José Luis Ábalos: "I will consider resigning with my party, not because the PP asks me to. I am not accused of anything"

MADRID, 24 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The former Minister of Development, former secretary of organization of the PSOE and current socialist deputy, José Luis Ábalos, has stated that he is "always at the disposal of the party", so his possible resignation due to the Koldo case is determined by the organization: "I will think resignation with my party, not because the PP asked me to do so. I am not accused of anything."

He indicated this in an interview in El País, collected by Europa Press, where he highlighted that his "accusation is political and media, not judicial", after the arrest of his advisor Koldo García Izaguirre for a case of bribes in contracts of purchase of masks during the pandemic, when Ábalos was in the Council of Ministers.

This interview is published a day after the first vice president of the Government, Minister of Finance and deputy general secretary of the PSOE, María Jesús Montero, alluded this Friday to explicitly say whether Ábalos should resign his seat in the Congress of Deputies due to the investigation into her former advisor, although Montero stressed that she knows what she would do if she were in Ábalos' place.

On this issue, Ábalos has stressed that Montero's words do not mean that he has opened the door for him to leave the record. "She has not said that. She has only said that she would know what she has to do," replied the former minister.

Although at the end of the interview he added that "he doesn't have to intuit things", since he has been secretary of the organization and is now "older".

"Things are made clear to me. I am always at the disposal of my party. I have always defended my party, I have been loyal. But I am not involved in this case. We will see how this ends. They are asking me for resignation for something in which I do not figure. I will think about it with my party, I am not going to make a decision alone," Ábalos indicated.

On the other hand, he stressed that he has to "defend himself against the accusations, not the right-wing campaigns", when asked if he has decided to leave his deputy's record. Furthermore, he has stressed that he "is not mentioned" in the complaint and that he is not accused. "I'm not accused of anything."

Precisely, the former minister has pointed out that in said complaint "he states that the contracting procedure was correct, with market prices, with transportation included, well below those of the Community of Madrid for example" and that he has not profited from these mask contracts and has even gone so far as to claim that he now has less assets than when he "entered" as minister.

And as to whether he has spoken with the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, he has responded that no, that it is not going to bother him, and he added that he knows what he thinks, what he expects and that, for his part, Sánchez "knows" that he He is loyal.