The CEOE prepares to open a new stage in their relationships with the PP with the arrival to the presidency of Alberto Núñez Feijóo. The coexistence between the leader of the employers’ association, Antonio Garamendi, and Pablo Casado has been very traumatic, much more even than what has transpired. His departure from the popular domeas confirmed by knowledgeable sources, has meant a relief for the president of the CEOE who, in private, does not hide his criticism of the lack of solidity and leadership of the almost former leader of the PP.
Although in the party they have used during these years that they are not obliged to coincide with all the positions of the businessmen, the truth is that historically there has been a harmony between the right and the employers, the PSOE with UGT and of PCE and United Left with CCOO. Precisely the absence of connection of the PP of Casado with its traditional orbits, at all levels, not only economic but also social, is one of the reasons that explain the failure of his project.
But with the CEOE of Garamendi, that disconnection has gone much further. Not only has there been a lack of understanding, it is that in the environment of the president of the employers’ association they maintain that Casado and his general secretary, Teodoro García Egea, have actively worked to unseat him from power. as already published THE NEWSPAPER OF SPAINa newspaper belonging to the same editorial group as this medium, believe that there was a link between the leader of Foment, Josep Sánchez Llibre, and García Egea, through the former popular deputy Vicente Martinez Pujalteadviser to the former in the employer association and political godfather to the latter.
Applicant sponsored by the PP
This feeling has increased in recent months. Both businessmen and PP sources point out that the former general secretary has had contacts so that there would be an alternative candidate to Garamendi in the November assembly, which must choose a new leadership. It is still too early to know if someone else will appear, but in no case will it be someone sponsored by Genoa.
The sources consulted by this newspaper confirm this plan to shoot down Garamendi. “It is strictly true. It was a move designed by Teo together with Pujalte, who is intimate with Sánchez Llibre,” they say. “This is an absurd operation. that is part of the madness that happened to Casado in his last year”. According to this leader, the chosen one would have been Sánchez Llibre himself. But business sources assure that the name of the alternative candidate had not yet been decided and that García Egea held meetings with businessmen to try to get them to confront the current president of the employers’ association.
One of the people to whom they offered it confirms this to this newspaper. “What I don’t know is what a political party is doing by proposing these things”, Explain. They are proposals, he underlines, that “came from the hand of Sánchez Llibre.” “And what I know is that Pablo Casado was in it”.
Tension over agreements with the Government
The existence of this operation shows that the conflict with the CEOE was much deeper than the null complicity between Casado and Garamendi. The head of the businessmen was absent from the convention in Valencia that last October should have been the start of the race of the popular leader to La Moncloa, but there was representation from the CEOE. Now Feijóo represents the opportunity to normalize communication between the two organizations, although his presence at the popular congress next weekend is not yet confirmed.
The relationship between the CEOE and the Casado PP had its true inflection point after Garamendi’s statements about the pardons the last summer. But in management, before and after that, they never understood the position of closeness that the employers allowed to see with the Government. Casado accumulated discomfort at the role that businessmen played in large agreements with Moncloa (from the ERTE to other extraordinary measures in the pandemic) and, especially, they criticized that they were part of “Sánchez’s propaganda & rdquor;.
The feeling that both parties had at that time is that the pardon controversy actually caused a glass to overflow and was filled drop by drop. The CEOE, for its part, insisted that it was not a question of an approach to power but of negotiations with the government of the day (in this case PSOE and Podemos) to defend the companies they represent. The leader of the PP exposed the greatest criticism of him in a meeting with his deputies in Congress in which he went so far as to say that the business class had become, in some cases, a “Subsidized audience seeking European funds & rdquor;.
Báñez, in the crossfire
In the national leadership they firmly defended that the PP “made its way & rdquor; regardless of the interests that the CEOE had at any time and assured that despite the good relations that both organizations have always maintained, “independence and autonomy was absolute & rdquor ;. Casado’s team referred to the presence of Fátima Báñez at the CEOE as guarantee of the bridges between the two when the crisis alarms sounded every little time. Rajoy’s former minister has always maintained a position of neutrality and has avoided at all costs entering into any controversy arising from the relationship between Garamendi and Casado, noting that she is outside of politics. She, yes, has been seen in some acts without hiding her interest and her concern that the PP do well.
His name has returned to the front line after the wild internal crisis of the PP that ends with the Casado era and opens a new time with Feijóo. Above all before the idea that the Galician could recover veteran leaders that they did not have space in the Casado project and that, in training, they considered “unfair and inadequate & rdquor; her departure.
This is still considered by leaders with representation in Congress and the Senate, who also continue to insist on the “clumsiness & rdquor; that the still national leader had when drawing up the lists of his first generals as a candidate. “The case of Fátima was especially bloody when placing her as number two in a media signing & rdquor ;, still recounts today some leader who shared a seat for a long time with the Andalusian.
At the beginning of the year, while the confrontation with Isabel Díaz Ayuso was reaching unsustainable levels and the discomfort of other territorial barons and people with influence in the PP circle was increasing, Casado decided to close several open fronts that were beginning to accuse him of a major wear. Also in the polls and at the gates of a new electoral cycle with Castilla y León just around the corner. There was the walk between the Madrid president and Teodoro García Egea, and also the embrace of Casado with Garamendi in an act they shared. “Things could improve, but there were others that were unrecoverable. Something did not add up & rdquor ;, say popular leaders in the belief that “everything had been breaking down & rdquor ;.