Pedro Sánchez’s statement caused a stir. “With a constructive or restrictive legislative power, we will continue to govern for the people, for coexistence and progress.” Several parliamentary partners immediately began to criticize the words of the President of the Government during the Federal Committee of the PSOE and issued a warning: without Congress, he cannot govern.
What Sánchez tried to do with this declaration of intentions was to banish the scenario of an early election caused by an inane legislature. And that is why he wanted to send a strong message at the start of the political year about the continuity of his Government. But beyond the president’s words, both in the Palacio de la Moncloa and on Ferraz Street it is clear that any hint of taking the legislature to 2027 inevitably involves approving at least a General State Budget.
The Executive will be working hard on this mission in the coming months, despite all the obstacles that lie ahead, and there are quite a few. To begin with, the fact that since the return from the summer holidays, the parliamentary majority that invested Pedro Sánchez less than a year ago has dissolved like a sugar cube.
Cases such as those of the PNV, Coalición Canaria or the vote of José Luis Ábalos, which this week have contributed to some defeats of the Government in Congress such as the PP’s proposal to recognise Edmundo González as the legitimate Venezuelan president, are seen in the socialist bench as very specific situations that do not imply giving up on those supports in the future. But the chapter on Catalan independence is a very different matter.
The Government, in fact, has already given up on the vote that in a couple of weeks should support the path of stability this year, already overturned in July in the first instance by the vote against Junts, which united the strength of its seven deputies with those of PP and Vox to slam the door on a measure that is the prelude to the public accounts project. Still entrenched in spite after the investiture pact of Salvador Illa between the PSC and ERC and focused on the party congress in October, Carles Puigdemont’s party has cut off for the moment any avenue of collaboration with Moncloa.
“I think they will answer themselves that, as things stand now, they cannot be very optimistic about who knows what vote. They cannot be surprised because they have been warned,” said the party’s general secretary, Jordi Turull, on Friday on SER, when asked if they were prepared to support a budget. The answer did not take the Socialist Party by surprise.
The PSOE is already considering, in fact, that the most likely scenario is a new budget extension on January 1. “It is a possibility and, although it is not the desired scenario, we defend that the current budgets are progressive and expansive,” they argue within the Executive. But there is a more optimistic hypothesis among the socialist ranks that is trying to glimpse a light at the end of the tunnel. “We are in September, Illa’s investiture was a month ago and the Junts congress is in October. We are going to give everyone their space and their time because in January the situation may be different,” reflects a senior official of the Executive.
That is exactly the hope. That the passing of the months without electoral competitions in sight will help to calm everyone’s spirits, to resolve the roadmaps of Junts and ERC and to rebuild the house of cards that Pedro Sánchez was able to put in place for his investiture. “We do not at all rule out passing the Budgets, even if it is late,” the Government says.
To give this space mainly to Carles Puigdemont’s party, who continue to be essential in the parliamentary arithmetic even though they are not in a position to even sit down to negotiate today, Moncloa has already prepared the political schedule for the coming weeks. The president will call the regional presidents to the Moncloa Palace during the second half of September to address the pending debates on the forgiveness of the regional debt and on the reform of financing. And the idea is that in the autumn the Ministry of Finance will present to Congress a draft Budget agreed within the coalition between the PSOE and Sumar and that it will begin its parliamentary process despite the lack of support.
Meanwhile, contacts between Ferraz and Waterloo remain unchanged. The dialogue between the socialists and the man who holds all the power over the designs of the conservative Catalan independence movement has not been interrupted since the beginning of the legislature. And that is fundamental for Pedro Sánchez, who, even when circumstances are adverse to understanding and there is a breakdown in parliamentary collaboration, as is the case, has reliable information almost in real time about what Puigdemont is preparing to do. And today they know first-hand that there is no room to agree on almost anything.
“If they comply with the agreements that are being reached and what is proposed in the Brussels Agreement, they should not suffer,” said Turull in the interview on Cadena SER, in which he warned: “Guessing what Junts will vote for is very simple. Anything that consolidates the coffee for everyone will not have our vote. Anything that increases economic grievances or the invasion of powers towards Catalonia will not have our vote. But if they, consciously, go on breaking the agreements one after another, they know that they cannot demand or pass responsibility to the other party,” he concluded.
The moves that have been made by the Supreme Court are not helping to cool things down either. This week, Judge Llarena confirmed that the amnesty does not apply to the embezzlement attributed to Puigdemont. The instructor of the procés case in the high court rejects the appeal of the former Catalan president and maintains that the law does not apply to this crime charged to him and the former ministers Comín and Puig, and for which he remains wanted.
The passing of the months, the Government hopes, should also contribute to the Constitutional Court having enough time to unravel the application of the amnesty law. Something that would be almost definitively cleared up by the return of Junts to parliamentary collaboration. Even if only to push through a General State Budget that makes the promise of a sustainable legislature until 2027 more realistic.
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