The PSOE, Sumar and EH Bildu, as ERC already did last week, rule out that the Presidency of the Congress of Deputies falls to a nationalist party like the PNV, as the Canary Coalition claimed this past weekend in an interview with La Vanguard. “It is not on the table [of the negotiations] not even as a possibility”, the spokesperson for Bildu Mertxe Aizpurua has shown emphatically this Monday accompanied by her colleagues from her parliamentary group before collecting the minutes of deputies.
The progressive forces are going to sweat the fat drop to try to articulate a majority of the left in the Table, a fundamental body to control parliamentary time in the next legislature -of high tension- that is coming. The usual partners in Congress are holding discreet meetings these days prior to the vote, set for next Thursday, with which the legislature will roll. Both the right-wing and left-wing blocs, according to sources from the different groups, believe that there is a party to win the majority of the Table.
The first vice president and acting Minister of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, Nadia Calviño, also stated this Monday that the presidency of Congress should fall to “a person from the socialist party.” She has spoken in a personal capacity but has not wanted to advance what her bet is. In the opinion of the already official candidate for the presidency of the European Investment Bank (EIB), the Table of the hemicycle must reflect a “plural” and “progressive” composition. She added that negotiations with potential partners are “constant” and “discreet”.
For Calviño, the important thing at this time is “trying to avoid an electoral repetition” because the citizens have already spoken at the polls. “Now it is the turn of the parties to reach agreements”, he concluded.
The acting Minister of Education, Pilar Alegría, also defended that the future Table of Congress have a “progressive” character that reflects the result of the elections on July 23. He did not want to assess any option, in reference to the CC proposal to promote a PNV candidate, but he did appeal to dialogue and discretion – which is being carried out by the Minister of the Presidency, Félix Bolaños, and the Secretary of State for Relations with Parliament, Rafael Simancas-, as well as avoiding the term “auction”, which Carles Puigdemont used today. “There are 48 hours left to continue talking and exchanging opinions and considerations,” said the spokeswoman for Ferraz.
Sumar, ERC and EH Bildu welcome the fact that the Presidency is occupied by a socialist candidate -Minister Félix Bolaños and former Balearic president Francina Armengol lead the pools-, as proposed by the PSOE, thus rejecting the proposal made by Canarian Coalition. The new spokesperson for Sumar in Congress, Marta Lois, has defended this morning in the corridors of the Lower House that said position must attend to the “proportionality” that the parties have as a result of the result emanating from the polls. According to her Lois, the Presidency, as she has remarked, must correspond to the first progressive force, without directly mentioning the PSOE.
Along the same lines, from the ranks of EH Bildu they have detailed that they continue the conversations with the Socialists to form a Table that “reflects the progressive majority of the Chamber.” For his part, as Aizpurua has assured, there are no red lines for the socialist candidate to have his support, but rather “some conditions that are not inadmissible in any case. “They are going to come to fruition,” predict party sources. Aizpurua has affirmed that he has “no record” that neither his group nor another nationalist or pro-independence party has asked to chair the Table, as proposed by the President of the Government of the Canary Islands, Fernando Clavijo.
