Last Tuesday, Pedro Sánchez tried to get rid of all the clauses that his partners put in exchange for their votes in one fell swoop. Unexpectedly, the president linked the approval of the budget to a “response plan” to rebuild the territories affected by DANA. In other words: if Congress wants to help the Valencian Community, it will have to overcome obstacles and approve the government’s accounts.
The proposal found no response from either the opposition or the investiture bloc, which is divided on whether or not to follow the government’s example. Some of them, like Can And MRCthey do not buy the “bad maneuver” with which Sánchez is trying to save a budget that he has not yet presented and which could be postponed until mid-February at the earliest.
“As we saw in 2020 with the pandemic, budgets are not necessary to implement an ambitious and urgent aid plan,” say Podemos sources. “For now, the important thing is that the government declares a state of alarm, takes the reins and deploys a set of measures”, including the complete cessation of mortgage and rent payments or the capping of prices essential goods.
On this subject, sources from Podemos and ERC assure that “aid to DANA cannot wait” and that “it must be approved”. by decree“, which would be the quickest way to divert public money to Valencia. “It is clumsy on the part of the government to condition aid to Valencians on the approval of the EMP for which they still have no support,” they say.
The purple assure that “the road map has been clear since last week”, when they submitted their support for public accounts to the vote of their members. The bases spoke and set three conditions for their four seats: legal reduction in rents of 40%; sever relations with Israel and dismantle “squad commandos like Desokupa”. They are all maintained.
In the case of Esquerra, the conditions are less clear, but they concern the development of the “single financing” of Catalonia that they agreed this summer with the PSC, a measure that will necessarily have to pass through Congress. “But now we have to do the right thing,” one executive says of accelerating aid to DANA.
If we also add to the equation of these two Together Things are even worse, since Carles Puigdemont’s people have not even confirmed their support for the path of stability, a prelude to the budgets. However, along the way they have already forced the government to change its tax reform and renounce the tax on electricity companies, which was included in the coalition agreement with Sumar.
Lack of support
Basically, the Government seeks to maintain the thunder of the state efficiency to resolve territorial crises. Even more so in the middle of the debate on federal Spain. In less than a month a PSOE congress is planned with the same horizon, then another ERC, and shortly after a Conference of Presidents in which the subject cannot be avoided.
For his part, Sánchez has the problem of lack of support, especially since several parties in the investiture bloc – even within the government – agree with the PP in opposing the government and its “blackmail”as Cuca Gamarra defined this Tuesday, once the truce with the socialists was definitively broken. The fact is that they coincide, even if for different reasons.
The main opposition party believes that the DANA crisis has the scale of a “national emergency” and that the Minister of the Interior should have done so, Fernando Grande Marlaskawho was in charge of the organization and coordination of all interventions. The left-wing forces, for their part, accuse the president Carlos Mazon for having acted in a “negligent” and even “murderous” manner, but they are not more tender towards Pedro Sánchez.
Before the creation of DANA, the central government was breathing heavily because of legal scandals like that of Begoña Gómez and José Luis Ábalos and political disasters like that caused in Sumar by the allegations of sexual abuse and sexist behavior of Íñigo Errejón. Today, all of this is still alive, but already in retreat, and will splash again once the water has finished flowing.
