The crisis is serious, the legislature has reached a turning point, but there is no atmosphere of total rupture or pre-electoral climate, at least for now. Starting from the basis that the Government aspires to be able to “redirect” the tension with ERC in the coming weeks – the big question is whether he will succeed -, the thesis that is maintained in Moncloa and in the leadership of the PSOE is that the mandate can be completed when Pedro Sánchez planned, at the end of 2023. “Surely we’ll get there& rdquor ;, summarizes a high command of the party, along the same lines as other of his colleagues. The socialist leader has a great tool in his favour: he already has some Budgets approved that could be extended for next year.
The Republicans have dealt the president two very hard blows in just over two months, rejecting the Recognition of two capital decree laws. On February 3, the labor reform, saved by a mistaken vote of a PP deputy. Last Thursday, the shock plan for the war in Ukraine, approved thanks to EH Bildu. However, the context is very different. Now it is not a question of a difference in approach or discrepancy with the measure proposed by the Executive, but of a punishment which is a response to what the independence movement understands as a lack of forceful reaction to the alleged espionage of more than 60 pro-independence leaders and activists through, mainly, the Israeli program pegasus. ERC warned on Thursday that this ‘no’ was a “first warning & rdquor; to Sanchez.
This Friday, the deputy general secretary and party spokesperson, Marta Vilalta, urged the president to “move” to rebuild trust with separatism, because the bond has remained “very touched and very weak“. And although the Executive managed to “save the decree”, there are still “many votes” in this legislature. Tough tone, yes, but not total divorce. In turn, the spokesman for the PSOE leadership, Felipe Sicilia, denied that there was a “crisis” due to the alleged espionage in the Government, although he did admit a “concern which is logical”, to which the bipartisan has given a “clear and decisive” response.
Vilalta urges Sánchez to “move” to rebuild damaged trust, since the relationship has been “very affected and weakened”, but not broken. Sicilia says there is no “crisis”, but admits “concern”
After a week of growing tension, the two parties arrive, ‘a priori’, at a valley forced by the May Day break. In Moncloa they point out that no more gestures towards the Republicans are foreseen and that the next step should be the commission of official secrets. The body, unblocked in this last plane, will meet next week, probably, so that the director of the CNI appears, Peace Stephen. In the president’s team they believe that this appointment will serve to clear up doubts – “clarify everything”, said Sicilia -, but ERC calls for an investigation “to the bottom” of the “dirty war” against independence, and demands resignations. He has already targeted the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, for “justifying & rdquor; the follow-ups in 2019, a head that the president does not intend to give up.
The Republicans do not consider parliamentary support for the PSOE to be over. And the PSOE, for its part, wants to continue counting on them as partners. That double data, together with the fact that the Government has restricted “to the minimum & rdquor; relations with the Government, without breaking completely, allow us to see that a weak thread survives between Madrid and Barcelona. Nothing to do with what happened in February 2019, when the dialogue broke down and ERC knocked down the Budget project, for which Sánchez called early elections for April 28.
#Live | Bolaños highlights the importance of having approved the anti-crisis decree because “it helps citizens”: “In the Government we know the difficulties because we go to the supermarket to buy food and we go to the gas station to fill the tank” pic.twitter.com/GAbFR1aZb4
— Europe Press (@europapress) April 29, 2022
Channels “open 24/7”
Now, the communication channels “continue open 24/7&rdquor ;, they underline this newspaper in Moncloa. The conviction that the dialogue with the Generalitat can be straightened out, therefore, is total. Several ministers are also “safe & rdquor; that the relationship will mend. Cost more or cost less, however, there is no feeling that Sánchez’s claim to arrive at the end of 2023 has been blown up. “We will finish the legislature, do not hesitate&rdquor ;, affirms a prominent member of the Cabinet. “He is not at risk… although CKD is CKD —expresses with due caution a Moncloa official—. In the end, the concrete agreements [sobre iniciativas] They are easier than the general ones. ‘Policies over politics‘. In other words, the policies (in lower case) will prevail over the Policy (in capital letters).
Yolanda Díaz, close sources indicate, also believe that the general elections will not be rushed due to the current clash with ERC
And although the Republicans move on other coordinates, due to the linking of many of their decisions to the evolution of the dialogue on Catalonia, in the Government it is remembered that variable geometry operates. De facto. The labor reform came out thanks to Cs, the anti-crisis decree by Bildu. In short, that the Executive hopes to compose different majorities based on their projects. Sources close to Yolanda Díaz, a leader of United We Can in the coalition, also believe that there is no “risk” that the end of the legislature is precipitated by the crisis over ‘Catalangate’.
But the great oxygen bottle of the Executive is the State Budget for 2022. Sánchez and the Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, have always defended that they would not be the last of the legislature. If ERC puts even more distance, and there is no alternative sum, the president will have to calibrate if he prefers to take the bill to Congress, at the risk of being overthrown —a resounding political defeat that leaves the Executive very weak—, or he does not present it so as not to get slapped. Although Moncloa sources maintain that even for Republicans new accounts may be very appealing, despite the fact that there will be no regional elections in Catalonia. “But if municipal“, they remember, and “they are equally interested in having new projects in the municipalities in which they govern“.
Minister Robles, with the six justification of the brute war against independence, has been left unable to continue holding public responsibilities.
If the Spanish government did not know it is gray, if not, it faces more gray. I permit-ho i justify-ho is intolerable.
— MartaVilaltaTorres🎗 (@martavilaltat) April 28, 2022
The why of 2023
The decision is not made. It’s premature. But if he did not have new Budgets, Sánchez could wait until end of termsince it would be enough to extend them for 2023. That is the reasoning that is heard in Moncloa, that even “worst case scenario”, in the event that the relationship with ERC is not redirected, there are some approved public accounts.
In Moncloa they point out that agreements on specific policies are always easier, and in any case there is room for variable geometry
The president has always insisted that after very turbulent years, it is necessary to return to democratic habits, to four-year terms. That is why he himself has pointed out that he intends to speed up his mandate, stretching it until December 2023, the maximum allowed by law. Because in the second half of the year, Spain will assume the presidency of the European Uniona moment of maximum focus for the Government, and because on October 31 the princess Eleanor will turn 18 and must swear the Constitution before the Cortes Generales.
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But if Sánchez thinks of exhausting the legislature for something, it is because his hope is that the economic situation improve and the effects of European funds reach the pockets of citizens. Road map now eroded by the war in Ukraine, whose duration and consequences are still a unknown.
In a moment of maximum uncertainty, the president has reiterated, we must respond with “unity.” Outside Spain and inside. But now that will is an entelechy. With the new PP of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, the pacts have not yet been forged and the relationship with the main investiture partner, ERC, goes through its most critical moment throughout the legislature.