“When I do business, I don’t talk,” he repeated. Maria Jesus Montero each time, he rushed through the swarm of journalists in the Congress Hall, while the plenary session of the House was being held this Thursday.
The number two in the Government did not stop talking on the cell phone in the room and outside throughout the morning to try to resolve the complicated political mess that the Executive is experiencing. The objective: to try to approve tax changes to ensure sufficient revenue for the 2025 budgets.
His worried face anticipated what the negotiation of these budgets might be like. And not to mention what would happen if the Government dared to develop new regional financing or a single concert or financing for Catalonia.
Because the government is today facing the harsh reality: it does not have a sufficient majority to carry out initiatives linked to ideological policies, in particular those linked to taxation or economic policy, which differentiate the right and the LEFT.
In this reality, in which Pedro Sanchez He was inaugurated president a year ago, there is no longer a progressive majority. This prevents the government from having a clear project that can be materialized in laws approved by the Cortes and published in the Official State Gazette.
These days the government has found itself faced with this reality, because it has tried to approve what it has called “tax reform” and he attempted to do so through amendments to a bill that transposes a European directive aimed at harmonizing taxes on multinationals across the European Union.
All this because the government has committed to Brussels to carry out tax reform in order to receive 7,000 million euros from the Next Generationthe fifth payment of these European funds.
For the moment, this attempt has been stopped for lack of parliamentary support, and the PSOE has been forced to cancel the meeting of the Congressional Finance Commission twice due to the certain risk of suffering a resounding defeat.
Monday afternoon will be the third attempt and the Government will insist on trying to reconcile the different positions of its partners.
The negotiation was led this time by the first vice president and head of the Treasury, María Jesús Montero, and not by the Minister of Presidency and Justice, Felix Bolanos. And, for the moment, the number two in the government has provoked the anger of all her parliamentary partners, in the absence of what could happen on Monday.
Everyone agrees that the way to introduce something as important for everyone as “tax reform” was not well chosen. That it was a mistake to use as a “container” a bill on a European tax, which should have been in force on January 1, 2023 and, if it is not approved before next January 1, there will be sanctions for Spain.
ideological taxes
The unease, far from being hidden, of the partners is also due to the way in which the socialists negotiated with the groups, concluding agreements impossible to reconcile between them because they were contradictory. First, an agreement was reached with Junts and PNVwho oppose the extension of taxes on banks and energy companies from January 1. The first was qualified and the second was eliminated in this agreement.
SO, the PSOE agrees with Sumarwhich renounced its initial position of maintaining the two taxes in exchange for the introduction of new taxes such as that on private health care, that on vaping devices.
PNV and Junts are angry because once Montero made and announced a pact with them, he actually rectified it by agreeing to something different with Sumar, without asking them before announcing it.
In addition, the left partners, namely Bildu, ERC and Podemos, are also unhappy because they do not give up their position to perpetuate taxes on energy companies and banks. That is, they reject Montero’s agreement with PNV and Junts, as well as the one concluded by the vice president with Sumar.
and it’s latent the political rivalry between PNV and Bildu in the Basque Country and, above all, between ERC and Junts. The partners understand that Montero has not been sensitive to this rivalry which means that, for example, Bildu and ERC cannot go to their respective communities after having renounced these two very ideological taxes.
For all this, the partners have made it known to Montero that, for various reasons, they are not willing to support the amendments, and that if the commission were held this Thursday, they would all decline due to the crossed positions of each, until now motionless.
The government then tried to consider the amendments as lost, that is to say, to abandon its “tax reform” and, at least, to save the bill and transpose the European directive.
The problem is that Junts claims that his agreement with Montero is global, that is, if his amendments are not presented, they will not vote in favor of the bill. And the lack of agreement on the amendments favors the PNV and Junts, because they would lead to a reduction in taxes on energy and banks on January 1.
This was the situation until, suddenly, The PP has indicated that it would be ready to save the billnot the amendments, because he is “against any increase in taxes”, and will only support “those which are imposed by the community framework, as is the case of the transposition of the directive on the complementary minimum for companies agreed in Brussels.
For the PP, it was a good opportunity to present itself as the state party that saves Spain from paying a fine and transposes the European directive, precisely at a time when the government describes it as “unpatriotic” Alberto Nuñez Feijóo for being on the verge of blowing up the new European Commission, for its veto Therese Ribera.
The Government having no guarantee that the PP will keep its word, it decided, two hours before the meeting of the Finance Commission, to postpone it until Monday. The official version is that until that day he will try again to reach an agreement with his partners, although everyone is skeptical about the room for maneuver that remains, after the way Montero conducted the negotiation.
Until Monday at 5 p.m., the Government can breathe and gain time. The Finance Committee meeting will be held (or not) at that time. What comes out will go to the plenary session of Congress and then to the Senate.
