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The Spanish prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, has come out in defence of Aena, the public airport operator, after the chaos seen in the last few days during the strike by security personnel at Barcelona-El Prat Airport. The head of the Spanish government has assured that it is "a one-off problem", since the other airports run by Aena are working correctly. The comments came after a lunch with King Felipe VI, who he met early this afternoon in Palma, Mallorca.

Rajoy's words come after another day of strike action at the Barcelona airport, where long queues have been seen, especially early in the morning. For him, the problems with security at the airport are not the responsibility of the Spanish government, since it is an "argument between a private company and its workers".

In the face of criticisms from several members of the government yesterday, the prime minister Rajoy has asked the Catalan government to try "to not be mean-spirited". What's more, Rajoy has managed to insinuate that the Catalan government is not assuming its own responsibilities with respect to the chaos at the airport. "Everyone should take on their own responsibilities", he said.

After the criticisms of the Government

Rajoy's words are clearly a response to the criticisms of several ministers. The Employment minister, Dolors Bassa, said yesterday that the Catalan executive "only has mediation powers" and that it seemed to her that the Spanish Government had reacted late to the conflict.

The Department of Work is in charge of the meeting between Aena, the security contractor Eulen and the workers with the Government's negotiators trying to find a solution to the conflict and avoid the coming partial strikes and the total strike planned to start 14 August.

In the same vein as Bassa, vice president of Catalonia Oriol Junqueras stated that the Spanish Government's reaction was "unacceptable" and "irresponsible". "We want responsibility and we want it because the objective of a government is to solve problems", he said.

In the same vein as the Public Works ministry

Rajoy's speech in defence of Aena was like the one made yesterday at the airport by the Spanish Infrastructure secretary, Julio Gómez-Pomar. The right-hand man of the minister for Public Works and Transport said that the airport management company "is not slow" since it "has been involved in the dispute from the start".

Gómez-Pomar considered the demand by Eulen's workers for a 30% salary increase to be "out of place".