PSOE and Podemos plan to activate the fourth investigation commission against the PP in the pre-campaign

It will reopen investigations into the 'Catalonia operation' and will expand the one it already did on the 'Kitchen' plot

MADRID, 4 Dic. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The PSOE and Unidas Podemos plan to activate, in the midst of the pre-campaign of the municipal and regional elections in May, the fourth commission of investigation related to the PP that Congress will open from 2019, specifically the one that will be in charge of reviewing, once again, alleged parapolice plots in the Ministry of the Interior under the mandate of Minister Jorge Fernández Díaz during the first government of Mariano Rajoy.

It was on September 15 when the Plenary of Congress gave the green light to the opening of a new investigation on this matter. Specifically, a proposal from the pro-independence formations, agreed with the PSOE, was approved to carry out investigations into what is known as 'Operation Catalonia' and expand those carried out in the previous year on 'Operation Kitchen'.

But almost three months later, the commission has not yet been constituted and, according to what parliamentary sources have informed Europa Press, the forecast of the two groups that make up the coalition government is not to do so until the next session.

Given that January is a non-working month for parliamentary purposes, it is most likely that this body will not start running until February, which means that the bulk of the appearances of those involved in the investigation will be held in the midst of the pre-campaign.

Esquerra Republicana, Junts, PDeCAT, the CUP, Bildu and the BNG were the ones who promoted the creation of this investigation commission last June, after learning that the Andorran justice system is investigating former President Mariano Rajoy and his former Ministers of Finance and Interior, Cristóbal Montoro and Jorge Fernández Díaz, respectively, for their alleged relationship with the attempts to find out "through illegal means" secret banking information of pro-independence political leaders.

But the initiative was not debated in the plenary session of Congress until after the summer and, by then, new audios from former commissioner José Manuel Villarejo had already been released, pointing to the involvement of the former general secretary of the PP and former defense minister, María Dolores de Cospedal, in 'Operation Kitchen' the plot to spy on former party treasurer Luis Bárcenas in search of evidence linking PP charges to corruption cases.

That is why the PSOE presented an amendment to the proposal for a commission of inquiry so that, in addition to what is related to the so-called 'Operation Catalonia', the previous investigation into the 'Kitchen' would be expanded.

Thus, the commission will finally aim to "investigate the actions of the Ministry of the Interior during the Government of the Popular Party in relation to the alleged irregularities that link senior officials and police commanders, as well as their relationship with possible private networks or pressure lobbies, the possible interference in the sovereignty of other countries and the connections of this plot with the so-called 'Operation Catalonia'".

This new commission of investigation will be added to the two previous ones carried out in Congress on the so-called police 'sewers' in the stage of the first Ministry of the Interior of the Rajoy Government.

The first, on the so-called 'Operation Catalonia' to spy on and discredit the Catalan independence movement, took place in 2107 and, already in this legislature, that of the 'Kitchen' was made. In both cases, and despite the vote against the PP, Congress has already sentenced the political leaders of the ministry of those years.

But it is also that between 2017 and 2019 the Lower House already hosted another investigation, this one on the illegal financing of the PP, a body that was launched when Rajoy was still in government because its creation was one of the commitments that Ciudadanos acquired with the PP to support his investiture. between one and the other,

However, that investigation was closed in 2019 after verifying the impossibility of the parliamentary groups reaching an agreement on its conclusions. While Podemos and Ciudadanos tried to have Congress mandated to leave the polls in April of that year to resume the investigation and summon Rajoy, the PSOE and the PP opposed it.

On the contrary, in recent years Congress has vetoed all the investigative commissions requested into the business of King Juan Carlos and has rejected requests to investigate issues such as the management of the coronavirus pandemic, the abuse of minors in custody The Balearic Islands and the Valencian Community, the espionage of pro-independence politicians with the Pegasus software or, more recently, the tragedy of the Melilla fence on June 24.