And the mountain gave birth to a mouse. No schism, no criticism more implacable than that of Emiliano García Page and Javier Lambán. A classic already in the federal commissions of the PSOE since Pedro Sánchez is its secretary general. The precedents have failed once again. The foundations of Ferraz Street have not shaken and the leader of the socialists has not ended up being buried by the censorship of the barons, as some had predicted. This is how the leader of the socialists put the finishing touches to a first week of September in which he regained the initiative against an Alberto Núñez Feijóo who has not quite found the tone or the axis of his own strategy, beyond the papier-mâché decorations for their staging.
The President of the Government faces the autumn ready to fight, with no elections in sight. With or without Budgets for 2025. With or without the support of all the barons of his party. And “with or without the support of the legislative power”. He asks the PP to abandon the “destructive” opposition and his own people to “grit their teeth and look forward” in the face of attacks to build Spain from a social-democratic agenda that, according to what he said this Saturday before the high staff of his party, intends to restore itself from top to bottom at the federal congress next November.
Sánchez began Monday of this week by announcing that he would run for re-election as secretary general of the PSOE while Feijóo and Ayuso competed for the title the same day with radio and television interviews. On Tuesday, the CGPJ agreement was announced so that, for the first time, a progressive woman would preside over the Supreme Court and the College of Judges. And on Wednesday, in a conference at the Cervantes Institute, he set the direction of the government and the priorities of the new political path and, in the afternoon, he announced the incorporation of a black leg of the PSOE like Óscar López into the party Council of Ministers to replace José Luis Escriva, who was appointed, not without controversy, governor of the Bank of Spain while in the PP, Ayuso blew up Feijóo’s summit with his barons in his efforts to boycott the bilateral meetings scheduled by Sánchez. to be reserved for regional presidents. By the time Friday arrived, the most popular were the subject of jokes in half of Spain for a photograph of Feijóo and his territorial leaders in a Madrid palace as an emulation of La Moncloa but without managing to close a unique proposal in terms of regional financing.
With great self-confidence and a clearly ideological speech, Sánchez appeared before the Federal Committee of his party to officially convene the November congress and asked his people for “ambition in the proposals and rigor in the debates” with which he intends to relaunch the socialist project. “We are the forefront of progress and in the next 41st Congress it will be our turn to make the social-democratic dream come true,” he stressed.
Touch everything except the Monarchy
If Alfonso Guerra’s was the famous phrase that “not even the mother who gave birth to Spain will know about it”, Sánchez’s is “I’m going to touch everything except the Monarchy, the Socialist Youth will take care of it” (sic). He published it in a joking tone in the groups after the meeting of the federal leadership last Monday, according to several eyewitnesses, but it gives an idea of the clarification that the general secretary intends to make to the socialist ideology with a view to a federal model in the style of the German or Canadian. For now, it opens the door to allow all communities that wish to collect and manage more taxes to benefit from new transfers of powers and to have their singularity recognized.
He aspires to a new autonomous stage, “which can contribute to creating a fairer financing system, reducing territorial differences, guaranteeing the sufficiency of public spending and “demanding co-responsibility with the autonomous governments”. This is all he said to avoid internal criticism of the single financing of Catalonia and that this time they do not come only from the right, but also from his parliamentary partners and the majority of the socialist barons.
And according to him, the debate “is not between territories but between models, between those who see rights in public services and those who see goods”, as he stated before accusing the PP of using regional financing as yet another alibi and silencing the internal response of the PSOE with data.
Since 2018, 935 billion euros have been transferred to the autonomous communities, in addition to the 30,000 in extraordinary contributions due to covid. In total, 300 billion more than those transferred by the government of Mariano Rajoy. And all this without counting European funds. “Never in its entire life, never in these 40 years of autonomous state, has a Spanish government allocated so many resources to finance the autonomous communities,” he said before attacking those who “ask with one hand, while with the other they give gifts.” “taxes on the richest.”
But it was Salvador Illa’s intervention before the PSOE Federal Committee that most calmed the turbulent waters of socialism. “Let no one doubt it, solidarity has not been, is not and will not be questioned by the CPS. I have said it in public and in private, my project is a strong autonomy – of which the financing agreement is part – and an involvement in the improvement of Spain in a Europe with a federal horizon. Not only is Catalonia not leaving, but it is returning.”
The president of the Generalitat, who was the most applauded at the conclave, would say even more: “I was a minister of Spain. I know what Spain is and what Catalonia is. I know that I am where I am thanks to a collective effort by all of you. “We are going to give them back the same enthusiasm, the same conviction, the same altruistic effort and the same help that we Catalan socialists felt.”
Without a doubt, it was his words, together with the fear of the announced replacement of the territorial leadership after the federal congress, that undoubtedly intimidated some of the barons who spoke out against the single financing of Catalonia, after the agreement signed with ERC. In the absence of the Asturian Adrián Barbón due to commitments related to his institutional agenda, the focus was on the Madrilenian Juan Lobato and the Andalusian Juan Espadas. No one appreciated in either of them the strength they had shown in front of the microphones in the previous days. Quite the opposite. Juan Lobato even offered to lead the presentation on regional financing and the territorial model at the Federal Congress, after considering as “legitimate” the fiscal agreement between the PSC and the ERC so that Catalonia begins to collect one hundred percent of the taxes. According to him, this is a starting point to initiate this debate.
Espadas spoke with the same lukewarmness, pleading for the great victory in Catalonia and normalization and affirming that “solidarity among Spaniards is not in doubt because these are our principles and values.” The Andalusian, who asked his coreligionists not to fall into the right-wing framework, even congratulated Sánchez for his “bravery” in calling the congress, a decision that was not understood in the same way in all territories.
Page, on the other hand, stood out by remaining firm both in his concern about the agreement reached between the PSC and the ERC and in his criticism. He thus maintained that the territories do not pay taxes, but that it is the citizens and companies who pay them. “One thing is singularity and another is a specific regime,” he denounced, not without recalling that “when there are presidents in the party, the leadership is not discussed, but policies and ideas can and must be debated.” Something that he hopes will come true at the November congress. Much more implacable than the Castilian-La Mancha, the Aragonese Javier Lambán warned of the “unconstitutionality” of an economic agreement in Catalonia and “unilaterally” rejected a reform of the financing system. All this because, more than in Catalonia, in terms of regional financing or possible inequalities, what happens in the PSOE between now and November must be read only organically. Nothing like questioning the continuity of territorial leaders as a political tactic to guarantee loyalties.
This is politics and it’s not exactly what we’re talking about in capital letters.
