The president of the PP, Alberto Nunez Feijoowill make his landing in the Senate next June, after the Galician Parliament appointed him a senator on May 25, replacing Juan Serrano, so the opposition leader will make his debut in the Upper House in the plenary session on June 7.
The PP confirmed this Sunday that Feijóo will exercise the leadership of the opposition from Senate, a step that the majority in the party took for granted, since it gives the president of the popular party the ability to confront the chief executive, Pedro Sánchez.
Although, unlike Congress, where the president responds to the opposition in all his control sessions, in the Senate there are only two control plenary sessions per month, and in addition, the Prime Minister only attends one of them, his election.
PP sources point out that the appointment as senators of Feijóo and his right-hand man, Miguel Tellado, will take place on May 25 in the Galician Parliament, replacing Juan Serrano and Elena Muñoz, who resign their positions to make way for both leaders.
After that date, the next plenary sessions of the Senate are June 7 and 21, and Pedro Sánchez will attend one of themwhom Feijóo will have the opportunity to ask for a maximum time of seven minutes divided into a first intervention and a reply.
Alberto Núñez Feijóo completes his departure from the Xunta this week, where Alfonso Rueda will take office as the new president.
According to popular sources, next week he will hold a meeting with the parliamentary groups of Congress and the Senatewhich are still pending possible changes, without revealing the question of whether or not there will be new spokespersons.
As a senator, Feijóo can attend the plenary sessions of Congress, where he is not contemplated to intervene. In addition, he can offer press conferences, and as leader of the opposition he has an office, but in the PP they do not plan for Feijóo to be a protagonist in the parliamentary life of Congress, but rather he will concentrate on the Senate.
In the near future there is also the debate on the state of the nationwhich the Government promised to convene in the current period of sessions but which still has no date.
Feijóo can attend, but to intervene the PP would have to send a request to the Chamber and the Table would have to make a pronouncement after requesting a report from the lawyers. The PP has not decided whether to take this step.
The historical precedent shows the difficulty of this route. In 1987 Antonio Hernández Mancha, then leader of Alianza Popular and a senator, asked to participate in the debate, but the Congress Table did not allow it and, given the refusal, AP presented a motion of censure against Felipe González that ultimately ended with the Hernández Mancha’s political career.
PP sources downplay this debate because their priority, they explain, is to articulate their political alternative through, above all, proposals.
With elections in Andalusia on June 19 and the Government going through one of the worst moments of the legislature, the popular consider that parliamentary life is not what concentrates the political debate.
Feijóo will go to Seville on June 18 and will focus on Juanma Moreno’s appointment with the polls, from the conviction that in Andalusia there is an opportunity to reaffirm the center-right that will be “decisive for Spain”, sources from the Popular Party point out.
Meanwhile, the confirmation in his position of the current spokesman for the PP in the Senate, Javier Maroto, is pending the decision that Feijóo adopts regarding the spokespersons for Congress and the Senate after meeting with the parliamentary groups.
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Although the popular ones trust that Vox will finally vote for Maroto, in accordance with the legislative agreement signed by both parties, the formation of Santiago Abascal has not yet made its decision public so, for the moment, his appointment is still up in the air.