Spain’s socialist government has unveiled radical plans to regulate the press to combat so-called ‘disinformation.’ Critics have branded the move as “censorship” and an attempt by prime minister Pedro Sánchez to distract attention from an ongoing scandal involving his wife.
The Democratic Action Plan will create a register of media outlets operating in Spain, something Sánchez claimed was necessary because democracy is “being besieged” by “campaigns of disinformation and hoaxes.”
El Debate says the registry will allow the government to dictate who media outlets’ shareholders can be, their sources of financing, and how much government institutions will spend on advertising with them. Any media outlet not on the register will likely be branded “pseudo-media,” a term used by the socialist government and its supporters to discredit any new outlets that deviate from the establishment line.
Culture minister Ernest Urtasun claimed the registry will be impartial because it will be drawn up by an independent body, the National Commission for Markets and Competition. However, El Debate points out that the president of the body, Cani Fernández, was an advisor to Sánchez’s cabinet in 2020.
In a parliamentary debate on Wednesday, the leader of the opposition centre-right Partido Popular, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, accused Sánchez of having a “banana-republic conception of power.” He accused the prime minister of
Censorship and persecution of anyone who dares to criticise you. We haven’t seen anything like this since Franco.
The plan was proposed amid an investigation into Sánchez’s wife, Begoña Gómez, who is accused of influence-peddling and corruption. The PM has blamed what he calls “far-right” online media for pursuing the case.
The campaign by Sánchez against supposed “misinformation” has intensified since he was called—and refused—to testify before judge Juan Carlos Peinado, making him the first sitting Spanish prime minister ever to refuse such cooperation. He later announced he would sue Peinado for alleged malfeasance. A government spokesperson accused the judge of acting “for political motives and outside the law.”