addition to receiving clear instructions from the BATAPLOF, she has made good use of the funds already released but not yet spent in 2023; companies, armies and the Navy are grateful to her for bringing forward new weapons systems and she is the protagonist for having achieved this, which is only natural.
One lime and one sand: a silent farewell to the Loyola Barracks in San Sebastián
It could be that, with the foreseeable reshuffle of the Executive just around the corner and taking advantage of the imminent departure from the Government of the First Vice-President and Minister of Economy, Nadia Calviño, Minister Margarita Robles, the woman who placed her in the post of SEDEF, may also want to make herself heard before the approval of the Amnesty Law, and there may be a readjustment in Defence that displaces Valcarce from her post. We shall see.
On Monday, 18 December, the day before the shopping marathon began, the same Amparo Valcarce had ordered the managing director of the Institute of Defence Housing, Infrastructure and Equipment, Brigadier General Sebastián Marcos, to sign the transfer of the city's main barracks to San Sebastián City Council. This is the payment in kind assumed by the BATAPLOF and accepted by Margarita Robles, of an agreement that the Sánchez government concluded three years ago with the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), in exchange for their votes to be able to approve the State budget for 2021.
To finish off the "And what difference does it make to me" operation on national soil, on 22 December, while the children of San Ildefonso were singing the numbers and prizes of the Christmas Lottery, the senior officers of the Armed Forces had already won the jackpot.
For the first time this year, President Sánchez held a meeting and protocol lunch at the Moncloa with the Chief of Defence Staff, Admiral Teodoro Lopez Calderón, and with the chiefs of staff of the Army, General Amador Enseñat; the Air Force, Javier Salto; and the Navy, Admiral Antonio Piñeiro. Minister Robles attended, and I am told that Pedro Sánchez astounded the military with his extensive geostrategic knowledge of the current global chamber concert... and so on.
And on the morning of the 24th, following the itinerary set by the BATAPLOF, the president attended a videoconference with the heads of Spanish missions abroad. He thanked the senior commanders and the heads of the units deployed outside Spain's borders for "the magnificent work carried out by the Armed Forces". These are gestures, such as today's visit to the soldiers in Iraq, for which he should be thanked. It is a pity that, as is well known and as the newspaper archives show, the facts and sayings of this personage have a value that usually ranges between 0 and -1.