Despite the parliamentary storm of the investiture debate and the street protests in the streets of Madrid, the clouds that some had announced have not descended on the new Government of Pedro Sánchez. The first week has left signs that should be interpreted in detail.
The first, the attitude shown by Antonio Garamendi’s CEOE in the case of the increase in the interprofessional minimum wage (SMI). In the first pronouncement after the harsh statement against the PSOE’s investiture pacts with Junts, ERC and PNB, the large Spanish employer has presented a proposal to raise the SMI in line with what has been agreed with the unions for wages of the private sector, the agreement for employment and collective bargaining: 3% in 2024 and 2025. The offer was approved without opposition by the board of directors on Wednesday.
Beyond the specific content of the offer, which the unions consider low, and bearing in mind that it is ultimately the responsibility of the Government, few expected the business organization to stand down and propose an increase, especially if you remember that in the case of the last increase approved by the Minister of Labor, Yolanda Díaz, at the beginning of the year, was dropped from the process.
Anticipated movement, obviously, after the warnings of the minister of the branch, already before the formal investiture in Congress and seeing the content of the agreements between the PSOE and Sumar. It is better to advance a movement first and not appear as absolutely refractory to an inevitable measure, as well as necessary, seeing the price increases of basic products, especially food. This must have been the reasoning of the business leadership.
But, in the midst of the political climate that is being experienced these weeks in Spain, it was also not ruled out that the rise of the SMI had become the first relevant conflict between the economic world and the new Government. Which, without a doubt, the leaders of the fierce opposition to the Government should have thought and expected.
So, the CEOE’s second attempt, after the criticism of Sánchez’s pacts, in which, despite this, he did not mention the most relevant, the amnesty, given the points of view of the Catalan Foment. Statements with harsh words that, however, do not close the doors to a possible course of conciliation, conditioned on the evolution of events; that is to say, in the sense of the decisions implemented by the Executive.
The leader of the PP, Alberto Núñez Feijóo, opened the week when he received the Government with an interview with El in which, among other things, he assured that “it is difficult for anyone to want to invest in Spain right now”, and made references to the problems politicians and the supposed failure of the rule of law and the division of powers. It is assumed that this is the attitude expected from the large Spanish and international business groups, but there are already indications and statements from large companies that things are not going that way. Despite the fact that you never know and the economic slowdown already underway will take its toll; investment will suffer, but for different reasons than those advanced by Feijóo.
And, in this event, the businessmen found themselves on Friday with a double piece of news that concerned them and that came from the Basque and Catalan nationalist sphere. The first, that the leaders of Andoni Ortuzar’s PNB met in Bilbao with those of Junts, Carles Puigdemont’s party, to study possible joint actions, especially in the parliamentary sphere, in which they gather twelve deputies.
The second, that the Basque formation had decided to change the candidate for lehendakari and had ruled out re-proposing the current incumbent, Iñigo Urkullu. Yesterday it was announced that the new headliner will be Imanol Pradales.
The interest of the Spanish economic elite in the issue lies in the possibility, encouraged at the beginning by the Catalan bourgeoisie, but already shared by Madrid, that the nationalist front acts as a counterweight to Sumar in terms of policies government finances. Especially, although not only in this area, in the always relevant fiscal portfolio, a battle horse between conservatives and progressives. In fact, Jordi Turull, general secretary of Junts, who was at the meeting, declared in Bilbao that the agreements on social or economic issues of the socialists have nothing to do with them. “They don’t link us and they know it.”
Anhel, that of economic power, which does not seem easy, since the Prime Minister has a formidable tool to attract wills: the general budgets of the State. It is the instrument par excellence to achieve economic peace with the nationalists. Territorial investments in exchange for support, very much in line with the model that governed Spanish politics throughout democracy and even shortly after the Great Recession of 2008, with an ephemeral upturn during Mariano’s final agony Rajoy
At first, the announcement of the PNB relief was met with some concern in these areas. The PNB was in the process of steering the ship towards a strategy of greater tension with the State, to counter Bildu’s electoral power, and was looking for a radical replacement for the reasonable Urkullu, who, even though he knew it was impossible to agree with the PP, had he been willing to talk because he thought that the future is always an unknown that offers surprises? The first impression is that the Basque nationalist leaders have opted for a more modern profile, but very focused on management, a fact that always pleases economic power.
