Pedro Sánchez, after starting his round of consultations with Yolanda Díaz, will meet personally with all the parliamentary groups in Congress, except with the far-right Vox. And the leader of the PSOE has also appointed a negotiating commission to subsequently take over these conversations until an agreement can be reached to form a new investiture and legislative majority.
For all issues related to Catalonia, in the negotiations with Esquerra and Junts, the acting president of the Government and general secretary of the PSOE “will be in permanent coordination” with the first secretary of the PSC, Salvador Illa, as announced this Wednesday by the spokesperson from Ferraz’s executive, Minister Pilar Alegría.
Former minister Salvador Illa, current leader of the PSC and head of the opposition in Catalonia, was already part, along with Adriana Lastra and José Luis Ábalos, of the negotiating team appointed by Pedro Sánchez in the talks with Esquerra Republicana to achieve an abstention that allowed the investiture of the leader of the PSOE in January 2020.
The socialist negotiating commission for the investiture appointed by Sánchez will be composed of María Jesús Montero, deputy general secretary of the PSOE and acting Minister of Finance; Santos Cerdán, organization secretary of Ferraz; Pilar Alegría, spokesperson for the federal executive and acting Minister of Education; Hana Jalloul, secretary of international policy and cooperation of the PSOE; Félix Bolaños, secretary for constitutional reform of the party and acting Minister of the Presidency; the deputy Óscar Puente, former mayor of Valladolid who was in charge of the responses to Alberto Núñez Feijóo during his failed investiture debate; as well as the deputy José Ramón Gómez Besteiro, former leader of the Galician socialists, who was responsible for defending, on behalf of the socialist group, the reform of the Congress regulations for the use of all co-official languages.
This PSOE negotiating commission, as reported by Pilar Alegría herself, will be in charge of carrying out the negotiations with all the parliamentary groups of Congress, with the exception of Vox, to try to articulate a new investiture and legislative majority. Depending on the parliamentary groups and the topics to be discussed, it is expected that different members of this commission will attend.
The leadership of the PSOE, on the other hand, has positively valued the first meeting that Pedro Sánchez held this Wednesday with the leader of Sumar, the acting second vice president Yolanda Díaz, aimed at the formation of a government and a stable legislature of four years for the country. And he highlighted that at this meeting both have agreed to “accelerate negotiations so that the progressive coalition government program is ready this October.” The meeting, as the socialists have stressed, took place in “a climate of cordiality and trust.”
The agreement between Sánchez and Díaz, in this first meeting, was thus to “accelerate the work between the negotiating commissions that will represent both parties to advance in the drafting of the government program that will mark the key issues in this legislature.” “An ambitious and progressive program that will allow us to continue with the reforms that Spain needs and continue advancing in rights,” they have highlighted in the PSOE. Both parties have agreed that said program will be ready this October. Without further delays.
