José María Aznar criticised for his comments over wine

José María Aznar criticised for his comments over wine
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By h.b. - May 4, 2007 - 7:22 PM

José María Aznar in Valladolid on Thursday, with a bottle of wine - Photo EFE

The ex Prime Minister said he did not like being told how much wine he could drink or how fast he could drive

Spain’s previous Partido Popular Prime Minister, José María Aznar, has got himself into hot water, (or should that be wine?) over comments he made on Thursday after he was presented with a medal by the Wine Academy in Valladolid.

Aznar told those gathered at the event that he was fed up with the DGT traffico advertising campaigns intended to lower the number of fatalities on Spanish roads.

‘I don’t like that they tell me that I can’t go at such a speed’, he said, ‘or that I can’t eat hamburgers or I can’t drink wine. Let me decide for myself – that’s what my freedom means’.

The ex Prime Minister continued ‘The glasses of wine I drink, let me drink them quietly, I don’t put anybody at risk’.

The DGT traffico head, Pere Navarro, said Aznar had been ‘irresponsible’, and that the matter was not one for jokes. All that was needed now, he said, was for Aznar to say it was perfectly fine to drive at 150 km/hour.
The association of traffic accident victims, ‘Stop Accidents’ described Aznar’s words as ‘An apology for terror on the roads’ while the Socialists described them as ‘offensive to the victims and Spanish Society which is trying to reduce the number of deaths on the roads’.

On Friday a statement from the FEAS foundation which Aznar presides said that ‘at no time did he want to belittle the risk of mixing alcohol and driving, and that he was firmly convinced of the need to be firm on the issue as shown by the measures he adopted while in Government’.

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