The Government puts pressure on its partners to push through the Budget without ruling out another extension

The legislature is on the verge of an existential mess. The hangover from the Catalan elections and the pact between ERC and the PSC to appoint Salvador Illa as president has further entangled the already complex parliamentary majority that appointed Pedro Sánchez as president less than a year ago. With Carles Puigdemont detached from the governability of the Generalitat, Junts is beginning to join forces with PP and Vox to put obstacles in the way of the Government in Congress. A scenario that blocks the path that Moncloa had laid out to approve a General State Budget “in time and form”.

In fact, the Executive itself recognises that ‘Plan A’, that of negotiating, processing and approving the new budgets in the autumn so that they are in force on 1 January, is already, as of today, a pipe dream. Although that does not mean, they clarify, that they have thrown in the towel. “There are a thousand examples of budgets that are approved during the current year, that would not be a problem,” they explain in the Government, where they assume that the pending meetings of the Catalan independence parties to define direction and leadership will invalidate, in practice, any margin for negotiation during the months of September and October.