The problems in choosing a candidate leave the PSOE committee that will decide the European lists in the air

Alarm in Ferraz. The leadership of the PSOE now leaves in the air the holding of the federal committee that will decide the party's list for the European elections on June 9. The reason, according to the sources consulted by this newspaper, is the problems in choosing the head of the list. The President of the Government and Socialist Secretary General, Pedro Sánchez, has not yet designated the person who will lead the ballot for those elections. The federal committee must be held between 40 and 50 days before the European elections.

On April 21 are the Basque elections and on May 12 are the Catalan ones. Therefore, between one appointment and another appointment this committee must be fitted, which must also “be useful for the campaign” of the PSC as recognized in the party and must be held either on a Friday, a Saturday or a Sunday. Precisely, the party's idea was to organize the conclave in the Catalan capital. The management hinted a few days ago that April 27 would be the ideal date. But executive sources left it up in the air this Monday. “It's not closed yet,” they explain.

The PSOE will activate an electoral committee, but only for the European elections, as confirmed by socialist sources. The core of Ferraz and Moncloa strategists will alone decide the plan for these elections, of a markedly national nature. And all because “Euskadi and Catalonia go their own way,” they explain on the main floor. So both the PSE-EE and the PSC will have full autonomy to develop their own campaign strategy. Eneko Andueza, the candidate for lehendakari, and Salvador Illa, the candidate for president, will try to make the noise of national politics cloud their underlying careers as little as possible.

The shadow of the pacts

The President of the Government supported Andueza this past weekend, the first of the campaign. And the underlying issue was the pacts with the independentists, to whom the socialists are now once again putting a cordon sanitaire. The long shadow over the PSOE. The socialist candidate for lehendakari assured that his party is not going to govern with Bildu, but it is no less true that he did not close the door to reaching agreements of different types if the numbers work.

What's more, this is what he said in front of Sánchez: “President, are you going to tell him again or am I going to tell him? That we are not going to govern with Bildu! No!” A phrase that remembers that “We are not going to agree with Bildu, if you want I will tell you 20 times”which Sánchez himself blurted out. Andueza He insisted that he will not support a lehendakari of EH Bildu in case the sum is raised and the Abertzales are the first political force. But the support that the PSOE gave a few months ago to Bildu to take over the mayor of Pamplona weighs heavily.

One of the last people to whom Sánchez proposed being the head of the list in the European elections was Josep Borrell, who this Tuesday assured that he has a job “that he cannot leave.” The President of the Government's team handles internal data that supports the operation, because he is the only one who “pulls” the list, according to what party sources familiar with the movements tell this newspaper. Borrell's problem, however, is pointed out by several party sources: “It is very difficult with the approval of the amnesty in the making. They can crush him if they pass the newspaper library test,” they explain.. And the Catalan politician has been one of the staunchest detractors of secessionism.

The case of Borrell

What's more, Borrell questioned the appropriateness of the grace measure with a forceful sentence that caused a fire for Sánchez that he had to put out shortly after: “Those who know me in Spain and know about my personal and previous political career can imagine what I think.” [sobre la amnistía]”. Borrell, 76, is “tired” and “on his way out,” according to European socialist sources. The high representative has always shown personality. And when the agreements between his party and the independence movement became known, he followed his line: “I know the political agreements reached with two independence parties and certainly These agreements cause me some concern or quite a few concerns.“, he claimed.

But Borrell has more negative points: the high European representative for foreign policy is one of the scourges of the Catalan independence movement. He is the only socialist position close to Sánchez who has outlined a minimum criticism of the PSOE investiture agreements. Borrell is a prominent leader of the PSC, he has been a minister under Sánchez and now a commissioner. And his wife, Cristina Narbona, is the president of the PSOE and a fervent defender of the chief executive.

The European high representative for foreign policy has been used to swimming against the tide in the past. He was the first relevant member of Catalan socialism to raise his voice during the 2017 process. Memory is fragile, but the leader of the PSC in those days, Miquel Iceta, did not join the first Catalan Civil Society protest and was struggling until he was devastated by the citizen's response to the separatist coup. Then and only then, when the PSOE saw that he was going to be devastated if he did not take sides, he joined the 155, which he abjured in public and in private.

It is worth remembering that the president's team, as this newspaper exclusively reported, was already considering offering the former president of the Government José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero the vacancy. And all because the president's team of tricks wants to deliver a coup given the crucial nature of the European event for the socialists after the setbacks of the Galician elections, the emergence of the 'Koldo case' and the logjam in the approval of the Law of Amnesty. Having Zapatero on the poster could provide some solidity to the socialist candidacy, in need more than ever of a knock that overcomes all the adversities that the PSOE brand has been going through since the start of the legislature. Time goes by. And Ferraz must make a move.