Embroiled in scandal, Spanish health minister Monica Garcia is drawing unwelcome attention to herself. As Spain reels from tragic floods which caused the deaths of over 200 people and the Spanish government scrambles to respond amid public fury, the last thing the country needs is a scandal around its health minister.
Amazingly, though, that is the situation Spaniards find themselves in. Monica Garcia has admitted she knew “a year and a half ago” about appalling sexual violence by Inigo Errejon, a former senior member of Spain’s governing coalition. Errejon resigned over the allegations. “We could not or did not know how to do anything… It was an insufficient action,” said Garcia.
The scandal is reminiscent of the predicament of former British prime minister Boris Johnson in 2022. Johnson had claimed his government knew nothing of sexual assault allegations against an MP he had appointed to an important government role. He even sent ministers out onto the airwaves to plead ignorance. When it later emerged Johnson had lied, and he was informed about the allegations, he resigned as Britain’s prime minister.
Will Garcia resign? Will Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sanchez? It seems unlikely. After all, Garcia is no stranger to controversy and pushback from the voting public. As health minister, she has spearheaded divisive policies on smoking and vaping, particularly hiking tobacco taxes, banning smoking in a wide range of places, and treating electronic cigarettes the same way in law as their traditional, tobacco counterparts.
These measures prompted significant backlash, especially from the vaping community. Besides being aggressively anti-freedom, they also sidestep the scientific evidence. Vaping is considerably healthier than smoking and a remarkably effective tool for helping people quit. Cracking down on it in law makes a smokefree Spain a much more distant goal. Cigarette tax hikes will worsen the cost-of-living crisis and push consumers towards the black market, risking a repeat of Australia’s violent ‘tobacco turf wars.’
There is a link between politicians’ character and their policy. American president-elect Donald Trump is brash and prideful in his personality. Little surprise, then, that he is hostile to immigrants and imports. British prime minister Sir Keir Starmer is a cautious former lawyer; his government’s actions mirror his lawyerly personality, as he frequently backs down under pressure and makes unnecessary compromises and concessions.
A similar trend is visible in the politicians of continental European politicians, including Monica Garcia. The centrist and centre-left parties which pull Europe’s strings nowadays embody a politics of consensus. They form an echo chamber in which they shut out dissenting voices, agree with each other about the issue of the day, and then go out to impose their worldview on the masses through wildly stringent government interference in people’s lives, such as high taxes and overregulation.
This worldview is patronising at best and actively destructive at worst. It embodies the belief that the world needs saving, and politicians are the ones to save it. Europe is the continent of technocratic governments, ‘world first’ sweeping regulations, and ever-expanding bureaucracy. Monica Garcia seems undeterred by scandal because she is motivated by her quest to be the superhero of Spain’s public health, closing off her ears to those who point out when her policies to more harm than good to Spaniards’ wellbeing.
In the short term, it is hard to see an optimistic way forward for Monica Garcia. If she refuses to resign, the remainder of her political career will carry a shameful stain, thanks to her apparent role in the aftermath of Inigo Errejon’s sexual assault allegations and the resultant scandal. In the longer term, Spain – and Europe as a whole – desperately needs a change in policy direction and style of governance. Otherwise, trust in government will only continue to fall, fuelling yet more of what the centre-left parties fear most: right-wing populism.
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