Sánchez hides in The Economist and Feijóo in Aldama

Socialists and popular people arrived at Congress on Wednesday protected by human shields. The PSOE brought an analysis from The Economist from home to shelter from the rain and the PP preferred to rely on the testimony of Víctor de Aldama, the commission agent who managed to get out of prison after declaring before the judge that he had bribed several members of the Government.

The others were more attentive to what Míriam Nogueras, spokesperson for Junts, had to say, trying to know how much of the legislature was left. Nogueras said that the Government has to move “its ass” so that there are budgets. What it means is that it is possible that there will be an agreement as long as María Jesús Montero puts on the tights and running shoes. At the moment, the warm-up hasn’t even finished.

In the penultimate control session of the year, the PP still had questions about Aldama’s accusations, although they all seemed a little faded. The Valencia tragedy has monopolized everyone’s attention in recent weeks and it seems that the right has not taken full advantage of everything that the latest turn of what began as the Koldo case offered it. What happens with the PP is that it mounts such a candle when this type of news comes out that after a week it is already exhausted and without new ideas. You just have to repeat yourself. He has no major problems in maintaining that everything Aldama, a very careful bird, said has to be true.

He even accepted Aldama’s cockiness, like that phrase about the ointment and the burns. “I would tell the minister to go to a pharmacy to buy ointment for burns because she is going to burn,” he said, in relation to Vice President Montero, who had no hesitation in stating that she puts her hand in the fire for her chief of staff, that which everyone avoids saying in these cases.

“It’s too late. They are already burned,” accused deputy Patricia Rodríguez, of the PP. There is no need to finish the investigation, much less hold the trial. Rodríguez has already issued his sentence.

Miguel Tellado reviewed all of Aldama’s accusations, in case some of them did not appear in the session diary. “The spokesperson for a confessed criminal asked me,” Félix Bolaños responded. “You become a minister because of your lack of scruples,” Tellado later told him, a phrase that is still funny coming from him.

A few hours later, Óscar Puente crushed their enthusiasm. His Ministry has reviewed the tenders indicated by Aldama as the origin of the payment of thousands of euros to socialist politicians. Of the 38 public works mentioned and highlighted by Aldama, 18 remain unbidden. Only six are from Ábalos’ time as Minister of Public Works and four date back to the PP governments.

Faced with the attacks of Alberto Núñez Feijóo, Pedro Sánchez opted for condescension, an attitude that does not usually work well in debates. “You haven’t had your day today, Mr. Feijóo. “A little weak.” And the leader of the PP ended his speech by saying: “You are incompatible with Spain.” It is a really dangerous phrase that Santiago Abascal would sign without problems. Politicians who speak on behalf of a minority of deputies – in the case of the PP, 137 out of 350 – should be careful when stating who represents Spain and who does not.

Sánchez was quite upset about all of this, because he arrived at the Chamber very happy. With the same intensity with which a horny teenager grabs a porn magazine, the president had consumed The Economist article that highlights that the Spanish economy has been “number one” this year among all developed countries when evaluating five factors: GDP, inflation, stock market, unemployment and deficit. Added to this is the latest OECD forecast, which is significant as it is not limited to macroeconomics. It estimates that private consumption will increase by 2.7% in 2024 and 2.4% in 2025. This is another reason why the PP almost never talks about the economy, a unique case in European conservative parties.

Sánchez mentioned The Economist article on two occasions to end by saying that “Spain is experiencing one of the best moments in recent decades.” Their euphoria had a bizarre moment when Mertxe Aizpurua asked what will happen to the social shield measures that expire on December 31. Sánchez once again referred to the analysis of the British magazine and boasted about pensions and the minimum wage. Surely the recipients of the social aid to which the EH Bildu spokesperson was referring will not be among those who increase their consumption to the level predicted by the OECD.

“I was expecting a more concrete answer,” Aizpurua told him. He could also have said that he was waiting for some answer, whatever it might be, to the matter he had asked about.

The debate had other pending issues of national consequences. Basically, if the chances of the Government being able to have budgets in the first months of 2025 increase or decrease. Like the blanket that covers your feet or your head, but not both, it still does not have a formula that satisfies for equal to his allies on the left and right.

The most reticent is Junts. In his style of threatening and showing an angry face at everything he sees, he has even proposed to Sánchez that he submit to a question of confidence in Congress, an idea so bizarre that it does not occur to him to even raise it with the PP. In politics, no one is characterized by feeling a crazy desire to commit suicide.

Given the risk of putting everything at risk, the Government should do so with a budget project. At the moment, he does not seem to have the support of Carles Puigdemont’s party. “We are doing what no one dares: demanding that they get off their asses and do the work they owe in Catalonia,” said Nogueras in the chamber. From which we must deduce that the ass movement they have seen so far does not impress them. They demand that the signed commitments be fulfilled, such as the transfer of immigration powers, an issue in which Junts demands things that are outside the law, such as that the Generalitat can decide which immigrants are expelled, and the PSOE has not had much hurry to specify.

In this environment of guerrilla war, Junts, PNV and ERC voted on Monday with the PP and Vox in a Commission to zero out the tax on electricity generation approved in 2013 by the Rajoy Government. The move turned out well for them, because the socialist deputy Juan Antonio Lorenzo extended the December long weekend until Monday when a Commission voted. The extra vacation has been expensive. He risks receiving a fine of 1,200 euros, double the usual amount for not appearing in a vote. He alleges that he could not go to Madrid due to a family emergency.

It was one more skirmish to which we must add the meeting of the Government with all the allies to talk about the tax on the profits of the electricity companies that Podemos had demanded. Junts and the PNV decided not to attend. The Basques called it “paripé,” in the words of Aitor Esteban, who called for a more discreet bilateral negotiation on a complex issue rather than a collective meeting in which it will later be known what each person said.

It is not the first time this has happened in this legislature. Too many partners with very different priorities. The bad thing for Sánchez is that these people do not read The Economist, at least not with as much passion as he does.