The Government celebrated the sad consolation that the PP lost this Tuesday in Congress the ten votes obtained at the request of its parliamentary group. The Permanent Deputation rejected the three requests for the appearance of the President of the Government to report on his immigration policy, on the flight of Puigdemont on August 8 and on the position of the Executive regarding fraud in Venezuela.
Thus, the partners of Pedro Sanchez (except Junts, which joined PP and Vox in supporting four of the requests for appearance) avoided the president having to go to the House in extraordinary session to give explanations.
The chimerical “progressive majority” will be able to boast of its cohesion to save its leader from a bad moment. But this progressive majority can hardly hope to avoid the responsibility of the executive power.
Requests for the appearance of the finance, transport, foreign affairs and equality ministers were also rejected. But when the government does not provide explanations, it is not the opposition that loses, but all citizens.
Moreover, the victory that the Executive wants to achieve is even more Pyrrhic if we take into account that it has won its votes. to the extreme.
In the case of the appearance on immigration policy, Sánchez narrowly escaped thanks to the abstention of Ione Belarra and because the rules establish that in the event of a tie, the vote is repeated two more times. If the tie is not broken, the initiative is considered rejected.
In the case of the request for appearance of Maria Jesus Montero to clarify “exactly what was agreed” with ERC regarding the “one-off funding”, it was rejected by a single vote.
This is further proof of the very tight parliamentary majority supporting the government. and this implies that each vote is resolved by the minimum. An arithmetic that risks becoming even more difficult if Jose Luis Abalossnubbed after ministry investigation Oscar Bridge Regarding his role in the Koldo affair, he respects his warning to vote “conscientiously” from now on.
Added to this is the new gesture of defiance by Junts in the first vote after its break with the PSOE on the occasion of the agreement with the ERC for the investiture of Illa. Because those of Puigdemont They moved away from the investiture majority to vote alongside the PP in favor of making the government responsible for the migration emergency and the Catalan concert.
Sánchez has taken to boasting about his modest triumphs, which usually have in common an attack on the general interest. In this case, the consolation is even sadder. Because if the vote had taken place in the plenary session of Congress and not in the Permanent Deputation (the body that replaces the Chamber during non-working periods, and whose majorities do not correspond to those of the plenary session), these requests would have been approved.
A government that has set the only horizon of resistance can be satisfied with this distressing dynamic. But the truth is that he only has a strictly negative majority: he is able to block, but he cannot achieve anything positive.
When a government exists only so that others will not govern, it has only to mock those who are not numerous enough to overthrow it. But this cannot hide the fact that all the victory that the Government can boast of is none other than that of having gone from a majority bloc to the opposition to the opposition.
