Simultaneous changes at the end of the year in the leadership of the PSOE and also within the government. This is the plan on which Pedro Sánchez is working with his trusted teams from the party and the Executive to give a boost to a legislative body that aspires to stay in place until 2027 and also for the next electoral cycle. The Federal Congress of Socialists, which will be held between November 29 and December 1, will coincide precisely with the departure of Teresa Ribera for Brussels. And in this scenario, the president plans to undertake the renewal of equipment both at Ferraz and at the Council of Ministers.
Some of these planned changes have in fact already been precipitated by the recent departure of José Luis Escriva, another of the longest-serving ministers on the presidential team. After almost four years at the head of Social Security and one at the head of Digital Transformation, Escriva was appointed governor of the Bank of Spain in September. A move that gave rise to a cascade of internal replacements in the team closest to Pedro Sánchez.
Because Escrivá’s successor in the Council of Ministers was Óscar López, until now chief of staff and right-hand man of the president. And López also signed his “number two” in the presidency, Antonio Hernando, as secretary of state for his new post. A gap which gave rise to a profound replacement of Sánchez’s cabinet within Moncloa, the real decision-making center of the Executive, with the academic Diego Rubio at its head.
Changes in government
Concerning the Council of Ministers, the changes were limited on this occasion to the replacement of the outgoing Escrivá. But what everyone expects at the PSOE is that it will be different with the forced departure of the third vice-president, Teresa Ribera. The head of the Energy Transition, head of the PSOE list in the European elections, will be confirmed as vice-president of Competition and the Green Transition in Brussels. But the electoral process is expected to last until early December.
Examinations for new commissioners to the European Parliament will take place specifically between November 4 and 12, and the earliest the taking of office will take place on December 1. What is expected is that Pedro Sánchez accelerates the deadlines to replace his vice president and that this departure is also used to deal with other important changes within the government.
Although for the moment everyone in Moncloa and within the party prefers to avoid pools, we are convinced that certain departments of the Executive need a helping hand which will serve to recover political initiative in a legislature marked by parliamentary instability. And by that parameter, almost every imaginable change fits in that no one except the president and his closest team is yet in a position to contemplate.
Changes in the game
Even more certain is the renewal at the head of the party which will be undertaken during the Federal Congress which will be held in Seville. In the party there are those who even assume that it will be very deep. The continuity of the Organization Secretary, Santos Cerdán, person of Pedro Sánchez’s greatest confidence and main interlocutor of some of the essential partners of the legislative body, such as Junts or EH Bildu, is considered acquired. It would also be surprising if the first vice-president and Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, did not continue to be the party’s “number two” as deputy general secretary. But from there, any scenario seems open.
What is expected is that many changes will take place within the Socialists’ Federal Executive and that they will be far-reaching, even affecting some of the main spokespersons. A renewal also with a view to the next electoral cycle which must begin in April 2026 in Andalusia and for which the party will have to face significant changes during the territorial congresses which will take place from 2025.
The objective pursued by Pedro Sánchez is that the Federal Congress of Socialists represents, both for his party and for the government he presides over, a clear and strong political message on the stability and vigor of the legislative power beyond the difficulties of government. minority in Congress. This is why the two impulses, in Ferraz and Moncloa, should coincide at the beginning of December.
It is also expected at this time that the passage of the internal conclaves of ERC and Junts has succeeded in clarifying the parliamentary panorama of the Executive. The presidential team does not lose sight of the possibility that a political negotiation with the Catalan independence parties could also be undertaken in December to advance the general state budgets. Something that would ultimately consolidate the foundations of a legislature stable enough to definitively scare away any scenario of electoral advancement.
While waiting for this change to occur in the party teams as well as in the Council of Ministers, the president has already given express orders for his two political machines, both that of the Government and that of the Socialist Party, to strengthen ties and grease well to work in tandem. The possible reluctance generated in the socialist ranks by the arrival of a new device in Moncloa without any link with the PSOE was quickly stopped by Pedro Sánchez, who does not want the dynamic of explicit divide experienced at the time of ‘Iván Redondo between his presidential team and Ferraz Street.
The truth is that in two months everything could be very different around Pedro Sánchez. And the experience of his six years at the head of the Government shows that nothing and no one can be taken for granted. He will emerge from the Seville Congress even stronger, more strengthened and more hegemonic within his own party. And this will give him, if possible, even more free hands to do and undo within the PSOE and the government.
