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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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ROYAL FAMILY

Could Spain ever dethrone King Felipe and become a republic?

After a decade on the Spanish throne, King Felipe VI is steadily growing in popularity. If things were ever to turn sour, could the Spanish public and government actually oust the monarch and turn Spain into a republic?

Published: 17 June 2024 17:15 CEST
Could Spain ever dethrone King Felipe and become a republic?

King Felipe VI is set to celebrate a decade on the Spanish throne. He became king on June 19th 2014 following the abdication of his scandal-ridden father, former King Juan Carlos.

This meant that Felipe took over the crown needing to somewhat rehabilitate the public image of la Casa Real. According to polling data released to coincide with his decade as king, it seems he’s done a decent enough job of it so far. In fact, after 10 years on the throne his approval rating has grown.

READ ALSO: What do Spaniards think of their royal family?

Felipe obtained an average score of 6.6 among Spaniards polled, surpassing, for the first time, the 6.5 mark. This is according to a survey carried out by the IMOP Insights Institute for Vanitatis.

In fact, after a decade the majority of Spaniards approve of the King’s performance: 46.4 percent have a positive view of his work, compared to 20.9 percent who are critical or hold a negative view.

Older people generally have more favourable views of Felipe and the monarchy, whereas under 25s are the only group with a negative opinion of him.

In terms of regional breakdown, the most pro-Felipe part of the country was found to be Andalusia and the least, to the surprise of absolutely nobody in Spain, was Catalonia.

Many royal commentators in Spain argue that Felipe, along with his daughter, Princess of Asturias Leonor, have taken big steps to restoring the Spanish crown’s credibility.

That Felipe’s personal approval rating has grown over time is testament to that, and positive ratings, especially after a decade in the public eye, is something most politicians could only dream of.

That is to say, there doesn’t seem to be any danger of Spaniards turning on their king for now. But what if Spanish public opinion changed over time and suddenly Spain did want to become a republic?

Legally, constitutionally speaking, could Spain ever dethrone King Felipe and become a republic?

Spain’s King Felipe VI and Spain’s Queen Letizia attend a ceremony for the Spanish Crown Princess of Asturias. Photo: JAVIER SORIANO/AFP.

The steps to a republic

Even if Spaniards themselves wanted it, transitioning from a constitutional monarchy to a republic involves a lot of steps that make it highly unlikely, perhaps even impossible.

The change would require two-thirds support in both chambers of the Spanish Congress, something that is very unlikely in the current political climate. Such consensus across both houses is very, very rare.

But, theoretically speaking, to get rid of the king the Spanish legislature would first need to amend Article 1 of the título preliminar of the Spanish Constitution, which outlines the state structure and clearly says that: “the form of the Spanish state is a parliamentary monarchy”.

To do this, the government or Congress would have to call for a vote on constitutional reform in the Congress of Deputies and it would have to pass with a qualified majority, that is, with a majority of two thirds or more, which is equivalent to 234 or more deputies.

READ ALSO: How much do Spain’s king and royal family make?

It would then have to be ratified in the Senate with the same qualified majority. Of the 265 senators, 177 would have to be in favour.

But it doesn’t end there. If both chambers agree, Congress would be dissolved, a general election would have to be called, and the voting would have to be repeated among the new deputies.

However, there’s still one final hurdle: a general referendum. The people’s referendum is meant to function as a sort of fail-safe or quality control on the actions of the legislature, especially on such a huge constitutional question.

Javier Tajadura, Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of the Basque Country, told Spanish website Newtral that “the referendum serves as a form of citizen control of what the Cortes want to carry out, and it must be carried out after the votes [in both houses] have been taken.”

If, after all the votes in Congress pass with suitable majorities, the referendum also results in a yes and it is undeniable that Spaniards want to change from monarchy to republic, Spain would become a republic.

Then the debate would shift to whether Spain would need an entirely new constitution, or it would need to make some (pretty huge) changes to the pre-existing constitution of 1978.

So, yes. Spain could, in theory, become a republic. Clearly, the Spanish system has a lot of checks and balances embedded within it that makes moving from a monarchy to a republic constitutionally complicated, politically unlikely, and, in realistic terms, very improbable to the point of being almost impossible.

As Miguel Ángel Cabellos, Professor of Constitutional law at the University of Girona, puts it: “Beyond the fact that it is a change of an essential and core element of the political system, which would also radically divide society, the truth is that from a legal point of view the difficulties are very notable, one could almost say insurmountable in practice.”

READ ALSO: The one thing to know about each of Spain’s ‘crazy’ kings and queens

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