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“We should all carry out an exercise of responsibility and reflect constructively on the consequences (…) for our union, for our coexistence and our institutions.” These are the words that Felipe VI pronounced in his Christmas Eve message to the Spanish when he addressed what he called the “erosion of institutions.” That same day the agreement of the progressive sector of the CGPJ was forged to activate the appointment of two magistrates of the Constitutional Court. But the monarch’s words do not seem to have made an impression on Alberto Núñez Feijóo. The leader of the PP has no intention of unblocking the governing body of the judges, which is moving towards the five-year expiration of its mandate, unless the Government assumes each and every one of its changing conditions.
Feijóo clings to the blockade with the judicial and police rights mobilized against the Government
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And all this despite the fact that the leader of the Spanish right has assured in his 2022 balance sheet that one of his objectives for next year is to put “politics above the blocks” and “overcome the continuous clash and the division between blocks ”. “The CGPJ can continue to exercise its functions normally”, he said at the same time that he was demanding that the Government legislate to return to the body its full powers, cut a few months ago to force a negotiation that came, but that Feijóo himself broke on the edge of the agreement.
In an appearance before the media, Feijóo has advocated “recovering respect for institutions, laws and the Constitution.” In line with the king’s message, but without giving a single sign of agreement if Pedro Sánchez does not assume his demands, which range from breaking the parliamentary majority that supports the coalition Executive, renouncing to appoint Juan Carlos Campo and Laura Díaz for the Constitutional (despite the fact that they have received the unanimous approval of the current magistrates of the guarantee court), undo the recently approved reform of the Criminal Code, as well as accept new rules to elect not only the members of the CGPJ, but also the attorney general of the State, high judicial positions, and a long etcetera.
A position that sources around Feijóo confirm. Despite pointing out that the will of the PP is to renew the CGPJ, they immediately point out: “They know our negotiation framework.” The right-wing leader has harshly attacked Sánchez: “I offered dialogue, I received contempt. I offered agreement, I received insult. I offered my word, I received deceit”. “Mr. Sánchez does not want to get along with the party that is an alternative”, he added, to accuse him of embarking on a “path of no return to the institutional crisis”. “His only objective is to bankrupt the State,” he concluded.
At the same time, Feijóo has congratulated himself on the agreement, by surprise for the conservative sector, which was reached in the Judiciary to renew the Constitutional. “It is excellent news that the CGPJ, unanimously, appoints two magistrates of recognized prestige and a track record of three years at the service of the magistracy”, he said, to conclude: “The Government should apologize. It is increasingly understood that the Government does not want to renew the CGPJ, but to control it. Nor renew the Constitution, but control it.
In case there were any doubts about his intentions, he added: “We have persisted and strengthened judicial independence. We will continue working on that path.”
Sánchez, “immoral”
Feijóo has started his summary of 2022 with an almost apocalyptic economic and social analysis. Despite the fact that the recession vaunted by the PP since the Russian invasion of Ukraine has not arrived, fuel did not reach three euros per liter and the Iberian cap on gas has allowed the electricity bill to be lowered, the right-wing leader has not refrained from pointing out a “deep economic crisis” that requires “certainties, answers and solutions” that, he has said, the coalition government does not offer.
The president of the PP has assured that Spain is facing “a legislature lost for economic purposes” because “it is poorer and more indebted than in 2018”. “Citizens are not protected when inequality skyrockets,” he stated, to estimate “more than 13 million people at risk of poverty and more than 4 million with severe material deprivation.” “There is no protection from seeing the increase in the price of the most expensive shopping basket in the EU impassively”, he pointed out.
Despite the fact that his party rejected the VAT reduction for electricity and gas in 2021, and did not support the new reduction approved this summer, Feijóo has expressly cited “electricity and gas” as one of the main economic problems. The PP called the cap on the price of gas an “Iberian scam.”
He has also reneged on the VAT reduction announced on Tuesday by Pedro Sánchez for arriving “late and badly” since, he has pointed out, it is not addressed to all “basic foods”. In his opinion, it is an “anomaly” that the measure is approved after Christmas. “It is inappropriate for a government with the least amount of social sensitivity,” he concluded.
In this chapter Feijóo has intensified his attacks on Pedros Sánchez and the coalition Executive in general. “The Government renounces helping vulnerable groups by not giving up ministries or hundreds of senior positions,” he said, without specifying what aid he is referring to. “The Government intends to save the fuel subsidy to finance the VAT drop”, he added, to demand that the 20 cent discount be maintained “at least for the self-employed and people of medium and low income”. He has not explained how he would implement said discount either.
The culmination has come when Feijóo has branded Pedro Sánchez “immoral” for the “electoral minicheque”, as he has called the direct aid of 200 euros that the Government will approve for families with incomes of less than 27,000 euros. “It is immoral that the Government finances leisure activities for 17-year-olds with 400 euros, double the 200 that it distributes to vulnerable families. It is immoral ”, he pointed out.
Feijóo has not explained that the 200-euro check is addressed to 4.2 million families (about eight million people) and has an estimated cost, according to Gestha, of 1,300 million euros. The cultural check represents a game of 210 million euros.
Feijóo and Ayuso, against Vox
The leader of the PP has also made a brief internal balance limited to his arrival at the national headquarters on Calle Génova in Madrid, last April. “In the last eight months we have achieved a historic victory in the most populous autonomous community”, he pointed out in reference to Andalusia. After praising Juan Manuel Moreno, Feijóo has maintained that they have “ordered the party at the regional level” and “closed almost all the candidacies in the provincial capitals and cities” before the May 2023 elections.
In these elections, Feijóo plays a good part of his options to win the general elections scheduled for the end of the year. The leader of the PP trusts in the municipal and regional pull that will catapult him before Sánchez. For this reason, he aspires to “reissue all the regional governments” at stake. And to win something to the PSOE. “We believe that we are in a position to win in any of the communities” governed by the socialists.
To achieve this, both in May and at the end of the year, the strategy also involves breaking down Vox or governing with them. Something unavoidable, according to the surveys, and that Feijóo does not rule out, if necessary. The extreme right is an uncomfortable partner for Feijóo’s PP, who reiterated this Thursday that he wants a project “without labels” to attract socialist voters dissatisfied with Sánchez. But at a tragic end of the year due to macho terrorism, for example, the insistence of Santiago Abascal’s party to deny the mere existence of macho violence puts this objective at risk.
Feijóo has given a quantitative and qualitative leap in his appearance when referring to Vox, in the wake of what was said on Wednesday by Isabel Díaz Ayuso and precisely about the new budget fiasco in the Community of Madrid. “I don’t know if there is a Vox militant who has understood that his representatives in Madrid have voted against the 2023 bill,” she said. “Vox voters are increasingly clear that if they want an alternative to the Government sanchista with the independentistas, there is only one alternative”, he added, to settle: The rest is to offer possibilities to the Government of Sánchez and the independentistas“.
