The judge postpones Zapatero's testimony to June 17 and 18 in the Plus Ultra case

Madrid / BarcelonaJosé Luis Rodríguez Zapatero will testify as an investigated party before the National Court two weeks later than planned. Judge José Luis Calama has accepted the former Spanish president's defense's request for an adjournment and summons him for June 17 and 18. Initially, he was scheduled for next week, Tuesday the 2nd. In an order, Calama deems it appropriate to postpone the declaration due to the complexity of the case, as requested by the former socialist leader's lawyer, Víctor Moreno Catena, since he did not have access to it until this Monday. In parallel, the former PSOE leader has already begun to publicly defend himself against the accusations.

His former advisor at Moncloa and now spokesperson, Luis Arroyo, who is also president of the Ateneu de Madrid, has pointed out that there are "political motivations" in his indictment and added this Tuesday in an interview with El matí de Catalunya Ràdio that, in his opinion, it is not out of the question that Calama decides to send him to preventive detention after the declaration. And while new details of the investigation are emerging, the Spanish government maintains its confidence in Zapatero. In the press conference following the Council of Ministers, the spokesperson, Elma Saiz, called for respect for the "presumption of innocence" as a fundamental pillar of the rule of law. For his part, the Minister for Digital Transformation and Public Function, Óscar López, expressed confidence in "Zapatero's full innocence".

From Moncloa, they reiterate the same arguments since they learned of the order from Judge José Luis Calama in which he indicted the former Spanish president: that the rescue of Plus Ultra was carried out following the correct administrative procedure and that "discretion" is not applicable, in the words of Elma Saiz. Sources from the Spanish government refuse to go into the details of the summary and request an adaptation to judicial timelines, even though this implies waiting another fifteen days for the explanations that Zapatero may provide.

From the ranks of the PSOE it has been experienced as a "nuclear bomb" the indictment of the former president, and numerous voices have been asking since last week for Zapatero to come out and explain himself. For now, officially the party is not changing its plan: to start preparing for the regional and municipal elections, which are theoretically scheduled to take place before the general elections, which are also set for 2027. However, within the PSOE not everyone sees it that way: the critical sector is calling for early elections. While yesterday the former Spanish president Felipe González did so, this Tuesday the president of Castilla-La Mancha, the socialist Emiliano García-Page, has done so. He insisted that this is the moment "of most risk for the PSOE in all of democracy" and also put forward that Sánchez should undergo a vote of confidence. A scenario that Moncloa does not foresee: it considers that "stability" must be provided until 2027, even if there are problems in reaching agreements and approving any measure in Congress.

Aznar's "He who can do it, let him do it"

Pedro Sánchez holds the electoral button, and only a motion of no confidence could oust him. But the PP does not plan to do so for now. The populars limit themselves to publicly attacking Sánchez's investiture allies for not giving them the four votes they lack and they do not intend, for the moment, to initiate a round of contacts. What the PP spokesperson in Congress, Ester Muñoz, has done is raise the tone against the plurinational majority. "They should be asked if they are willing to succumb electorally due to corruption. Their ethical standards are totally inconsistent," she said at a press conference in which she called them "integrists" for accepting scandals so that Alberto Núñez Feijóo does not govern.

In this context, Sumar has defended the continuity of the coalition, although it has called for "bravery" from the PSOE to promote social measures in this final stretch. On the other hand, other parties question it. The leader of Podem, Ione Belarra, stated this Tuesday that the legislature has long been "dead" and the spokesperson for the PNB in Congress, Maribel Vaquero, said that it "cannot reach its end", in 2027. However, they will not derail it by siding with the PP and Vox. The one who has once again urged action is the former president of the Spanish government, José María Aznar, who in a video on his social networks has once again asked that "whoever can, do it".

Zapatero's arguments

"Monumental error" and "conjecture after conjecture" have been two of the expressions that, as in recent days, Zapatero's spokesperson, Luis Arroyo, has used to describe the UDEF reports on which the investigation of the former socialist leader is based. "He [Zapatero] doesn't say lawfare, but [...] he does know that there are political motivations in his indictment," he explained. He recalled in this regard that the former president has mediated in "very complex cases," whether with Catalan independence or with the Venezuelan opposition. "He negotiated with ETA and was told that he had betrayed the dead," he added, before stating: "He is a top-level target."

The spokesperson for the former PSOE leader wanted to compare the case in Calama's hands to that of former prosecutor Álvaro García Ortiz, convicted of revealing secrets, although he said nothing about the case that implicates former socialist leaders José Luis Ábalos and Santos Cerdán, which – like Zapatero's – also has to do with the alleged collection of illegal commissions. "Once the attorney general is convicted, anything is possible," he opined about the possibility of ending up in preventive detention. And is the former president also afraid of it? "He believes he can resolve this brutal error by the UDEF. He is optimistic by definition," Arroyo limited himself to saying.