Feijóo refuses to tell the Senate how much he earns as PP chairman until the end of 23-J | General Election 23J | Spain

The leadership of the Popular Party will not respond to the written request made this Tuesday by the president of the Senate, Ander Gil, in which he asks Alberto Núñez Feijóo to update his income and assets declaration presented to the Upper House in May 2022, and in which it does not appear how many money he receives as a director of the PP. «It is a letter signed by the president of the Senate, but written by the PSOE campaign manager. The terms of the law are known for a senator who is part of the permanent deputation,” say the team of Feijóo, who will leave the permanent deputation of the Senate on August 16, one day before entering Congress as a deputy after the establishment of Las Cuts. It will be from then on and within a period of 30 days that the PP will make the amounts public, according to its legal reasoning.

Ander Gil based his request Tuesday on the basis of article 26 of the Senate Rules and 160 of the Organic Law of the General Electoral Regime (LOREG). “Senators have the obligation to complete both the declarations of activities and those of assets and income, not only at the beginning of their mandate and at the end of it, but also when there is a change in the circumstances initially declared, applying for this with a deadline of thirty calendar days from the date of said modification”, reasons the fourth institution of the Kingdom of Spain, the PSOE.

Pursuant to article 26 of the Senate Regulations, and pursuant to article 160 of the LOREG, senators “are required to formulate” a declaration of activity and another of assets. The same precept, in its paragraph 2, specifies: «Both declarations must be formulated at the beginning of their mandate, as a requisite for the completion of the capacity of senator and, likewise, within the term of thirty calendar days following the loss of the post of senator. said condition. or the modification of the circumstances initially declared”.

From the outset, the PP accepted the first meaning of Article 26.2 of the Rules of Procedure (“within thirty calendar days of the loss of said condition”) as a justification for not updating the statement, while acknowledging Feijóo receiving remuneration as chairman of the party, and which they describe as “entertainment expenses”. A reasoning that the popular support also with the request on the table of the Gil (fourth state authority), issued this Tuesday after a formal complaint presented on Monday by the Socialist Parliamentary Group, which appeals to the second part of the article (” o de la modification of the circumstances initially declared”). In addition to underlining that in May 2022, when he entered as a senator and presented his declaration, he already received those sums, given that he had been president of the PP for a month earlier, April of that year.

There is a regulatory vacuum in the legal system, according to various sources of the Cortes, on the possibility or not that a member of parliament can receive an additional salary when he already receives the salary of a senator and a deputy. The law does not contemplate the possibility or otherwise of being paid to hold an organic position in a political party when one already receives a parliamentary salary. And there weren’t even specific pronouncements on the matter. But apart from this legal uncertainty, the PP was warned in March that it had violated Law 19/2013 on transparency, access to public information and good governance. This regulation indicates, in article 8, that the subjects included in its scope of application “make public, at least, the information relating to the acts of administrative management with economic or budgetary repercussions which are indicated below” such as “the remuneration received annually by senior officials and heads of entities falling within the scope of the application”. Its scope includes precisely political parties.

In March of this year, the Council for Transparency and Good Governance, an independent body, sent a formal communication to the Popular Party, to which this newspaper had access. The letter reported having “received a letter indicating deficiencies in the information on the website of this political party in relation to the publication concerning the remuneration of top management in the terms referred to in law 19/2013, of 9 December, on transparency, access to public information and good governance”. And that, upon consulting its website, “said information has not been identified” and has been brought to its attention “for the purposes it deems appropriate”. This newspaper has contacted the Feijóo team to find out if they noticed such notice and their evaluation.For now, is waiting for your reply.

Government spokeswoman Isabel Rodríguez accused in an interview this Wednesday on Castilla-La Mancha television against Feijóo for these events: “This man still sits today in an office paid for with black money, convicted of corruption. Apart from that, public officials have obligations, we have to abide by the rules. There is a transparency law and a Senate regulation, and he should have declared that he collects from the Popular Party. And he didn’t express it until a few days ago, and even though he expressed it, he still doesn’t show it. What don’t you want to tell us?”

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