The President of the Chamber of Deputies, Socialist Francina Armengol, will not be presiding over Monday’s parliamentary session, but will instead be answering questions from MPs. Armengol will appear before the commission investigating the purchase of masks by the Balearic Islands Government in the early months of the pandemic to give an account of the actions taken by her government. The Balearic Islands government purchased masks worth 3.7 million euros from a company linked to former Ministry of Transport advisor Koldo García, who is accused of receiving illegal commissions for these contracts. The opposition Popular Party (PP) has been targeting Armengol since she took office, criticizing her decisions and public statements, and disqualifying her for accepting the use of co-official languages in debates.
The attacks from the PP against Armengol intensified following the outbreak of the Koldo case, where it was revealed that the Balearic government was one of the administrations that hired Soluciones de Gestión, the company sponsored by former minister José Luis Ábalos’s advisor. The commission scheduled for Monday, with morning and afternoon sessions, will focus entirely on examining the actions of the Balearic Islands government at that time. Before Armengol, former director of the regional Health service Manuel Palomino and former Minister of Economic Model and Labor Iago Negueruela, who is now the Socialist spokesperson in the Balearic Parliament, will testify.
One of the key questions that the MPs will try to answer is who recommended Soluciones de Gestión to Armengol or other members of her government. Armengol did not directly answer this question on three occasions during a press conference on March 5, amid increased attacks from the PP following new revelations from the case file. However, she vehemently denied facing any “coercion or pressure” to purchase masks from the company, and stated that the decision was made by healthcare technicians. Armengol also addressed another controversial aspect of her government’s actions, admitting that the masks sent for quality analysis to the Ministry of Labor’s Institute of Hygiene in June 2020 were surgical masks and not FFP2, as agreed upon.
Armengol’s government did not begin the process to reclaim 2.6 million euros from the company for contract non-compliance until three years later and officially filed the claim in July 2023, when it was already in caretaker status after losing the elections. She attributed the delay to the disruptions caused by the pandemic in government operations. The current Balearic government under Popular Party’s Marga Prohens missed the deadline to confirm this claim, leading a court in Palma to open proceedings following a complaint from the PSOE. The political implications of this case have been significant, with ongoing scrutiny and legal action surrounding the decisions made during the early stages of the pandemic in the Balearic Islands.
