The PSOE exploits the frictions between the PP and Brussels to ‘recover’ the moderate vote

Published
08/12/2022 04:45

Updated
08/12/2022 04:47

The result of the elections in Andalusia, with the first absolute majority of the PP and the loss of weight of the parties to the right of the Popular Party and to the left of the PSOE, has returned Genoa and Ferraz to direct confrontation. Aware that it is no longer time to break the bottom fighting against the hardliners of their respective ideological spaces, the socialist strategists are exploiting the frictions between the PP and Brussels on account of the energy saving plan precisely to ‘recover’ the moderate vote that flirts with supporting Alberto Núñez Feijóo.

The PSOE is blinded in selling the PP as a party disconnected from the European conservative drive; a party that, they say, “is not in tune” with its community counterparts for disregarding the saving measures that the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, of the popular family, considers “vital”.

In Ferraz, according to the account given to Vozpopuli socialist sources, are working to “unmask” the PP, whose leader, who came to do state politics, has fallen “prisoner” in the rebellion orchestrated by Isabel Díaz Ayuso, the popular institutional counterweight to Moncloa, but also the internal counterweight to Genoa.

The PP looks at the PNV

The melee between the two great parties involves old acquaintances of Spanish politics. Thus, while the PSOE leans on Brussels to condemn the PP’s opposition to the savings measures decree, in Genoa they look to the PNV. Basque nationalists criticized the Moncloa plan with the same arguments: invasion of powers, lack of dialogue and insufficient measures. That’s why, the popular ones want the ‘jeltzales’ to move and propitiate a parliamentary defeat for the Executive by voting against the decree when it is submitted to the Congress for validation examination.

The PP, however, defends itself and tries to align itself with Brussels without leaving the rebellion led by the president of the Community of Madrid. A difficult balance. The deputy secretary of the popular organization, Miguel Tellado, said Thursday that in the opinion of his party, the government decree is “improvised” and “does not respond to the real needs” of Spain. “We are in favor of energy efficiency initiatives and that it complies with the recommendations of the EU, but Europe speaks of recommendations, not of impositions, and this is not the way”, he stressed.

Foreign Minister Jose Manuel delivery notes, joined this Thursday morning the strategy of Ferraz and Moncloa to stick a finger in the eye of the PP for its disengagement with the “European right”. delivery notes criticized that Genoa’s position rows against the current. That is why he accused those of Alberto Núñez Feijóo not only of “unreasonably opposing the Spanish Government”, but also “a person from his own political family”, in reference to Ursula von der Leyen, who loves all European countries cutting spending.

First acid test for the shared strategy

Sánchez changed several pieces of the PSOE last month with the aim of matching the communication and strategic action of the party with that of Moncloa. And seeing the party and the socialist government ministers criticizing the PP for the same reason is the first litmus test for the shared strategy between the hard core of the president and Ferraz. At the moment, the messages that are sent are the same. And the PSOE trusts that they work. It is about using the media visibility that being part of the Executive offers to the ministers so that they emit the same message as the party and the citizens identify it without problems.

The truth is Sánchez is obsessed with getting the message across to Spaniards that he is doing very well, that the PSOE is the party that deals (and cares) about the social majority. And that he, unlike other presidents, moves and does not wait for problems to go away by themselves. Quite a veiled dart to former president Mariano Rajoy. But also former president José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero. The leader of the PSOE does not want to end up as the last socialist who occupied Moncloa.

Moncloa maintains a political clash with the PP on account of the decree with energy saving measures. But the government is not afraid and trusts that the veto will turn against the PP, according to the sources consulted. In Moncloa, as this newspaper reported, they believe that the popular baroness is giving them issues that they can make profitable in the midst of a political dispute. Not only this shock due to the energy saving decree of yore. The mess of scholarships for families with incomes over 100,000 euros too. The battle is served.