Carles Puigdemont is heating up the debate on the path to stability, which returns this Thursday to the Congress of Deputies, and on whose approval the entire budgetary agenda designed by the government depends. The leader of Junts threatens to overthrow the government again, which would force Moncloa to extend – for the second consecutive year – the 2023 budgets and invalidate the budgetary roadmap that The Executive plans to send to Brussels on October 15as a guarantee of compliance with European tax rules.
“For the same thing we voted ‘no’ for, we will vote ‘no’ again. If they change that, let’s talk about it,” the former president of the Generalitat through his profile on the social network xThe truth is that Sánchez’s people have opened a channel of negotiation with the postconvergentthat They demand a higher level of budget execution for Catalonia from the government“We have no way of understanding why, in Madrid, public investments worth 1.35 billion euros more than what was planned were made in 2023, and in Catalonia, 1.25 billion less,” Puigdemont criticized.
The pro-independence party is also asking Sánchez to put more pressure on judges who oppose the application of the amnesty law. In fact, Junts Secretary General Jordi Turull was very direct a few weeks ago when he asked the president to force the state attorney general to file a complaint against the Supreme Court judges who had not applied the rule. The lawsuit has not fallen on deaf ears. Álvaro García Ortiz wrote a letter last week requesting the recusal of TC magistrate José María Macías from the debate on the drafting of the amnesty law. Despite the wink, Moncloa is wary of Junts. They assume that the vote cast on Thursday by the parliamentary group It’s “totally unpredictable”and they recognize that uncertainty will be routine for the Executive in each of the initiatives it submits to Congress.
In public, Moncloa’s version is different. They insist – again and again – that they will finish the legislature, even if the Lower House reverses the path of stability and the spending ceiling, thus canceling the possibility of presenting a budget project that the Treasury has been working on for months. In private, they admit that it will be very difficult to govern without the support of the legislative branch.
“For me, the most important thing is to be able to present it and have it approved. If it can be done within the established deadlines, perfect. If we have a greater need to continue talking, then perfect too,” said the first vice-president, this week after leaving an informative breakfast. María Jesús Montero does not consider the vote lost and will try to take advantage of the days in which the plenary session is postponed to iron out the differences with Puigdemont’s party. For this, Moncloa does not rule out meeting the independence leader in Brusselsas happened a year ago when a socialist mission went to the European capital to negotiate and sign the investiture agreement. “I will never consider broken relations with a political party like Junts, in which we have reached very important agreements, including the investiture agreement,” Montero said.
The rest of the parliamentary groups that made up the investiture bloc in November 2023 are more direct. ERC and Podemos are ending the legislature. “A right-wing bloc is forming between PP, Vox and Junts that Feijóo will surely take to Moncloa,” warned ERC spokesman Gabriel Rufián on Wednesday in the corridors of the Congress of Deputies. Those of Ione Belarra have been insisting for months that Montero will not be able to promote the 2025 Accounts and predict the imminent end of the coalition government.
In fact, both have asked Sánchez for explanations in recent days. Rufián asked the president “how long do you think the legislature will last in the last session of government control?” Sánchez answered the question as best he could. “Legislatures, as prescribed by the Constitution, last four years, so we have three left,” he noted from his seat. Ione Belarra will press the issue next Wednesday, a day before the vote on the path to stability. The Podemos spokesperson will ask the first vice-president, María Jesús Montero: “Do you think you can govern without parliamentary support?”
