The president of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, has stopped in Alicante today to meet with businessmen from the hospitality sector of the province and, incidentally and on the last day of the electoral campaign, exalt the mayors of the capital, Luis Barcala, and of Benidorm, Toni Pérez, also president of the party in the province. Both govern in two of the most important cities in the province -Alicante has 350,000 inhabitants and Benidorm, 70,000-, and aware of them, Feijóo has today given his total and absolute support to two of his heavyweights in Alicante and by extension in the Valencian Community.
Notably absent from the event was the president of the PP of the Valencian Community, and also president of the Alicante Provincial Council, Carlos Mazón, who was in Castellón at that time, 10:00 o’clock.
Conceived as a meeting with hoteliers, attended by fifty businessmen, the act has had a more than careful staging and designed to touch the hearts of all Alicante residents through the hallmarks of the city. The chosen place, the Port, emblem of a city that lives facing the sea; the restaurant, the Dársena, a benchmark for the quality of its rice dishes, not paella, the flagship of local gastronomy, and in the background, as a setting, the Castle of Santa Bárbara, and the boats docked in the marina , and the sea. The weather has allied itself with the PP, with a sunny day, in a rainy week.
In his speech, Feijóo praised the management of Luis Barcala and Toni Pérez “who have not left the next mayor in debt for the investments made in their cities” to add that the two have been useful in their respective municipalities. Regarding Barcala, he has stressed that he has as objective a tourist and economic program for the city. “A mayor who does not care about the economic activity of his city is not a mayor, but a man who is interested in being in the Mayor’s Office,” he assured.
Feijóo has valued very positively that Alicante wants to “be the cradle of gastronomy”. “When I travel, I get a good impression of your city based on the quality of the hotel in which I stay, the comfort, how they treat me and how well I have breakfast”, he clarified to later encourage the hoteliers there present to continue “cultivating quality and hospitality, the weather is already there.”
Luis Barcala himself opened the event and joked about the weather, well, after the torrential rains of recent days caused, in turn, by a DANA. “Today we have returned to Alicante time and we have discarded Galician time”, commented Barcala.
When addressing hoteliers, the mayor assured that Alicante will continue to bet on gastronomy, for attracting major gastronomic events such as the Repsol Suns gala, and for being the city of rice and a national benchmark in terms of gastronomy . He has also highlighted that he will promote new reductions for the generation of employment, with training at the request of employers by the City Council and aid so that companies can bear the costs of training.
National key speech
Bearing in mind that there are only 48 hours left for the 28-M electoral appointment, Feijóo has taken advantage of the act, of just 30 minutes, to give a national key speech and influence the story that his party, the PP, is the party of economic activity. “We are the party of entrepreneurs, without economic growth, Spain will have enormous difficulties”, he pointed out. Later, he has offered a series of economic indicators that support the need for improvement and economic growth that the Popular Party offers and promises from 28-M.
“We are leaders in unemployment. One in four unemployed Europeans is Spanish”, he stated, adding that Spain is the second European country with the highest rate of female unemployment and also the second in youth unemployment”, he stressed.
In his opinion, “the triumphalism” of the central government does not make sense, because the “data are stubborn” and show that “Spain is at the tail of the economic recovery of the European Union”. “We have not reached the figures for 2019 “, he has sentenced. Later he has criticized the debt, the increase in electricity and taxes, and the increase in the price of the shopping basket as well as that of mortgages.
We must not forget that the meeting was with hoteliers from the province, and the message for them has been clear and forceful: “Tourism is a “tractor” element, and it has affected that, for the PP, tourism “is not a second degree activity”, but rather “the brand of a country”.
As a farewell to his time in Alicante, a coffee in the sun, by the sea, in the port, to continue with his agenda on the last day of the campaign.
