This week Pedro Sanchez He is entering his seventh year in office, which seems unlikely given the complex political landscape he has faced since winning a no-confidence vote in June 2018.
Given that the president has somehow managed to overcome all the problems that have arisen along the way, one would think that those who are looking for the new direction should be no exception.
There is this time, however, a qualitative difference that allows us to speak of the most diabolical puzzle that has had to be faced so farThe legislative depends on the application of the Catalan economic agreement that the PSOE promised to the ERC in exchange for investments. Salvador Illa. And this measure has been and promises to be even more contested than the amnesty law.
This is the most eloquent demonstration of tightrope walking that characterizes Sánchez’s career. On the one hand, the president manages to triumphantly end the long electoral cycle, achieving one of his greatest political successes after the Catalan elections. But, in exchange, he acquires a commitment that leads to the tension of his conglomerate of parliamentary alliances.
In order to apply the Catalan quotamust reform the Autonomous Financing Law and, probably, other regulations such as the General Tax Law. The problem is that today he does not have the votes to do so.
He has no support, even within his party, with leaders like Page, Barbon, Borrel and the old guard of the PSOE shouting against this harmful preferential treatment towards the Catalan community. And although he enjoys the submissive loyalty of his parliamentary group, the numbers do not match those of the rest of his majority: Izquierda Unida, Chunta and Compromís reject the quota, and there are divisions within Podemos, Sumar and the BNG.
It does not seem that educational work like the amnesty campaign will be useful this time.. This is such a blatant exercise in harming economic equality with the rest of the autonomies that it would be futile to try to season it with considerations invoking the general interest. And this is even more so if the only explanation given so far by the government is that what was promised to ERC is “neither an economic agreement nor a reform of the financing model”, but simply “singular financing”.
Or, as Sánchez said last July, that it is a “magnificent” agreement, which preserves “interterritorial solidarity” and constitutes “a step towards the federalization” of the autonomous state. A horizon that he described, not without success, this Sunday Feijoo of “constitutional mutation”.
In the unlikely event that he manages to deceive ERC by delaying the execution of his commitment, there is another additional difficulty in exhausting the mandate: Sánchez has no options today to approve the 2025 general state budgets.
It is true that the Government has the possibility of extending them a second time until 2023 and continuing to survive in its headlong rush. But this option does not apply to the rest of the regulations, which implies that Sánchez will not be able to apply practically any law. Which means that the legislator would have no future. Not even resorting to the shortcut of decree-laws, since it has already been proven that he has encountered difficulties even in validating them.
It is worth remembering that so far, in this legislature, only five laws have been adopted, four of them of a minor and routine nature, and the last one is the preliminary law of amnesty with which he bought his investiture.
With his razor-thin majority in Congress, he needs every vote. Frankenstein for each vote. And Puigdemont, snubbed after his failed assault on the Generalitat, will be even more reluctant to grant him his seven seats..
Neither the ERC nor Junts will support Sánchez in anything until they have secured their benefits, which will disrupt their majority on the other side. It is true that this president has set himself the goal of simply resisting. But even the best tightrope walkers sometimes end up falling.
