2023-05-07 06:04:20
I think we will all agree that, in order to legitimize the democratic systems that we want to endow ourselves with, the inexcusable priority is to keep them away from corruption. All the dictatorships that have been in the world have used, as a justification for their authoritarian existence, the excuse that the democratic systems that had preceded them led to inefficient machinery of bureaucracy, cronyism, nepotism and corruption. That the votes of the people only served so that a privileged professional class of parliamentarians -who fed on those votes- enriched and favored their friends, acolytes and close ones, while they made it clear that they administered in solidarity.
For this reason, the recent initiative of the European Commission to propose tougher penalties for bribery, embezzlement and corruption offenses in European legislation is perfectly understandable. It is evident that the commission is considering it because of the dissolving effect on its prestige that the recent case of Qatargate has had within the European Parliament. Now, that puts our president of government, whose turn it is now in turn, to hold the presidency of the EU during the second half of 2023 in a very delicate position.
And it is that Sánchez has been the main promoter precisely in our country of lowering the penalties for the crimes of embezzlement. To justify such an embarrassing initiative, his press offices have had to perform true dialectical acrobatics in which different types of embezzlement were differentiated depending on where the embezzled money ended up or what it will be used for. In other words, without realizing it, they came to say that supposedly there is a good embezzlement and bad one. To deny such chilling logical evidence of what embezzlement means, they have tried to explain that they do not see any good, only (and here comes the intellectual laughter) one more bad and one less bad. Of course, the least bad coincides in a curious way with what has been practiced precisely by those who can give Sánchez the support he desperately needs. Go for God.
Everyone here knows that the cheapening has been a support strategy maneuver, but there has been great concern that the penal code could be put up for sale for political interests. That is the undeniable bottom of the issue that can bring out Sánchez’s colors as president of the EU. Obviously, what he’s counting on is that, as the commission initiative’s journey will be slow and he’ll have to take many steps before it materializes, he won’t come face to face with the issue for the duration of his semester. But it’s hard to explain how a president can keep those two faces. I do not doubt that Sánchez, in an extreme case, is capable of trying to convince Europe that what is happening is that he has a basically irrepressible and crazy twin brother in Spain, who replaces him when he is not looking and starts promoting strategies as questionable as destructive.
Fighting the toxic story of totalitarianisms about democracy is not done with these behaviors. Practicing them with a good face is only giving ammunition to the authoritarians so that they have the opportunity to once again foist on people the eternal murga that a strong man is needed, an iron surgeon, to put an end to all those corruptions and cronyisms. If they do not see that this is the propaganda future that is coming in the near panorama of fake news and artificial intelligence, then it is because their myopia as statesmen is so great that the collision with the wall of reality is certain, as it has already happened. when the law of “only yes is yes” had to be confronted with reality in the arena of everyday affairs. They should ask themselves what future of legitimacy we want. Sánchez’s presidency is sick with short-termism, the great virus of current politics that destroys the immune system of institutions. Sometimes, one comes to think that, indeed, we are all in the same boat (that of democracy) but some dedicate themselves to trying to save it and others to sink it for their own immediate interests.
#future