That Spanish politics revolves around Catalonia is nothing new. And Pedro Sanchezhas called a PSOE congress, bringing it forward by a year, so it is not surprising. What is surprising is that the speech of the socialist general secretary does not give any details about the agreement he has reached. president has Salvador Illabut he issued a warning, at the very least worrying, that he is ready to govern “for another three years” “with or without an appeal from the legislative power.”
It is true that he has been in power for almost a year with only one law published in the BOE, that of Amnesty. And that the weakness of the “investiture majority” has already led it to suffer more than a dozen defeats in parliament.
It is also true that Sánchez never governed with stable majorities, which led him to break the record for royal decrees compared to any other democratic leader. In fact, 54% of legislative initiatives approved since he came to power in June 2018, come from the Council of Ministers and not from the Cortes.
But the phrase resonated in the president’s speech before the most important body of the PSOE between congresses: the head of the Executive warned, before the organic and elected leaders of his party, that he is ready to govern until the end of the legislature. Regardless of the Legislative, if this continues I feel more “restrictive” than “constructive”.
Even hidden in any paragraph of the intervention of the President of the Government, the warning did not go unnoticed by the opposition. Official sources of the leadership of the Popular Party detect “a new example of the authoritarian tics de Sánchez”. In Genoa, people were surprised, these sources explain, by the “regrettable spectacle of seeing The entire PSOE applauds this announcement“.
According to the PP, “wanting to supplant the Legislative of the Executive has a name“since they see at the president’s house “little democratic ethics and a lot of authoritarian excesses”. “He also wanted to control the judiciary by changing the laws and failed. We will also prevent this with all means at our disposal, because in a democracy, if you do not have parliamentary support, There is only one way: call an election“.
Beyond that Legitimacy as president comes from Congresshe himself concocted most of the “we are more” to conquer power… and now that a part of it turns its back on him, he chooses to dodge it. And even if he didn’t spend a minute on it Catalan quotaHe specified that his “six priorities” Over the next three years, he intends to carry them out without worrying about the Cortes.if necessary.
“Instead of offering dialogue to the opposition, what it is looking for is its submission,” continues this spokesperson for the party of Alberto Nuñez Feijoo“Instead of listening to Parliament, he seeks to muzzle it, and instead of ensuring the cooperation of the CCAA, he insults that of the PP and does not bring them together.”
Who is the biggest threat?
Consulted by this newspaper, sources from the socialist leadership explained that it was a question “a notice to the Junts”. In other words, “no matter how hard they try, they will not change our roadmap” for the transformation and modernization of Spain.
Anyway, the sources of the postconvergent consulted by this newspaper, they claim not to have no interest in “Madrid threats”. For Junts, the governance of Spain is an asset with which it plays to advance its negotiation strategy in Switzerland. Furthermore, recalls this spokesperson consulted, “hereinafter our congress, at the end of October, We will review our relationship with the PSOE“.
And if these are warnings, the party Carles Puigdemont It is credible. Sánchez has already had two particularly difficult experiences in Congress during this legislature.
In January, Junts subjected the PSOE to political blackmail in order to validate three decrees. The separatist formation committed to the Government transferring “totally immigrant skills” at the Generalitat, the publication of budget balances -which served to justify the Catalan quota– and one reform of civil procedure law to “facilitate the applicability of the amnesty.”
And in the last plenary session of July, the seven deputies of the right-wing pro-independence party defeated the first vote in favor of the budgets, the path to the deficit. Sánchez will not submit again, is the message, because Next Tuesday, in fact, the Council of Ministers will once again approve this spending ceiling..
And when the vote reaches Congress, circumstances will be substantially different from July. Illa is already president in Catalonia, which irritates Puigdemont on the one hand but compromises him on the other. The agreement that brought the Catalan socialist leader to the Generalitat includes, as its main element, the tax agreement for Catalonia, which requires the 2025 budgets begin to create the legal structures that support it.
“And how will the Junts vote against what they have been demanding for years?”asked a high-ranking socialist source at the exit of the Federal Committee.
Various strategies
This is perhaps one of the strategies that Sánchez is using to maintain his warning to Junts and the entire Congress that he will govern “with or without the help of Parliament.” In other words, to achieve overlap initiatives to vote in a way that ends force its investment partners are also governance partners.
In fact, as this newspaper has already reported, in the so-called case Catalan quota The president has already outlined this strategy. Puigdemont may “bare his claws”, but he is counting on will eventually support the necessary legislative reformslike that of the LOFCA.
But in order not to lose the rest of its partners (Compromís, Chunta, IU…), the government plans to link this process not only to the reform of regional financing, but also to the tax reform that it has committed to carrying out with Brussels.
The government must entrust these responsibilities to the European Commission in order to be able to opt for the Fifth disbursement of recovery fundswith already nine months of delay. And since new revenues are needed to be able to transfer more funds to the Autonomous Communities, the president already announced last Wednesday that there would be “more taxes on the rich.”
If one thing does not go without the other, even if the first only benefits some, Moncloa hopes that the second will compensate. AND all partners “align”they too, in the realization of the PSOE project.
Because the other option is that the Government will eventually fall… and they in turn “The PP and the international far right”. Another one of the spectra paraded, at least four times, in Sánchez’s speech, this Saturday at the Ferraz headquarters.
Another option that the government is using to maintain its threat to bypass the Legislative Assembly, official socialist sources explain, is to resort more frequently (even) to the royal decree as a means of regulation.
The Constitution requires, in its Article 86that it is only legislated in this way “in case of extraordinary and urgent need”. But the custom was different.
“We are the party of dialogue. Out of necessity of course, but also out of conviction,” concludes another PSOE source. “But dialogue, negotiation and agreement It’s a two-way street.. Otherwise, we will exercise our responsibility by governing,” he added.
