“It’s an unheard of fact in a democracy”, they insist in Moncloa, watching the pages of the calendar pass, about to conclude the current year, without Alberto Núñez Feijóo having even deigned to accept to reject any of the three alternative dates that Pedro Sánchez proposed to him, more than a week ago, to hold a first meeting in this new legislature.
In fact, the first of these three dates proposed for the meeting between Sánchez and Feijóo has already expired, because it was just yesterday. There are still two more possible appointments, as they revealed yesterday in Moncloa, perhaps as a pressure strategy, although so far without any success, on the leader of the Popular Party. The first of the only two possible dates left before the end of the year for the meeting between the president of the central government and the leader of the opposition is next Friday, December 22. It is, precisely, the day of the traditional Christmas lottery draw, when the children of San Ildefonso sing the winning numbers and half of Spain waits to check the tenths in case it hits the jackpot.
The last date of the offers for Sánchez to Feijóo for this possible meeting, which the president wanted to celebrate before the end of the year, is Friday of next week, December 29. In other words, just the day after the controversial motion of censure agreed between the PSOE and EH Bildu to expel UPN from the Pamplona mayor’s office, precisely why Feijóo went to the Navarre capital on Sunday to participate in the protest demonstration called on the issue.
In Moncloa, for now, they are keeping silent about what Sánchez will do if Feijóo refuses to attend the meeting proposed by the president before the end of the year, which seems very likely. And they limit themselves to continuing to denounce the situation. “It is a serious and unprecedented fact that the head of the opposition does not go to the call of the President of the Government for a meeting in Moncloa”, the socialists insist every day.
“Enough excuses”, they repeat one more day in Moncloa. “Why doesn’t Feijóo want to go to the meeting?”, they ask. But they continue to get no response. The President of the Spanish Government proposed more than a week ago to try to achieve three State pacts with the head of the opposition, on the renewal of the General Council of the Judiciary, on a new autonomous financing model, and on the reform of article 49 of the Constitution, to eliminate the diminished term with reference to people with some disability.
Even so, and in view of the PP’s misgivings about this appointment, Moncloa reiterates that Feijóo can raise any other issue he deems appropriate at the meeting with Sánchez.