During his appearance this Tuesday, Pedro Sanchez He did not limit himself to describing the aid program for people affected by Dana approved by the Council of Ministers. He also wanted to link these funds intended for the reconstruction of areas devastated by floods to the approval of the General State Budgets (PGE).
The argument is that the devastation caused by the cold fall has changed the political scenario, increasing “to colossal limits” the need to approve the EMP for 2025. For this reason, Sánchez will ask for “the support of the majority » of the Congress of Deputies. .
It is obvious that Sánchez’s strategy is to put pressure on the PP under the pretext of the urgency of budgeting the allocations for Valencia and the rest of the affected territories, and in order to guarantee the support of the opposition for accounts for which, before the disaster, it had not yet been able to obtain the votes of the its members.
The president wants to impose a change of framework under which what were the “Budgets for the survival of Sánchez” become the “Budgets for the survival of Valencia”.
But the PP was able to identify the blackmail hidden behind this attempt to make the rejection of Sánchez’s EMP appear to be an exercise in institutional disloyalty. And that’s why he stayed in his No to government accounts.
And the idea that Moncloa is trying to convey that continuing to extend the 2023 accounts would not allow us to face the effects of Dana is misleading.
Because if it is true that with new accounts approved, the materialization of the 10.6 billion euros committed by Sánchez would be easier and more agile, this is not a condition sine qua non condition for that there is PGEgiven that funds can be raised through other means.
Indeed, the Congress of Deputies is empowered to approve an extraordinary credit to the current PGE if it achieves a sufficient majority.
And this majority is guaranteed after the PP confirmed on Monday that the Government “can count” on its vote “to implement all the measures to support the reconstruction” of Valencia which must be approved by Congress.
Sánchez cannot therefore invoke treason as opposed to the principle of gathering around the flag or “rally the flag effect”, as the cross-cutting support that governments generally benefit from in exceptional moments of national crisis is called.
The only thing that the PP asks, rightly, is that the debate on the EMP and the approval of aid to Valencia be addressed independently. Especially when the emergency situation caused by Dana requires an urgent response, and not subject to the long negotiation deadlines of certain EMPs.
Furthermore, what does the Government intend to do if the rest of the forces do not approve the EMP? Suspend the financial aid that you are obliged to provide?
Sánchez’s ordago therefore has very short legs.
With each passing day, the conviction grows among citizens that Moncloa provides an opportunistic response to the Dana tragedy. From his intention to take advantage of the reconstruction of Valencia to try to save the Parliament, to the victimization of pretending to be “fine” after the attack of the “perfectly organized ultras” in Paiporta, despite the fact that his own bodyguards failed to detect the presence of any extremist groups in the city before his visit and local residents themselves denied the participation of any organized groups of radicals in the protests.
This opportunism was made explicit in an obscene manner during the operational meeting to monitor the effects of Dana this Tuesday, in an image subsequently deleted by the account of the Ministry of Equality, in which we could read that the minister had noted, in referring to the Dana, “this is our time.”
It seems that Sánchez thinks that “this is his moment” to rephrase the embarrassing sentence he addressed to Mazón on Saturday: If you need resources, approve my budgets.
