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Argentina’s Milei calls Spain’s PM ‘laughing stock of Europe’

Argentina's President Javier Milei has hurled fresh insults at Spain's PM Pedro Sánchez, calling him the "laughing stock of Europe" and an "incompetent, lying, coward, the latest verbal attack in a diplomatic spat between the two nations.

Published: 24 May 2024 09:47 CEST
Argentina's Milei calls Spain's PM 'laughing stock of Europe'
Argentine President Javier Milei gestures during the presentation of his new book "Capitalism, Socialism, and the Neoclassical Trap". (Photo by LUIS ROBAYO / AFP)

“(Sánchez) attacked me in every way possible, and when I responded in the abstract with an example, he felt targeted and used every state apparatus to respond, to the detriment of a beautiful relationship between the peoples of Spain and Argentina”, Milei told local television station LN+ in an interview broadcast on Thursday.

“Today he is the laughing stock of Europe in diplomatic matters,” the right-wing Argentine leader said.

On Sunday, Milei told a Madrid conference organized by the Spanish far-right Vox party that Sánchez had “a corrupt wife”.

The Spanish prime minister recently considered resigning after prosecutors opened a preliminary corruption investigation against his wife, Begoña Gómez, which was quickly closed.

The Socialist premier has denied the allegations against his wife and said his government is “clean.”

Milei’s remarks about Gómez sparked a diplomatic furor that saw Spain on Tuesday announce the “definitive” withdrawal of its ambassador to Argentina after its fiery libertarian leader refused to apologize for his comment.

READ MORE: Diplomatic crisis deepens as Spain pulls out Argentina ambassador

In response, Milei branded Sánchez an “arrogant socialist” with an “inferiority complex” and recommended he see a psychologist, further stoking tensions.

Spanish Labour Minister Yolanda Díaz, who is also one of three deputy prime ministers, earlier this month accused Milei of sowing “hatred” in the ongoing diplomatic clash.

Milei said in the LN+ interview on Thursday, referring to Sánchez: “He sent his ministers to attack me; he did not even have the courage to do it.”

He also called Sánchez an “incompetent, lying, coward.”

The harsh words between senior officials in Madrid and Buenos Aires have become the worst diplomatic crisis of the Argentine government under Milei, who has also sparred with leaders of Colombia, Venezuela, Mexico and Brazil.

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POLITICS

First pardons granted under Spain’s amnesty for Catalan separatists

A politician and police officer on Tuesday became the first people to benefit from Spain's divisive amnesty law for Catalan separatists involved in a botched 2017 secession bid.

Published: 26 June 2024 07:58 CEST
First pardons granted under Spain's amnesty for Catalan separatists

The amnesty law – approved last month – is expected to affect around 400 people facing trial or already convicted over their roles in the wealthy northeastern region’s failed independence push, which triggered Spain’s worst political crisis in decades.

Socialist Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez agreed to grant the amnesty in exchange for the key support of Catalan separatist parties in parliament to secure a new term in office following an inconclusive general election last July.

READ ALSO: Spain’s contested Catalan amnesty bill comes into force

The separatist parties have threatened to withdraw their support for Sánchez’s minority government unless the amnesty is applied.

Catalonia’s High Court said it had decided to “declare the extinction of criminal responsibility” for former Catalan regional interior minister Miquel Buch, as well as to Lluís Escolà, an officer in Catalonia’s regional police force, since the crimes they were convicted of “have been amnestied”.

Buch was sentenced last year to four and a half years in jail for embezzlement and misappropriation for hiring Escolà in 2018 and paying him out of public coffers to act as a bodyguard for the former head of the regional Catalan government, Carles Puigdemont, while he was in self-imposed exile in Belgium.

Escolà was handed a four-year prison sentence for working as Puigdemont’s bodyguard.

Puigdemont fled Spain to avoid arrest shortly after his government led Catalonia’s failed secession push, which involved an independence referendum that was banned by the courts followed by a short-lived declaration of independence.

Spain’s conservative opposition has staged massive street protests against the amnesty law, which judges must decide to apply on a case-by-case basis.

Puigdemont had said he hopes to return to Spain but there is still a warrant for his arrest and a Spanish court continues to investigate him for the alleged crimes of embezzlement and disobedience related to the secession bid.

He also remains under investigation for alleged terrorism over protests in 2019 against the jailing of several referendum leaders that sometimes turned violent.

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