The Russians are behind the Science Law that creates the Spanish Space Agency

All the alarm bells have sounded in the Moncloa Palace. President Pedro Sánchez has issued a general alert, has sounded the alarm and has ordered his ministers to look under the rugs, just in case. 

The facts are very serious, almost more so than the war in Ukraine. What has happened? No more and no less than that the ranks of the Corps of State Lawyers that populate Spanish ministries and public institutions seem to be infected by secret agents in the service of foreign powers, who also pass themselves off as officers of the Military Legal Corps. 

As trusted analysts of the National Intelligence Centre (CNI) have confessed to me, a team of so-called "anti-sabotage men in black" has detected what seemed out of place. That possible members of Russian intelligence have sabotaged the draft of the new Law on Science, Technology and Innovation promoted by Minister Diana Morant and her Secretary General for Innovation, Teresa Riesgo.

The most serious aspect of the matter is that, without being aware of the deception, the Council of Ministers of 18 February approved the aforementioned bill, which is already before the Spanish Congress of Deputies. There, it will serve as a basis and reference document to be debated by urgent procedure in the Science, Innovation and Universities Commission, to become a law and an example for Europe, Asia, Africa, America, Oceania, the Moon and Mars, among others.

How was such a blunder possible? First of all, the project should have passed the mandatory and rigorous filter of the State lawyers of the General Technical Secretariat of the Ministry of Science and then the magnifying glass of the rest of the departments. Finally, before submitting it to the Council of Ministers for approval, the Commission of Under-Secretaries should have examined the matter. But the professionalism of the saboteurs has managed to circumvent all barriers. 

The incursion of the alleged Kremlin agents has become evident in the paragraphs of the draft law prescribing the creation of the Spanish Space Agency. Without ruling out the possibility that they could be perfidious activists under the orders of the dreaded governments of Kiribati, Burundi, Lesotho or even China or Papua New Guinea, the CNI has detected the black hand of the espionage network in the third additional provision of the aforementioned bill. 

The discovery was possible thanks to a series of errors by the saboteurs, many of them infiltrated in the General Technical Secretariat of the Ministries. How was the sabotage uncovered? First and foremost, because the person who was in charge of setting up the agency seems to have abandoned it and those who have taken over from him do not know the way forward.

And secondly, because the spies have given themselves away by raising suspicions with their serious limitations in writing in Spanish. Alarm bells went off when CNI analysts read the following sentence in the draft: "The general aims of the Spanish Agency are, among others...". The head of the anti-sabotage group jumped up and shouted, "What is this?

The agents were astonished that before expressing a single purpose to be fulfilled by the Agency, the expression "among others" was prefixed. They took this as clear evidence that the perfidious spies were trying to neutralise the still-nascent Space Agency.

Another serious error identified by the astute CNI technicians was the complete absence of the verbs "to direct" and "to propose". The attempt to undermine the attributions entrusted to the future Agency was so obvious that the saboteurs wanted to prevent the new organisation from becoming a directing body. "The Spanish Space Agency should not be in charge of anything," they intercepted one of the infiltrators in a conversation. Nor is it assigned the capacity to propose, for example, to propose the National Space Strategy to the government. 

Another aspect that aroused the suspicions of the Spanish men in black was that the Space Agency is no longer under the sole control of Diana Morant's Ministry of Science, as it had been in the draft bill. It now falls under two portfolios: Science and Defence. CNI members noted that the national coat of arms of the Russian Federation is a double-headed eagle and tied the knot. A Space Agency that depends on two Ministries... a double-headed eagle on the Russian coat of arms... ergo they are almost certainly Russian spies.

The saboteurs have not changed the phrase in the preliminary draft that "the creation of the Agency should not entail any increase in public expenditure". However, they have added that its future statute should "guarantee the balanced presence of the different ministerial departments with competences in the matter in the governing bodies of the Agency". And that, in addition, a Space Agency will be founded? Undoubtedly, a real manoeuvre to provoke the bewilderment of the Spanish and international space community.

But that is not the end of it. The first section of the third additional provision is a long and cumbersome paragraph of 230 words, peppered with expressions without order or order, without head or tail, with a total of 22 commas (,) and without a single full stop (.). In short, a text that provokes the most absolute disorientation. It reads as follows: "Among other purposes, the future Space Agency will be assigned....". WARNING. Further reading may affect the reader's vital signs. If so, please read very slowly.

We continue: "The Spanish Space Agency is assigned... the promotion, execution and development of research, technological development and innovation in the field of space, national security and defence, outer space operations, satellite applications for the development of departmental competences, as well as the use of data provided by satellites, and the technological and economic impact of the industry associated with the design, construction, operation and maintenance of satellite systems, the strengthening of the national space industry... and on and on and on and on...".

To conclude. I welcome the discovery of the sabotage network, although the culprits have yet to be caught and punished. For my part, it only remains for me to add that the general aims to be fulfilled by the Spanish Space Agency should include... "and also two boiled eggs".

This is the famous line from the well-known cabin scene in the Marx Brothers' 1935 film 'A Night at the Opera'. If you get the chance, don't miss it and you'll burst out laughing. Returning to the subject, I remain confident that their lordships and ladies and gentlemen will not miss this golden opportunity to specify the crucial goals to be assumed by the Spanish Space Agency, but may I ask: who is now calling the shots?