Ángel Víctor Torres proposes regulating gifts to public officials and asks for transparency

The Minister of Territorial Policy, Ángel Víctor Torres, has today raised the need to regulate gifts to public officials and has compared the jewelry that was given to former President of the Government José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero with a box of typical products.

This was stated in an interview on La Radio Canaria, collected by Europa Press, in which he was asked about the answer that Zapatero gave to the judge about the jewels in which he stated that they were given to him by the King of Saudi Arabia, now deceased, on a visit he made to Spain in 2007.

According to Torres, "a debate has been opened about the gifts given to public officials" and he believes that all these things should be "regulated, that they are the same for all administrations and that there is transparency on the part of all public representatives."

That said, he has wondered what happens if they give "a box of typical products to a public representative to taste." "What should be done about this?" he asked rhetorically while insisting on the need to "arbitrate among all, without populism."

However, he has avoided answering the question of whether he would have kept the jewels that Zapatero had if they had been given to him and has limited himself to saying that it must be regulated.

According to Torres, we must wait for the judicial process in which the former president of the Government is being investigated, within the framework of the rescue of the Plus Ultra airline, to conclude, "so that there are things that do not have to be repeated." "I also think that is good in any judicial process," he concluded.