Felipe González, about Argentina: "The current state of mind is worse than the crisis" – 06/05/2019

"Felipe is a man of state", a "politician with three conditions": resistance, decision and reflection. A man who led three moments of Spain, that of resistance to the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, the one who participated in the transition and the one who introduced Spain into modernity. With these words and a lot of expectations among the crowds in the Malba auditorium to listen to them, the editor-in-chief of Clarin, Ricardo Kirschbaumsaid Monday morning the former Spanish Prime Minister and former leader of the PSOE, Felipe Gonzalez.

González was the first interviewee in public at the seminar on democracy and development organized by the group Clarín. He started with some jokes about "Felipe". He remembered that he had been "kicked out of government" 23 years ago. very popular because people "forget the mistakes I made". He was referring to the general elections he had to convene and finally lost to the conservative People's Party, José Maria Aznar.

The veteran leader of Spanish socialism, who always manifests himself as someone who insists on the value of looking to the future and working towards it and who is not steeped in the past, wished himself to express his point of view on Argentina. Governor Maria Eugenia Vidal and former Minister of Economy, Roberto Lavagna.

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"I fear that today's politics will be done without thinking. We live with a tweet, which can be great, but there can be a genius among thousands of rainfall, "he said, citing the US president as an example. Donald Trump, who said that "it would complicate us" for their relations with China. "It turns out that China is today more favorable to free trade and the United States more protectionist," he said.

It was only when he covered on average a good part of the public interview that Kirschbaum gave him when González stated that "the state of mind" found in Argentina was "worse than what one sees. " "It is not true that it is the anger of 2001, it is the despair of 2019 ", he said. "In times of crisis, do not confuse moods. Mood today is worse than the crisis, which is serious. But the atmosphere is worse, "he said, showing a significant difference from what happened in 2001 when Fernando de la Rúa's government government took off, with residents in the streets, people in default, a devaluation of poverty after the adjustments of the economy to put the crisis back on track. "The depressed and desperate state of mind has more resistance than anger, "he added.

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Although González claimed that he found it "impertinent to judge what was happening now", he badured that he "worried to see what happens in Argentina". "By intuition, I think that half of the Argentinian population does not want polarization, but it does not know what is in the middle of this polarization", he badyzed in the light of the elections d & # 39; October.

And although, as he said, he does not want to "judge" the current situation, he allowed himself "a single critical slip". "The debate (on the candidatures), it's a very personal debate and there is very little diagnosis"The dominant debate is who can be, not what diagnosis should be made for an answer to appear, which of course must be led and endowed with a team," he continued.

A complete room

In the front row, Felipe González was listened to by Marcelo Mindlin, number one of Pampa Energía; Marcos Bulgheroni, shareholder and CEO of Panamerican Energy; Santiago del Sel, owner of Araucaria Energy; and Luis Betnaza, director of Techint. There was also Hugo Sigman, from the Insud group, and the political world, Senator Miguel Angel Pichetto, the governor of Santa Fe, Miguel Lifschitz; the ambbadador of Spain, Javier Sandomingo; and economists Carlos Melconian, Martín Redrado and Miguel Bein.

The others present were the owner of the rural society, Daniel Pellegrina; the holder of the AEA, Jaime Campos; while the Clarín group represented by José Aranda and Lucio Pagliaro, both shareholders; Jorge Rendo, President; Héctor Aranda, CEO of the newspaper; and Martin Etchevers, head of communication.

Before answering questions from the public, the former Spanish president has made several tours. up he had a spicy allusion to Jorge Bergoglio when he said that in Latin America, there were "two popes", a layman who is the former Uruguayan president Jose "Pepe" Mujica ", he said" and another who says to believe in God. This was expressed about Francisco, who generated bursts of laughter.

Kirschbaum wanted to know from his mouth what was the fact that in Argentina all aspired, but failed, the pact of La Moncloa, referring to the consensus agreement of all sectors that Spain had signed to the death dictator Francisco Franco and the transition to democracy.

Gonzalez replied that since 1984 everyone has been asking questions about this agreement. Then he and Kirschbaum showed the role of historical definition that contained the signatures of all the sectors involved in the pact. "We went with a palpable inflation and we had to reduce with this element, a significant tax on poverty"Another important factor for Spain was the entry into the European Union, which was then a community.

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When Kirschbaum asked him questions about the success of which the success of the Portuguese economy is very much talked about, he described the country's Prime Minister, Socialist Antonio Costa, as very intelligent. "known to pull the basket" adding to the national project the most radical left and making the Portuguese people understand the need for adjustment.

By the way, Felipe did not just talk about Argentina and Trump, but he devoted a good part of his public interview to the question of the crisis in Venezuela, in which he differed from his friend José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero by the fact that he did not hesitate Call Nicolás Maduro "tyrant". "A usual mistake on the left," he said. "There are no tyrants of an ideology, a tyrant is right or left." he added.

In Venezuela, he said the situation was for him a "regional" conflict and that it was "excessive to talk about the cold war". In addition, he indicated that "there is no risk of military conflict ". He is convinced that neither China nor Russia wants to be anchored in Venezuela and that, for its own needs, Cuba is the most interested. And in the same line of what he said face to face of Clarin On the last Sunday, this Chavismo was in "the end of the cycle", this Monday in Malba pointed out that "The diet is fractured." He nevertheless asked not to wait for tomorrow's elections given the complexity of the facts.

JPE