The Andalusian president says that Spanish should be a requirement for immigrants, but Catalan should not.

MadridThe PP has presented this weekend a plan to "bring order" to immigration which aims to classify foreigners and, depending on whether or not they meet certain criteria, accept them. The leader of the People's Party (PP), Alberto Núñez Feijóo, spoke of a "points-based visa" and said that priority would be given to those with "a greater capacity for integration" and "a better understanding of the culture." What does this mean? According to the president of Andalusia, Juanma Moreno, it would involve making speaking Spanish a requirement to obtain residency. In an interview on Onda Cero, when asked if this is the same thing that Junts per Catalunya is demanding, the PP leader belittled Catalan. "They are different things. There are two languages there. We have one. They put the emphasis on the other co-official language. And what we are saying is that a universal language like Spanish is important to know," Moreno argued.

The PP not only believes there are first-class and second-class languages in the State, but with its proposal, it proposes first-class and second-class immigration. The president of the Community of Madrid, Isabel Díaz Ayuso, was clearer on this point. In an interview on Telecinco, she stated that "Hispanic immigration is not immigration," despite what the "papers" say. The Madrid president maintained that sharing Western values is a way to fit in better in Spain and announced that "we are studying how to approach this with the job market, how to get it right." Ayuso made it clear that "everyone must come with a work permit," but at the same time clarified that immigrants should not be treated "as simple labor."

Ayuso stressed that "they are only being asked to contribute" and denounced that "it perverts the system and makes it unsustainable" that immigrants "start receiving subsidies and do not look for work." In this regard, she asserted that "there is a percentage of hundreds of thousands of people who receive the minimum living income." Furthermore, Ayuso directly linked immigration with crime, used terms such as "mandadas" (mandated) and stated that "a lot of people without a job or benefit are wandering the streets of Spain."

The ministry that is specifically responsible for ensuring the proper functioning of social benefits, as well as managing the arrival and reception of migrants, was quick to respond to the proposals put forward by Feijóo this weekend. "The PP creates a reality that bears no resemblance to the reality of Spain," asserted the Minister of Social Security, Inclusion and Migration, Elma Saiz, in a media address this Monday morning. Núria Rius Montaner–. "Mr. Feijóo says that migrants come to collect a pension from the state, and I tell him that 83 percent of households receiving the minimum living income are Spanish. The rest have a significant presence of minors," the minister stated. Furthermore, Saiz pointed out that to receive benefits like the IMV, it is necessary to have "legal residence of more than one year in Spain."

The Vox Framework

Several Spanish government ministers have attacked the People's Party (PP) for equating their proposals with those of Vox. First Vice President María Jesús Montero described Feijóo's proposed visa proposal as a "whim" and asked that the "human rights of immigrants not be used as a bargaining chip in the ideological battle" with Santiago Abascal's party. "The only thing they're going to achieve is Vox's growth," asserted Minister of the Presidency Félix Bolaños. Speaking at Sumar, Spain's Second Vice President, Yolanda Díaz, predicted that the PP's initiative is contrary to the Constitution and called for the regularization of 500,000 migrants currently being processed in Congress to be expedited.

Ayuso criticized Vox's pressure and defended her claim that she says "what is considered correct." "We can't live thinking about what they'll say to us. The surnames they give us should be the same," she said. For his part, the Andalusian president, Juanma Moreno, did express concern about the fact that the center-right is losing ground across Europe to the far right. "We must put this all in order to avoid the growing xenophobia we have in our country and Europe and completely cut off the central axis of reference for some political forces to win votes with immigration," Moreno said.