Conservatives walk out after a ‘Nazi' insult

Popular Party (PP) deputies walked out of Parliament in protest after public works minister Francesc Quetglas accused their spokesman, José María González Ortea of “shouting like a Nazi” and “making threats like a Nazi.” On seeing the reaction of the PP deputies, the minister immediately withdrew his words and shortly afterwards apologised to González Ortea in person. By that time, González Ortea had presented a formal complaint to the Parliamentary Speaker. The remarks were made during a tense debate between the ruling coalition government and the PP over the “Bitel affair,” the alleged case of spying by former leader Jaume Matas on Quetglas when he was head of the Council of Majorca's planning committee. Quetglas admitted that the expression he used was because he had been annoyed by the shouts of the PP deputy. The court has shelved the Bitel case, ruling that the Quetglas emails had been resent to Matas' office by mistake. González Ortea had accused the government of using public funds to go to court, with the only object of “pouring rubbish” on to Jaume Matas. The case, he said, was only brought when the PP won the general elections with a huge majority, and he repeated that leader Francesc Antich should apologise for the accusations he made at the time. In his reply, Quetglas said that the government had appealed against the court decision and it was Matas who should apologise. He also said that an insinuation by Gonzalez Ortea, that his only merit to be a minister was having been spied on, was “inadmissable.” Andreu Crespi, spokesman of the PSOE (Spanish Socialist Workers Party) added to the flames when he said that during the Nuremberg trials, one of the accused told the judge that if Germany had won the war, their roles would be reversed.