Accustomed to living on the margins, Pedro Sánchez begins his seventh political year as president of the government this week, with a more precarious situation than ever in the Congress of Deputies.
If he fails to rebuild his network of alliances, destroyed by the Catalan elections of 12-M, he now lacks the necessary majority to Approve the economic agreement of Cataloniawho signed with ERC to make Salvador Illa president of the Generalitat.
Even though the socialist parliamentary group remains united, the measure is not only rejected by almost everyone barons regional members of the PSOE (from Adrián Barbón to Emiliano Garcia-Page And Miguel Angel Gallardo), but of several partners of the investiture pact, such as Compromís and Coalificación Canaria.
And even the former PSOE organisation secretary José Luis Ábalos, now in the Joint Group, threatens to stop supporting the government, after the audit of the Ministry of Transport that indicates his responsibility in the Koldo case and about his accusation before the Supreme Court.
Sánchez does not have the guaranteed support to carry out the General State Budgets 2025 (in which Vice President María Jesús Montero has been working for months). Although, if necessary, he seems determined to extend them again until 2023 to continue at Moncloa.
ERC support (where the two souls led by Marta Rovira and Oriol Junqueras) and Junts could also weaken after the congresses that both parties have called this fall, in order to renew their leadership. That of the Junts is scheduled for October and that of the ERC is scheduled for November.
In the best case scenario, Carles Puigdemont, aggrieved after being deprived of the presidency of the Generalitat, will sell the support of the seven deputies of the Junts very dearly to any government initiative.
The economic agreement promised to ERC, so that The Generalitat collects all taxes which are paid in Catalonia, would require a reform of the Autonomous Financing Law and, probably also, other regulations such as the General Tax Law.
The national leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, warned this Sunday, in an interview with Europa Press, that the Catalan concert represents a “constitutional mutation”which breaks the principle of territorial solidarity.
Feijóo plans to gather its members on September 6 barons regional organizations to prepare the offensive against the Catalan quota and to demand a new, fairer financing system for all autonomous communities, without à la carte privileges.
In this regard, Feijóo recalled the words of former socialist minister José Bono regarding the demands of the Catalan nationalists: “He who wants to eat separately, it is because he wants to eat more.“. Some demands that the PSOE assumed, almost entirely, in the investiture pact of Illa.
Another former socialist minister who has thwarted the government’s strategy is the current EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, Josep Borrell, who during the years of process has been particularly combative in dismantling the myths of the independence movement, such as that of Tax plundering of Catalonia Operated by ERC.
The Vice-President of the Treasury, María Jesús Montero, had tried to put out the fire in the ranks of the PSOE, assuring that what had been promised to the ERC was “neither an economic agreement nor a reform of the use of the financing model.” It is simply a “single financing” he said.
However, Josep Borrell was direct on Friday from Santander: “I have no interest in fueling public debates, but I don’t want to look like a liar either.”alleged: what was promised to Catalonia “is called a concert”.
Because until now, the government has limited itself to giving vague explanations about the agreement with ERC. In his last public appearance, on July 31 in Moncloa, Sánchez assured that the agreement signed with ERC is a “magnificent” agreement, which preserves “interterritorial solidarity” and constitutes “a step towards federalization” of the autonomous state.
“Solidarity between different people”
In the same spirit, the new president of the Generalitat, Salvador Illa, committed himself this Sunday, in an interview with The avant-gardeto help the Generalitat to “improve a plural, diverse and plurinational Spain“.
And he assured that the new system of privileged financing promised to Catalonia will allow to preserve the “solidarity between the different“, referring to the rest of the regions.
This is the “constitutional mutation” that Feijóo denounces, to transform the current autonomous system into an asymmetrical “federal” model (with different powers and financing formulas for the different regions), without taking into account the majority that demands a reform of the Magna. Map.
In an attempt to quell the rebellion of barons PSOE, Moncloa is now trying to design a regional financing model that will allow it, at least in the short term, increase the economic allocation to each community.
Squaring the circle
This would be squaring the circle: with the extended budgets and the return to the deficit control rules imposed by Brussels, this increase in resources for all the autonomous communities would only be possible through a increase in tax pressure.
Even more so after leaving Catalonia, the community with the second highest GDP in Spain, outside the common regime.
The scenario that is emerging for the remainder of the legislature is that of a dead endBut Pedro Sánchez has already demonstrated in the past his ability to overcome even more difficult situations.
The Council of Ministers that Pedro Sánchez will chair this Tuesday will officially begin the new political course. Then, Sánchez plans to begin a tour in Mauritania, Senegal and Gambiacountries with which the government must conclude diplomatic and economic agreements, to try to stop the migratory avalanche suffered by the Canary Islands.
