The President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, will not miss the important event that the PSC has this weekend, the XV ordinary congress that will once again elevate Salvador Illa as first secretary of the party, and that will renew its executive commission and its report sheet. political route for the next four years. It will be on Friday when the president closes the conclave at the Palau de Congressos de Catalunya together with the leader of the PSC, although its opening, on Friday afternoon, will be attended by another illustrious socialist president, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero.
The congress, “meeting of Catalan socialism” according to the party, will bring together more than 1,300 delegates, activists and 700 observers and guests and has a markedly continuous character, both for the leadership and for the policies proposed, based on the construction of an alternative to the current ERC Government. Furthermore, the congress will take place at the end of a transcendent week from a political point of view, due to the definitive approval of Anistía’s law in the Congress of Deputies, as well as the budget debate in the Parliament, accounts that at these hours their survival is not at all assured.
The socialist conclave will begin on Friday with the participation of the mayor of Barcelona, ??Jaume Collboni, the president of the group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament, Iratxe García, and former president Zapatero. After the interventions, the management report of the outgoing executive will be presented and put to a vote. On Saturday, four roundtable debates will be held throughout the day focusing on the history and role of the PSC in Catalonia, municipalism, Europe, and the role of youth in politics. Well-known socialists such as Raimon Obiols, first secretary of the PSC (1983-1996); former president José Montilla; the former vice president of the PSC Manuela de Madre; the current president of the party, Miquel Iceta, or Eneko Andueza, general secretary of the PSE-EE and socialist candidate for lehendakari. The main course on Saturday will arrive at 1:00 p.m., with the ratification of the first secretary of the PSC, Salvador Illa.
On Sunday, the congressional resolution “Now is Catalonia’s turn” will be presented and voted on, based on the definitive political presentation that will have collected the contributions from the pre-congress sessions that have been held in recent weeks throughout the Catalan territory and the contributions that have been been collecting from the militancy since the congressional process began. There are a total of 1,702 amendments that will be submitted to debate and vote by the delegates.
Finally, after the presentation of the results and the new party executive, Sánchez will intervene, who will then give the floor to Illa to close the congress with her final parliament.
The PSC congress aims to fine-tune the party for the new electoral cycle, in which the Catalan elections will be the flying goal and Sánchez’s clear hope for a mandate in which stability is closely linked to the pro-independence parties. Salvador Illa dominates the polls but if he wins again at the polls he will be forced to make an agreement with some other group to achieve his investiture.
The approval or not of the Catalan budgets may be decisive in clarifying the electoral calendar. Although the elections should not be until February of next year, without the approved accounts and the scenario of serious drought that is plaguing Catalonia, the Government could be pressured to bring forward the call. Even so, in the PSC they assure that they are not in this scenario. “We are not in an electoral key. Step by step,” they say.
