With one year to go since the general elections of 23 June, the Government has just reached one of the steepest political peaks with the renewal of the General Council of the Judiciary (CGPJ). The PP’s blockage of the governing body of the judges contributed for five years to feeding the right’s idea of institutional interim status with respect to an Executive of Pedro Sánchez, even pointed out as illegitimate and as a priority target for demolition. But the handshake between Núñez Feijóo’s party and the PSOE destroys that scenario in one fell swoop.
“If they think that there is a possibility that the legislature will blow up and there will be elections in the fall, they will not sign the agreement under any circumstances,” they maintain in the Moncloa, where they do believe that the landing of the PP in the pact with the Government can help change some background dynamics. “We assume that if they have signed an agreement with us to comply with the law and the constitutional mandate of renewal of the Judiciary, it is that they do not consider us tyrants and recognize us as legitimate interlocutors and rulers. And that is already a step if we remember where we come from,” the president’s team suggests.
The agreement to renew the CGPJ now projects a horizon of understanding between the two major parties to address other pending issues. In fact, the Government is seeking another consensus to name the new governor of the Bank of Spain before the next meeting of the governing council of the European Central Bank (ECB), which will be held in two weeks. This scenario could be extended to the pending appointments in the National Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC) and those yet to arrive in the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV).
“I welcome, Mr. Feijóo, the understanding and compliance with the Constitution,” Pedro Sánchez celebrated this week during the control session in Congress. However, after distancing himself from the hardest wing of his party represented by Isabel Díaz Ayuso or José María Aznar, whose pressure ended up short-circuiting other previous agreements, Feijóo has imposed among his people a line of public discourse equally hostile towards the Government to scare away any hint of internal accusations of collusion.
“What I do want to clarify, ladies and gentlemen, is that this agreement is not to help you, as you can imagine. This agreement is to put a limit on the voracity of his Government in controlling State institutions,” the leader of the PP in Congress justified himself in the face of possible misgivings from some fellow members.
From his seat, Feijóo once again attacked the president’s partner. “Sit down before the media and appear in Congress to explain to us everything that is coming out about his family and his entourage. Explain the chalets, the residences, the trips, the contracts, the luxuries.” And he even returned to one of the most recurrent classics of the right during his speech at a later event in Madrid to compare Spain with countries such as Venezuela or Cuba.
“You are a fat bitch,” Sánchez replied. “I understand that you can make some kind of fuss to calm those who have led you down the path of destructive opposition. But I think it is important to value the agreement that was reached yesterday,” the president told the opposition leader.
In Moncloa they are convinced that a message of institutional normality such as the one sent with the renewal of the Judiciary contributes to the stability of the legislature and to fuel the idea of a four-year mandate, the horizon always marked by Pedro Sánchez since he threatened to resign.
The fact is that all eyes on the future of the legislature are still focused on exactly the same place they were almost a year ago after the general elections: Catalonia. The countdown that officially opened in the Parliament this week and that starts the clock for the repeat election marks almost everything in a context in which the pro-independence forces are key in Congress for the stability of Pedro Sánchez.
Whether the Government can accelerate in the autumn the completion of the 2025 General State Budgets that were extended this year due to the impossibility of carrying them out will depend on how the Catalan equation is resolved during the summer. The Minister of Finance, María Jesús Montero, assured this week that the Government’s intention is to present the draft General State Budget for 2025 in Congress at the beginning of October to be able to comply in “time and form” with the calendar and that the Next year’s accounts may come into force on January 1.
The Executive’s idea is to approve the stability and public debt objectives in the Council of Ministers at the end of July, although if it had to be postponed to September it would not imply a delay in the public accounts calendar. And already this week the ministerial order was published in the Official State Gazette that urges the different departments of the central administration to specify between now and July 8 what their spending needs will be.
During July and before the August vacation break, the Government is preparing to give a new boost to the legislative production of Congress. The Lower House has in fact authorized this next month for the holding of up to four extraordinary plenary sessions in which, among other things, there will be an appearance by the President of the Government to report on the last European Council.
The president also promised to announce a package of measures for democratic regeneration and the Cortes will have to process, among others, the law on parity – approved this week in Congress and now to be debated by the Senate – and the bill for judicial independence agreed upon in the pact between the PSOE and the PP for the CGPJ.
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