The hasty convening of the 41st Federal Congress of the PSOE for next November hides something more than a routine renewal of the territorial leadership.
The PSOE, it is true, gains a year of time for the new electoral cycle, which will begin with the Andalusian elections scheduled for June 2026.
But the truth is that Sánchez still had a year to call the 41st Federal Congress of the party, given that the previous one took place in October 2021.
Why the rush then?
The Congress will allow Sánchez to renew the Federal Executive Commission, the executive body of the PSOE, which now has almost fifty members, most of them with very little political weight. After the renewal of the Commission in Congress, regional, regional and local congresses would be held, and this would involve the renewal of all the territorial structures of the party.
But the deep strategic objective of the Congress is different. Because Sánchez risks the legislature for the next four months. And, more specifically, it is the issue of the reform of the Organic Law of Financing of the Autonomous Communities (LOFCA).
During these four months, Junts and ERC will determine their new direction and, therefore, how far their commitment to the PSOE will go. These are also months in which the government will face the challenge of negotiating general budgets that currently seem closer to extension (it would be the second consecutive) than to approval.
Sánchez will also face a government crisis if Therese Ribera is appointed European Commissioner and Jose Luis Escrivá He becomes the new governor of the Bank of Spain.
But the main danger that Sánchez faces is the bankruptcy of the party due to the single financing agreement for Catalonia, which the government is selling as a mere reworking of the LOFCA and which its critics consider to be a fiscal agreement very similar to the Basque one.
And it is this fracture that the president wants to heal during this 41st Federal Congress.
In November, the president will face his party with a dilemma very similar to that Felipe Gonzalez He raised the PSOE in 1979, when he threatened to abandon the formation if socialism did not renounce Marxism.
On this occasion, the ideological dogma that the party must renounce is that of solidarity, a fundamental pillar of social democracy. The alternative, if the PSOE refuses to get rid of this burden, will be the loss of the support of the nationalists.
And then, in a cascade, the departure of Moncloa and the arrival to power of the “extreme right” of the PP and Vox. This will be the story of Sánchez.
And Sánchez may be right about this. Because in light of the polls, the strength of the PSOE in Catalonia would no longer be enough in new legislative elections to guarantee Sánchez the presidency, given the loss of support in the rest of the communities. And especially in Andalusia, the party’s breadbasket.
It is worth asking, of course, Who is responsible for this loss of support throughout Spain?. But what is indisputable is that the PSOE will not be able to govern in Spain if it does not have the support of ERC, Junts, EH Bildu and the PNV.
The PSOE must therefore decide at this 41st Federal Congress whether it must renounce its principles in order to retain power. Sánchez will thus place the PSOE between the sword of the extreme right and the wall of nationalist privileges.
If the PSOE, as in 1979, accedes to the wishes of its leader, Sánchez will have an easier time retaining the presidency until 2027 and, perhaps, for four more years. Otherwise, the task will become an impossible mission.
The dilemma is diabolical. Because the PSOE would never approve a concert for Catalonia like the one proposed by Sánchez if it were in opposition. But now it is in power. Sánchez will thus propose the resignation of the PSOE of its four acronyms (Party, Socialist, Worker and Spanish) and its transformation into a power machine. without more principles, no ideas, no project, other than the conservation of this power.
In a way, the decision that the socialists will have to face in November is even more important than the one that the PSOE faced in 1979. Because then the PSOE renounced Marxism, an ideology that at that time had already been defeated by history. But this time, they will be asked to renounce the fundamental principle of the left: that of the equality of all citizens.
