The Minister of Transport, Óscar Puente, and the president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, have become embroiled in a bitter controversy, including an exchange of insults, following the popular leader’s request for the State to declare a national emergency to combat the fires and take command.
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Broad sectors of the PSOE reproach the popular party for resorting to the State with demands for personnel and reinforcements to be sent, when this regional government boasts about tax cuts in public services and even maintains an open conflict with forest firefighters, who demand labor improvements to carry out their work.
Puente called Ayuso a “clown” and the national leadership of the PP described these attacks as “miserable,” which is why they demanded the Executive focus on offering “loyal cooperation and all available resources to control” the “national emergency” declared on Friday night.
The spark for the clash was ignited by the Government delegate in the Community of Madrid, Francisco Martín, who, in an interview on Cadena SER, questioned Díaz Ayuso’s request (“the declaration of operational situation 3 of national interest”).
He expressed disagreement that such a significant decision would be settled with “a three-paragraph letter or a tweet.” And he asked her to “justify” whether the request was due to “technical incapacity,” “operational incapacity,” or “because the evolution of the emergency will not be able to be controlled by the services of the Community of Madrid.”
Ayuso declared yesterday that there is “good” coordination between administrations in the serious fire devastating the southwest of the region and lashed out at the “clowns,” asking them to “stop the nonsense” and focus on “getting to work and saving lives.”
Her words were countered by Puente: “You know a lot about heating up the atmosphere. It’s what you live for. Now you ask for help from the very government you spend your life insulting and discrediting. If there’s a clown in Spain, that’s you,” Puente snapped on his ‘X’ social media profile.
Puente lashed out at the autonomous communities governed by the PP for requesting help from the military emergency unit (UME) to extinguish forest fires while reducing taxes on the rich.
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“The UME is now the new fire extinguishing service for the autonomous communities governed by the PP. They reduce taxes on the rich, shrink public services, and then ask the Government to solve their problems,” he added on his social media. He even denounced that the popular party “signs government pacts in which they deny climate change.”
Questioned about these words, Díaz Ayuso said she “completely ignores” them. “We are only here to acknowledge those who are helping, to seek everyone’s collaboration, and afterwards we will return to the same old skirmish,” she stated.
Later, the president merely replied that “if he has so much free time, he should lend a hand,” and warned him that controversy is “unnecessary” at this time. When asked if she had already been able to speak with the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, she assured: “No, we haven’t spoken yet.”
The deputy secretary for institutional regeneration in the PP, Cuca Gamarra, accused the minister of engaging in “political attack” and “muddying” the situation, asking him to stop tweeting and dedicate himself to what he should be doing, which is making the trains and infrastructure of this country work, she said. For her part, PP deputy secretary Alma Ezcurra also called for “loyal cooperation between administrations, maximum coordination, and all available resources to control the situation as soon as possible.”
Ezcurra criticized the Government for not having the 14 planes committed to fighting the fires (it now only has seven), which has forced it to ask Europe for help.
Meanwhile, about 60 forest firefighters in Madrid are on strike because they are not recognized for their category or their supplements, nor, they say, are they allowed to carry out prevention tasks in winter and fire extinguishing tasks in summer. The strikers have urged the Madrid Ministry of Environment to convene a negotiation table to address labor improvements.
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