From the Spanish Space Agency to the State Agency for the Tortilla de Patatas (Spanish Potato Omelette)

It seems that it was a mistake. No one in the government of President Pedro Sánchez admits it or denies it. But the indications are that it was a voluntary or accidental slip by Iván Redondo, who at the time of announcing the initiative was acting in his capacity as Moncloa's strongman and acting as "run, go and tell him". 

The assignment that the director of the Prime Minister's Office had received from Sánchez on 27 May was to anticipate to the parliamentarians of the Joint Commission on National Security that the Council of Ministers was willing to set up the Spanish Omelette Agency. But instead of those words, a different one came out of his mouth: that the Spanish Space Agency was to be created. What was he thinking? Some say that the revelation was premeditated, in order to commit the Executive to setting up an organisation that would be responsible for defining the non-existent national space strategy.

Others deny it. They claim it was a mistake. That he had woken up early, that he had then been stunned watching a film from the Star Wars saga and that during his speech in Congress he was still drowsy. In principle, the slip-up was perfectly acceptable. It was not serious. With the government and even President Sánchez himself accustomed to saying white and a few hours later black with a straight face, undoing the gaffe did not seem to be an insurmountable obstacle. After the summer, the matter is much more serious.

While Spaniards continue to wait for the announced Space Agency to become a reality, ministers have been informed of the real plans regarding the Spanish Potato Omelette Agency. Also known as the Spanish omelette, the discussions have been bitter, because what distances ministers affiliated or sympathetic to the PSOE from those who embrace the dictates of Unidas Podemos is the great question that separates the two Spains: the potato omelette... with onion or without onion?

The fights over this issue have been and still are heated. It is said that there have been bitter disputes that have led to moments of almost coming to blows. There have even been some attempts to pull each other's hair out. There is no consensus on the name to be given to the Agency. The Second Vice-President and Minister of Labour, Yolanda Díaz, as a prominent member of the Communist Party of Spain (PCE), is trying to force it to be called the State Agency of the Tortilla de Patatas "La Pasionaria", whose acronym would be AETPASIO.

The Minister of Labour argues that during Dolores Ibárruri's privileged exile in Moscow, the president of the PCE would treat the Spaniards who went on pilgrimage to visit her to a dinner based on potato omelette. "Dolores, the best potato omelette I have ever eaten in my life," some would say. What hands you have for cooking," smiled others. But not all of Yolanda Díaz's co-religionists agree with her criteria.

Some ministers are in favour of the name Agencia Estatal de la Tortilla Española (AETE). A few are in favour of the name of the Spanish Omelette Agency. As Spain is a "nation of nations", well... It is said that the current Minister of Culture, Miquel Iceta, has proposed calling it the Catalan-Vascan-Andalusian-Asturian-Castellan-Extremeña-Galician-Valencian and other Spanish Omelette Agency. But the proposal has been discarded not because of its length, but because the high officials of Unidas Podemos do not seem to be in a position to repeat the Autonomous Communities and Cities that make up Spain. 

The Minister for Equality, Irene Montero, has brought up the fact that all the key elements of the recipe, such as the potatoes, the frying pan and the salt, conform to the gender ideology of feminine terms. But not the eggs and oil, which are sexist. So one of the Agency's tasks would be for the egg to be renamed la huevo or la hueva and the oil to be known as la aceite or la aceita. In this way, both products would be properly democratised and the entity could be called the Agencia Estatal de la Tortilla de Patates (APATATES). The suggestion is seconded by Ione Belarra, loyal colleague and Minister for Social Rights.

The new Agency also provokes disagreements at the negotiating table - excuse me - at the dialogue table set up between the national Executive and the pro-independence autonomous government of Catalonia headed by a Catalan of long lineage, Pere Aragonés García. The president of the Autonomous Community north of Valencia does not want to miss the opportunity for big business and has proposed that its headquarters be established in Barcelona and have the character of the Interterritorial Agency of the Tortilla de Patatas (AITP).

The Minister of Defence, Margarita Robles, and the Minister of Science and Innovation, Diana Morant, the recently arrived ex-mayor of the ducal city of Gandía, have also weighed in on the controversial issue. In a meeting held just a few days ago between the two, accompanied by senior military commanders and directors of the Centre for the Development of Industrial Technology (CDTI), the Defence Minister was reportedly keen to stress to the replacement for astronaut Pedro Duque that her portfolio should form part of the future Agency. "Spanish troops are walking the tortilla de patatas (Spanish omelette) in foreign lands... even in Afghanistan," she is reported to have said.

The Spanish Omelette Agency, or whatever it is finally called, will be structured in at least four general directorates: oil (virgin olive oil, of course), potatoes, frying pans and eggs. The last one is opposed by the vegans of the purple formation and the young women of the group "Almas Veganas", who accuse the roosters of raping the hens. The big fight is whether or not to create a fifth directorate, that of onions. And even a sixth, that of salt. And even a seventh, as some add courgettes, garlic, asparagus, etc....

The president of the Autonomous Community of Aragon, Javier Lambán, with the support of all the parliamentary groups that make up the Cortes de Aragón, has already stated that he aspires for the new entity to be located at Teruel airport. From there, cargo planes with ultra-frozen tortillas would leave for destinations all over the world. What Lambán is not saying is that he wants the onions for the tortilla to come exclusively from the town of Fuentes de Ebro, which has a designation of origin. 

According to rumours circulating in the Presidency of the Government and also in the PSOE headquarters in Calle Ferraz in Madrid, the unveiling of the creation of an Agency to promote the Tortilla de Patatas has a political background of international scope. On the occasion of the Brussels summit of NATO political leaders in mid-June, Sánchez wanted to report on his strategic operation. He wanted to convey that the progressive government in Madrid was going to focus its COVID-19 recovery efforts on investing in the promotion of the tortilla de patatas and not in a Space Agency, as Iván Redondo had mistakenly spread the word.

Pedro Sánchez also wanted to put pressure on Biden to divest from his space agency, NASA, which spends too much and earns too little. But there was no time to explain. It was prevented by the less than one-minute stroll the two presidents took through the main lobby of the Alliance's headquarters. He did, however, raise it with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson. He urged him to disband the UKSA - the UK's NASA - and urged him to abandon beans, scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast.

"Go for the potato omelette," Sanchez urged him. Boris is said to have replied that space activities offer "navigation, weather forecasting, live and on-demand television, financial transactions and lots of good public services. So, no, Peter. The Spanish president went off the deep end and replied that tortilla de patatas "is one of the healthiest and juiciest recipes in the Mediterranean diet". Incidentally, nothing is known about what happened to the breakfasts at 10 Downing Street.

Fine, but will there be a Space Agency or an Omelette Agency in the end? To answer this question, several facts must be taken into account. Firstly, President Sánchez has never made a statement on the matter. Secondly, no high-ranking official has said "this is my mouth" since the beginning of June. The third point is that Iván Redondo's announcement came at the end of May, when he was Sánchez's right-hand man. And the bluntness of it all. The president restructured his executive at the end of June and the man who was considered to be his greatest strategist was dismissed. Consequently, either the Spanish Space Agency has disappeared with Iván Redondo, or it will see the light of day who knows when, or, on the contrary, the State Agency for the Tortilla de Patatas will become a reality.