The Government is beginning to learn what it means to be in a minority in Congress

So much socialist optimism could not last long if it depended on the affirmative vote of Junts. Goodbye, deficit path. Goodbye, spending ceiling. Budgets? Well, we will see, but for now they are far away. They are only hinted at on the horizon. The sailboat has not sunk, but it has reached an area where the wind hardly blows. The dead calm means that it hardly moves. The crew will soon begin to feel thirsty, the kind that drives you crazy. At some point, someone will have to make a decision, perhaps return to port and keep going with the previous extended budgets. The only thing that is achieved by prolonging the suspense is to undermine the credibility of the Government.

Not long ago, Pedro Sánchez improvised in a speech before the PSOE Federal Committee and it did not turn out very well. “We are going to move forward with determination on that agenda, with or without the support of the opposition, with or without the participation of a legislative power that necessarily has to be more constructive and less restrictive.” Just before the words “the participation of a legislative power,” there was a very slight pause, as if he had some doubt about how to continue with the rest of the sentence.