Pedro Sánchez and ten of his ministers, including that of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, that of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, or that of Equality, Irene Montero, have supported this Wednesday the presentation of Salvador Illa's book, in an act conducted by the journalist Ángeles Barceló who has become a true tribute to the former Minister of Health.
Those present, among whom was also the president of Congress, Meritxell Batet, and many socialist officials, gave the current leader of the PSC a standing ovation for several minutes. At the beginning of the event, it was the President of the Government himself who gave a heartfelt speech recalling the management of the pandemic. A "war" of "our generation", he has said in a very emotional tone, in which "it was an honor to fight in it by your side, Salvador".
The Chief Executive has recalled the moments lived with Illa, whom he describes as a "friend", both during the 2020 confinement and later in the vaccination period. They have not lacked in their veiled critical words to the previous Government of the PP, since he assures that the Ministry of Health had been, when he arrived at La Moncloa, "mistreated for many years".
Sánchez has praised Illa's character for dialogue at all times and also her "exhausting capacity for work", which she exemplifies in the "meals and dinners that we share after hours" or in the fact that the former minister spent months without seeing his family as consequence of the pandemic.
Now the war
Likewise, Sánchez has referred to what he experienced in 2020 to explain his future position in the face of the current war in Ukraine. “Now it is a war but before it was the pandemic”, he underlined, continuing to say that “the important thing, whatever the challenge, is to have a clear course and be faithful to our principles. And we are very clear about that. We are fully aware of the uncertainty of the coming months, just as we were when the virus appeared ”, he has sentenced.
Previously, and within the war simile applied to the pandemic, he quoted Winston Churchill to, paraphrasing what the famous British Prime Minister said about aviators in World War II, affirm about the toilets that "never have so many owed so much to so few" .
For Sánchez, the important thing in the hot scenario and the inflationary crisis that Europe and Spain are experiencing is that "the welfare state has to come out stronger than it came in." At the beginning of his speech, the president claimed to remember very well when he called Illa to tell her that he would be a minister and regretted that she suffered "the most ungrateful side of politics" due to the "insults" received regarding her management of the pandemic. .
