“We’ve spent a few months keeping our heads down and being patient, but we need to let everyone think,” a Sumar insider in the government says privately. The diagnosis reflects the complicated journey ahead Pedro Sanchez until the end of the year, isolated in Congress and attempted to exhaust the legislative power “with or without the support of the legislative power.” In other words, without Parliament.
The idea of governing by decree, without going through the Cortes, has not been well received either inside or outside the government. In fact, the entire political space to the left of the PSOE has closed ranks against Sánchez’s project, either because it expresses “a profound contempt for the functioning of the democratic system” […] with autocratic tics“(We can) or because “there are still many things to do together” (Sumar).
The party led by Yolanda Díaz avoids publicly evaluating Sánchez’s announcement, contenting itself with urging its members to “take advantage of the opportunity that the legislative power offers us.” In the eyes of the Minister of Culture, Ernest Urtasunthe call majority of the investiture “has a very broad common agenda” which could move forward in the coming months, if there is the will.
First of all, the great task of the parliamentary course that begins this Tuesday is that of the General State Budgets. More precisely, on the question of whether or not to present them, because everyone assumes that it is impossible to approve them.
Junts already voted against deficit targets earlier this summer and there is no indication that it will loosen the leash until further notice. At least not before internal congress which will be held at the end of October in Calella to ratify Carles Puigdemont’s line. But without them, the entire budget plan would be in vain.
“We must present them, continue to count on partners and let let everyone make a portrait; “Don’t act as if nothing is happening,” recall some sources who do not consider the battle of the accounts as lost, but because it is very complicated. The idea that circulates through the Moncloa is not to take another step until Junts and ERC close their internal processes.
In Sumar, they believe that, even if they are not approved, a budget debate would serve to put pressure on the PSOE and sell a more left-wing direction, with measures on housing, taxes on large fortunes and social aid.
The great fear that exists in the left coalition is that, with a Council of Ministers controlled by the socialists and a Congress more fragmented than ever, the government’s options will be very limited, even more so if there are still options missing. three years of the legislative power, as Sánchez says.
For now, there is at least twelve sessions in Congress until the end of the year, although no source excludes that the president will once again pull a rabbit out of the hat and call an extraordinary plenary session. Beyond the budgets, attention is focused on the announced “democratic regeneration measures”, the Social Economy Law of the Ministry of Labor and the ILP aimed at regularizing half a million migrants, among others.
“autocratic tics”
On the other side of the Council of Ministers, within the Joint Group of Congress, Podemos begins the political journey as the previous one ended: by demanding a left turn in its economic and social measures. This requires, they say, pressure from partners.
“If you say you are prepared to govern without parliamentary support, that means you are considering extending the budget. All we had left was to see Pedro Sánchez with autocratic tics,” the secretary of the Podemos Organization said on Monday. Pablo Fernandezwho accused the executive of “limiting itself to making headlines without doing absolutely anything”.
Regarding Sánchez’s statement about blocking Parliament “with or without the support of the opposition” […] and the agreement of the Legislative Power”, the violets diagnose that the problem of understanding does not lie in the partners, but in the PSOE itself for not adhering to the investiture bloc.
“This is a very worrying and very serious statement, which expresses a deep contempt for the functioning of the democratic system,” Fernández emphasizes. “The PSOE would like back to the time of absolute majority“But those times are already over, citizens have been voting for years for a plural parliament, without which the government’s work is impossible, and Sánchez must accept that he must reach agreements.”
