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CLIMATE CRISIS

FACT CHECK: Spain’s environment minister didn’t fly to climate summit in private jet

Spain’s environment minister has gone viral after riding a bike whilst escorted by security vehicles, with even UFC fighter Conor McGregor weighing in on the ironic stunt. What isn't true is that she flew to a climate summit by private jet.

Published: 12 July 2023 17:07 CEST
spanish minister private jet
Fact-checking and left-wing publications have proven that the ecological transition minister did not travel to Valladolid from Madrid by private jet. (Photo by JAVIER SORIANO / AFP)

Spain’s Minister for the Ecological Transition Teresa Ribera has caused a storm on social media after being filmed riding a bicycle to a European climate crisis summit in the northern Spanish city of Valladolid whilst escorted by at least two private security vehicles.

The ironic scenario was picked up by Spanish media and it wasn’t long before right-wing opponents of the Socialists shared it on their social media profiles. 

But as if it were a game of Chinese whispers, an important detail was added to the mix.

“She comes in Falcon (Spain’s presidential plane) from Madrid to bike around Valladolid and she has the audacity to lecture us on caring for the environment,” Juan García-Gallardo, vice president of Spain’s Castilla y León region and minister for far-right Vox party, tweeted alongside a video of Ribera.

It wasn’t long before prominent alt-right English-language Twitter accounts retweeted this, such as Dr. Eli David, who wrote: “A Spanish minister flies on a private jet to attend a climate conference. She then drives on a motorcade, and a 100 meters before the venue she gets off and takes a bicycle, as her two security cars follow her 🤡”, alongside the hashtag #climatehypocrisy. 

Even Irish UFC fighter Conor McGregor retweeted the message and the video, adding as well his own take on events: “Ridiculous carry on. Enough! Either walk it, talk it, live it, breath it. Or shut it!”.

That video share alone has had 7.5 million views, and there are countless other tweets slamming the cringeworthy and, let’s face it, pretty hypocritical stunt by Teresa Ribera and her team. 

Canadian media commentator Jordan Peterson, who has more than 4 million Twitter followers, also tweeted about Ribera twice saying “you cannot retweet this enough times” and “I just can’t stop smiling about this”.

However, a number of fact-checking and left-wing publications such as Maldita.es have proven that the ecological transition minister did not travel the short distance between Madrid and Valladolid in the Spanish prime ministerial aircraft Falcon.

They did so by checking the records of falcondespega.es, a website which documents all the flights of the governmental plane used by Pedro Sánchez and his ministers, paid for by taxpayers. 

This showed that the Falcon took off from Madrid after Ribera shared a photo of herself in Valladolid using one of the local electric rental bikes.

Popular Party spokesperson Borja Sémper, one of the Spanish politicians who retweeted the fake news, has since apologised. But the private jet claims continue undisputed on most social media channels. 

It’s worth noting that Spain’s environment ministry did change their version of how Ribera had travelled to Valladolid, initially claiming it was by train and then admitting it was by car.

There’s no denying that a private jet travelling 200 kilometres has far more polluting capacity than a motor vehicle, but Ribera’s failure to see the irony of getting on a bicycle on your way to a climate conference whilst forming part of a motorcade is comical at best. 

What’s also clear is that as Spain prepares to hold its national election on July 23rd politicians on both the right and left are willing to do whatever it takes to win votes, even lie and spread fake news, as hard as that may be to believe.

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POLITICS

Spain’s Catalonia sets clock ticking for possible fresh polls

The speaker of Catalonia's parliament said Wednesday he will give the Spanish region's assembly two months to form a new government or else he will push for new elections.

Published: 26 June 2024 15:33 CEST
Spain's Catalonia sets clock ticking for possible fresh polls

No party secured an absolute majority in Catalonia’s 135-seat parliament in a May 12th regional vote in the wealthy northeastern region, which saw separatist parties lose their governing majority in the body they had dominated for the past decade.

The local branch of Spain’s ruling Socialists, led by Salvador Illa, won the biggest share of the vote giving it 42 seats, while hardline separatist party JxCat – headed by exiled former Catalan leader Carles Puigdemont – finished second with 35 seats.

The regional Catalan parliament had until June 25th to vote on a new government but neither Illa nor Puigdemont decided to present themselves to an investiture vote in the assembly as they had not secured enough backing from other parties to be successful and preferred to keep negotiating.

So the speaker of the Catalan parliament, Josep Rull of JxCat, on Wednesday set a two-month deadline for parties to agree on a new head of the regional government, otherwise a fresh election will be held – most likely in mid-October.

“After consultations with the parties, none have proposed a candidate to go through the presidential investiture debate by the first deadline,” he said.

“However, two of these parliamentary groups have expressed their willingness to explore ways to build an agreement to make the investiture possible over the next two months.”

To win the support of an absolute majority of 68 lawmakers of the Catalan parliament, Illa will need to secure the backing of the more moderate separatist party ERC which won 20 seats in the May election.

The ERC helps prop up Socialist Prime Pedro Sánchez’s minority government in the national parliament but its demands for regional financing so far seem too steep for Illa’s party.

Puigdemont is also courting the ERC but even with their support, as well of that of two other smaller separatist parties – the far-left CUP and the far-right Alianca Catalana – he will still fall short of the required 68 seats to enable him to pass an investiture vote.

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