José Manuel García-Margalo: “The transition blessed normality and now we live in abnormality”

José Manuel García Margalo (Madrid, 1944) does not stop. His MP agenda keeps him at a furious pace these days, combining a trip to the Greek island of Crete with another in Lesotho as an international observer of the African country’s general elections. In between, he barely spends a few hours in his home in Madrid, giving them interviews about his latest book: “Spain in its Labyrinth” (Almuzarra, 2022), which he is writing with Fernando Eguidazu and which is presented as a book. An analysis of the mistakes that, in his opinion, squandered the legacy of the transitional period and made Spain a worse country.

One of the main conclusions of your book is that, because of what you call a “holy transition,” any past time in this country was better.

Until 2003, we were doing very well. It was Spain that entered the European Union, entered NATO, entered the Euro, we held Ibero-American summits, organized the games… These are the years when Spain regains its confidence and that’s it. does not exist any more. What was done during the transition period was normalization. Suarez said: Make normal at the level of the law what was already normal at the street level. And so the transition from dictatorship to liberal democracy is achieved. The idea of ​​that time is normality and now we are blessing abnormality again.

Do you understand that there are generations of leftists who believe that their parents have given up too much and that, in some ways, the transition is pending?

This is the thesis of Pablo Iglesias.

Not only from Pablo Iglesias…

According to this thesis, the transition operation was for the Francoist elites to maintain power disguised as liberals and democrats. Sapatero also had this vision, but there are many Sapateros…

He devotes a good page to him and paints him almost like an extreme left-wing politician.

The problem is that in 2003 Sapatero turns PSOE into a radical party. The climate of understanding between the renewed PP and the socialism of Felipe González was going very well, but Zapatero does two things: he keeps all the power in the PSOE, he gets rid of the internal balances that Felipe touched and he stops being social. The Democratic Party in the classic sense to make it the radical party we are now. He decides to lead those groups who have felt discriminated against at some point. And that is feminism SuperradicalEnvironmentalism Superradical, supporting minority religions with the Alliance of Civilizations. And, above all, the great drama of Spain: the territorial model. He believes the transition is an operation overseen by the Sabers and it hasn’t gone as far as it should have gone.

And isn’t it obvious to you that Sabralos had a hand in all of this? There was a coup attempt, there were murders by the extreme right, ETA…

I was there and I don’t think so.

He talks about Democratic Memory as one of the elements that he believes led to the distortion of Spain in 1977. Why can countries that also suffered from extreme right-wing dictatorships, such as Germany or Portugal, allow themselves to honor their victims. And democratic memory, not us?

is not true. It is not set on the same terms as here. In Spain, the Franco regime was condemned in 2002, Aznar became president…

It was an institutional statement in Congress.

unanimously, right?

Today, of course, this will not even be possible.

I do not know. The fact is that Francoism was condemned and in terms of helping the victims, this is what everyone supports.

Not all.

Well, it’s been a time of absolute abnormality since 2004, because before there were two central and focused parties that could understand each other. Now looking at all of this and saying that even Felipe Gonzalez was a Franco and all things considered before 1983 is that this is the northern lights. I can understand why Franco was removed from the Valley of the Fallen, because he was a symbol of an era that no one wants to return to.

Well, nobody, nobody…

I mean, everything that is being done is purposefully polarizing society.

But I don’t understand why honoring the victims of a dictatorship polarizes society. Shouldn’t everyone be on this?

Not if we all agree on that.

Not one of them yet.

Well, PP yes.

Rajoy said “zero euros” for the law of democratic memory.

This is different. And what he should have done is cancel it and respect the victims. The problem is the intent with which it is being done, which is a challenge to what we have built since 1977.

The book deals with the end of bipartisanship in Spain and its causes. do you miss

Yes.

He has no doubts, he is a militant bipartisan.

absolutely. This is the history of Spain. We’ve always done poorly with shredding.

Don’t you think the end of bipartisanship did any good?

I’m ready to tell you what.

For example, lower level of corruption.

oh yeah Here we see the ERE case…

The business of ERE was bipartisan and if I hurry, unipartisan…

True, hegemonic partisanship. But I don’t think that corruption is related to bipartisanship, and honesty is related to multipartyism. This is an equation that doesn’t work.

Do you think we are slowly moving towards restoring bipartisanship?

I think so. It already seems that it is not working. The government unwittingly withdrew the most important laws from the legislature. It took our MP, who is with Marx and Lenin in the mausoleum of heroes of the proletariat, to approve the labor reform, the resolution of the European funds was removed by Vox… The big reforms that this country needs cannot be done. Will play on the plates every morning. What is happening is that we are going through a very difficult situation with the consequences of the financial crisis, the Covid crisis, the Ukraine war crisis… It is ruining all the governments that are in charge. Everyone is ready to vote for the government. The problem is: who do you vote for? Here you have a lot of offers that we mentioned in the book related to the TV offer, which increases the abundance of opinions.

More thoughts means more trouble, right?

The fragmentation that tries to keep its opinion one hundred percent is bad. In this fragmentation, those who come to dominate the field intellectually are the extremes. The PSOE is watching what’s left of it and we’re watching what happens with Vox. And this is happening all over the world. fragmentation and polarization. What does it translate to? Chaos, absolute ungovernability.

And what do you think of the primer?

I am not very enthusiastic about the primer.

You are a regular at PP.

Yes, it turned out normal. Primers often divide parties and simplify messages. Apparently, in this policy, what doesn’t fit in a tweet doesn’t count.

Reading the book it is quite clear to me what he thinks of Zapatero and Pedro Sánchez and also that he admires Gonzalez, Aznar and Rajoy. What would be your preference out of the last three?

Each experienced a different historical moment. I would put all three first.

I ask about the melon. As a member of the European Parliament and well acquainted with the European far-right, what are your concerns? Are they as dangerous as they seem?

Disorder is always dangerous. Salvin, who is pro-Russia, will be in this coalition. I think everything is very dangerous.

It is about transition. What state of health do you perceive in the monarchy?

The constitution speaks of the unity and permanence of the country, and a monarchy is better for that than a republic. And the value that the monarchy brings to our foreign policy is enormous. The deterioration of the institution was due to private conduct, it is true. But the current king is managing the difficult situation with a good hand. And most importantly: the alternative solution is infinitely worse. I don’t even want to think that Pedro Sánchez was the President of the Republic. This will be an agreement.

Would you like Felipe Gonzalez better?

no one. I believe that the president cannot be from a party, he must represent the country as a whole.

Just five years have passed since the October 1 independence crisis. Do you not appreciate the current government that the situation related to the independence movement in Catalonia has nothing to do with the situation when you ruled?

The process failed because it could not be assigned another destination. Regarding the role of the government, there was a general who said that peace is always possible because all you have to do is surrender. You leave the apparatus intact in terms of education, media, remove funding controls… and they have a very clear motto: patience today and independence tomorrow. That’s why they admire Sanchez as they gradually move towards independence.

The poll says that every day that Pedro Sánchez is in power, there are fewer supporters of independence, and every day that you are in power, there are more.

is not true.

All surveys show this.

At the parliamentary level, ERC, Junts and CUP have a majority…

I talk to him about people for or against independence. And they dropped by 20 points.

Because independence is not a problem now.

Ah, good.

I truly believe we are in a worse position here.

What should Feijoo do to become president?

which he does.

What are you waiting for?

It is not right that you are doing this. He proposed five great covenants. Saying you do nothing is a lie.

Source: El Diario