Manuel Gavira Florentino He is a deputy for Cádiz in the Parliament of Andalusia and spokesperson for VOX since the last legislature. He has already spent more than three years at the Hospital de las Cinco Llagas (headquarters of the Andalusian Legislature) where he has not met a president of the PSOE Board.
At the head of the third party in Andalusia, he has gone from being an “external partner to the government” to acting as an opposition member of the party that lives in the Palacio de San Telmo, the PP, and of the theoretical opposition, the PSOE. From “forcing” the popular ones to act and not having “any deal” with them.
After these years as spokesperson for VOX in the Parliament of Andalusia, he is a veteran in the chamber. How do you assess the evolution of the role of his group in the politics of the region?
VOX was decisive for the political change in Andalusia. In the December 2018 elections, the Popular Party had the worst result in history. In fact, if the conditions that occurred in that December with the emergence of VOX, with those 12 deputies, did not occur, the change in Andalusia would not have been possible. Since then, we guarantee the stability of the change of government in Andalusia.
The 2022 elections gave the Popular Party an absolute majority and we went from being an external partner to the government to the opposition. And that is what we have been doing with a group in which there are deputies from the previous legislature, people with experience.
What remains of those agreements between the PP and VOX that made Moreno Bonilla president of the Board?
The Government of Moreno Bonilla is approving things agreed upon with us years ago. It’s a bit late. For example, it recently released some lines of guarantees for the acquisition of homes by young people in Andalusia that was agreed with us, such as tax reductions.
At VOX we are very clear about the measures needed to ensure that Andalusia stops being in the back car. The Popular Party is more timid and is bringing things that were signed with us years ago. Even some that are already a little obsolete. Without going any further, so that young people can access housing. We are talking about those measures being fine at the time, but now we must continue to evolve and move forward.
Does the PP take credit for those VOX measures that it now implements?
We just have to take out what was written in those budget agreements. But the important thing is not to take credit, but rather that they are measures that may be useful now, but many of which are no longer useful, because the situation has evolved in recent years and the economy in Andalusia is not good.
We have to continue adjusting because Andalusia, I insist, is in the last car. We are already accustomed to the PP not recognizing what was in some budget agreement, but we will continue to remember that it is late.
When you talk about your land, you regret the delay, the economic situation, the lack of effective measures… In your opinion, what are the main problems of Andalusia?
The poorest neighborhoods in Spain are in Andalusia, the poorest cities in Spain are in Andalusia, the cities with the most unemployment in Spain are in Andalusia, 83% of the municipalities in Andalusia are in the lowest income bracket in Spain… . It is unquestionable. Nobody will be able to say that I falsify reality or that I lie, because you simply have to go to the indicators.
With a situation like this we can hardly be “the locomotive of Spain”, which is what the Popular Party says. He even sells PSOE slogans, like that one Andalusia unstoppable. The problems that Andalusia has are the same as those that existed in the socialist era. The same.
They will tell you that you are exaggerating…
The responses of the administration itself to the problems of Andalusia are the same as always. In healthcare we have eternal waiting lists and a lack of professionals recognized by the Government itself. In education, the PISA reports are out and Andalusia is at the tail end. Castilla-León, where there is a government with VOX, at the head. Depending on the situation, we also have waiting lists like nowhere else.
We continue to lead the unemployment rates in Spain, with an unaffordable administration, about which there is a lot of talk about its reduction, simplification of procedures… and it has more and more public employees. Another broken promise. If we add to all this that the primary sector is getting worse and worse due to these policies that Brussels forces us to adopt… The situation in Andalusia is not good, but the Government has a great propaganda and advertising machine, and says that Andalusia is unstoppable when it is not.
So what has changed in Andalusia since Moreno Bonilla is president of the Board?
The only thing that has changed in Andalusia is that before the socialists ruled and now, the popular ones.
The PP lowered the fiscal pressure a little and it was thanks to VOX in the previous legislature. Today the news is that they are preparing the “seventh fiscal revolution”, which consists of several reforms. One was the reduction of the suspension of the water fee; another, the suppression of the Wealth Tax, with the excuse of linking it with the Personal Income Tax, but the Sánchez Government has determined what the tax on the rich is and Moreno Bonilla has brought the Wealth Tax back to Andalusia. They won’t even be able to link it anymore. We are talking about a tremendous marketing operation.
In addition to strictly political management, in terms of propaganda and treatment, do you see big differences between the PP and the PSOE?
We do not have any type of relationship with the PSOE, except mere parliamentary courtesy in the plenary sessions and in the committees, but with the Popular Party in the previous legislature, we, I insist, were an “external” partner. So, to ask and approve any issue they needed our consideration, because otherwise they obviously did not have our support. In the previous legislature, the Popular Party had to be forced to act. We have no deal in this one, we have lost it.
For example, this summer, before August, Mr. Moreno Bonilla said that Abascal’s party scared him more than Bildu. I made an effort for a month and did not respond, but I knew that at the beginning of September he would call me as always for the photo, to sell a false image of dialogue, of consensus with the groups.
I remember that when the doors were closed, the first thing I did was discredit those statements about someone who made him president. The relationship with the Popular Party is not the same. That man was president thanks to VOX and if a similar circumstance ever occurs, the treatment will not be like in the previous legislature, because we have already learned that they are capable of selling themselves in order to be in power.
How did Moreno Bonilla react?
He stay quiet. He didn’t expect it. I was much harsher because there are things that cannot be tolerated and he crossed a line that we will not forget. If the Popular Party thinks that with VOX the situation can be redirected in Andalusia, it will have to be with much kinder treatment.
We hoped that this warlike spirit of the Popular Party with VOX would continue during these months, which is in fact what is happening. It will help us not have the same relationship again because we already know what they are like. We take the arrogance of the Popular Party in Andalusia very badly, and we are not going to forget what has happened or those statements.
Although it seems evident that the PP in Andalusia, as in the rest of Spain, is more comfortable with the PSOE than with VOX, Moreno Bonilla demands a conference of regional presidents without a clear reason. Does the Board use it to oppose Sánchez?
Moreno Bonilla is in a national key, to succeed Feijoo and enter into that dispute of the popular throne. He is in it, it is very evident. He moves Parliament, Andalusia and the activity of the Government of Andalusia in those parameters.
For example, normally in Andalusia the debate on the state of the community is held in the second half of October, not because it is established by regulation. What did? Postponing it until Sánchez took office. The same thing happens with the Conference of Regional Presidents. Nothing will come from there that will force Sánchez, but he is in it, in the race to succeed Feijoo.
In the agreement on Doñana, Moreno Bonilla and Sánchez did seem to understand each other…
The bill from the Popular Party and VOX is not the first. In fact, VOX registered an initiative much earlier, and has been warning and saying what was going to happen. The PP wanted to join in with its machinery and they proposed to form a joint effort, which would obviously succeed because it has a majority. We, who are responsible and above all have a clear idea of resolving the injustice that was committed against the farmers of Andalusia with that socialist decree of 2014, reached that agreement. What happen? Well, the Government of Spain has used all its machinery, all its pressure through sanctions on farmers.
We are talking about people who have been working for decades and whom a socialist decision leaves outside the law. The Sánchez Government puts pressure on the farmers, telling them that if this law goes ahead it will file an appeal before the Constitutional Court that would paralyze the execution of this bill, even if it is approved in the Parliament of Andalusia. Once the Government of Spain and the regional government put their apparatus to work, the farmers are between a rock and a hard place, and decide to reach an agreement that is the lesser evil. But they know two things. They know that VOX was the main promoter of this initiative, which is really theirs, and they know that they also have a bill signed by VOX in the Parliament of Andalusia in the event that the Government of Spain and that of Moreno Bonilla do not comply.
What is your position on the water? Drought is constantly talked about in Andalusia, the focus is on citizens, especially farmers, who are the ones who must change their way of life. On the other hand, those who know say that there is still room for three or four large reservoirs and, in fact, there are some built that lack pipes…
Province by province. In Huelva there is no problem of drought, there is no problem of lack of water: there is a need for water infrastructure, which in many cases is already approved even by national budgets and which has to be executed, such as the Alcolea dam, the San Silvestre or the regrowth of del Agrio.
In Granada, the Rules reservoir. The people of Granada say that it is the largest swimming pool in Europe, a work completed 21 years ago. In the last 21 years, popular and socialist groups have passed through Spain, and there is still a lack of pipelines to bring water to farmers.
In Jaén there is another similar one, the Siles dam. Moreno Bonilla, during the 2018 election campaign, said that his first decision when he was president would be to make the pipelines for the Siles dam. They are still waiting.
In Almería, which is often said to be the desert of Spain, there is the Sapo pond, which has water, but it is thrown into the sea because the machinery is needed to remove the salt to be able to take it to the farmers.
The last thing that Moreno Bonilla says now is that he is going to go to the European Union to request that the funds that arrive from Brussels be allocated to these infrastructures. They are going to tell him that he has unexecuted works and part of the budget unexecuted.
When one listens to certain politicians it seems that the future of Andalusia depends on the 2030 Agenda, that there is no alternative. There is?
Either we want countryside or we want Agenda 2030. If Agenda 2030 is chosen, the countryside of Andalusia dies and, behind the countryside, Andalusia dies.
You talk to farmers and they tell you about the CAP and the “nature restoration” laws. There is the intention to return nature to the state that they believe was its original state. You talk to ranchers and they tell you about animal welfare laws, more requirements, more bureaucracy, less production. There are fishermen who are already asking for help to scrap their boats after the latest sectoral agreement in the European Union.
The primary sector in Andalusia, which is very important, is going down the drain due to the policies of Brussels and the 2030 Agenda. In June there is a possibility of changing these EU policies. We will be able to choose if we want Andalusia and its countryside or the policies of the Popular Party and the Socialist Party.
Many Andalusians feel that their vote served to bring change to their land with the departure of the PSOE from the Presidency of the Board, but neither the data nor their experience say that this was the case. What would be a real change for Andalusia?
Recently the news was that Moreno Bonilla raised his salary with the excuse that he is one of the lowest paid presidents and wants to be equal to the average. We, in a simple analysis of logic, have registered an initiative in the Parliament of Andalusia so that health spending is exactly the national average: 17,000 million euros, not the current 14,000 million.
Education in Andalusia continues to lag behind. More and more ideology. For example, Flag Day has been celebrated on December 4 for a year. Then there are content campaigns linked to ideological laws. That’s what wastes time at school.
The Administration must be reduced. It is not normal that they promised it and there are more and more officials. And, of course, the primary sector, which is the support of Andalusia, because the industry is becoming less and less.
They are in the “you take off and I’ll put on and we’ll both continue doing the same thing.” And that is what happens in Andalusia. To anyone who tells me that Andalusia changes, I will tell them that not in health care, not in education, not in employment, not in the primary sector, not in industry, not in administration. Explain to me where the change is.
